Very basic question about primer color selection for armor scale models

Personally, I prefer to start with a grey primer, because as others have mentioned it makes spotting flaws easy.  For armor, I like to paint the running gear and lower hull black.  I then airbrush black into upper areas that fall into shadows as well as corners and edges.  If the base camo color is light, and also if the black basing went a little too heavy, white can be used to highlight the open flat areas and to tighten the black basing.

Tamiya acrylics airbrush very well.  The variety of thinners that can be used are surprising - Tamiya's own thinner, isopropyl alcohol, and even laqcuer thinner.  A friend uses alcohol and I use lacquer thinner, and we both get similar results.  The only weakness to Tamiya acrylic is that it can chip easily.

Hello. Thanks everyonefor all the input, information, and ideas. A lot for me to process and synthesize into a learning strategy. I suspect that I can only learn so much from others' experience, and I have to actually airbrush more if I am going to figure any of this out. There will be crappy results sometimes, but I think that is the price to be paid. I did a session this morning - tried spraying Tamiya XF-60 thinned with just their alcohol thinner, and somewhat surprisingly it adhered fairly well to my Nashorn even though I didn't spray primer again first. Far from perfect, but the color is more even now. On an unrelated note, that's likely the first and last time that I use Tamiya airbrush cleaner. I sprayed and cleaned my airbrush outside like always, but an hour later when I went to put away my airbrush (without my respirator on) inside the basement, I got hit with a deep whiff of strong odor. Got a bit of the delayed light headedness-weird feeling that has stopped for me since I started using a respirator for gluing and airbrushing/painting. I really underestimated the strength of this cleaner and its residual odors....

I usually use grey primer for everything but white and yellow colors- requires fewer coats of color.

oldermodelguy

The way to tell the difference if there is any ( probably is,just a question if the amount of difference matters to you) would be in a controlled test shoot then compare the dry top coats side by side. So take a couple of plastic spoons, shoot one in white primer the other grey. Shoot the top coat on both and compare. Sometimes the difference isn't much other times quite a bit.

I did that over in this thread.

edit: *#&*$&# embedded hot link didn't work again

https://cs.finescale.com/fsm/tools_techniques_and_reference_materials/f/18/t/191092.aspx

That didn't work, either.

The results even surprised me a little!

The way to tell the difference if there is any ( probably is,just a question if the amount of difference matters to you) would be in a controlled test shoot then compare the dry top coats side by side. So take a couple of plastic spoons, shoot one in white primer the other grey. Shoot the top coat on both and compare. Sometimes the difference isn't much other times quite a bit.

White goes well under certain reds, yellows and especially orange if you want the color to have a bit of extra pop, especially glosses. White over white primer pretty much is a given to me. But I've seen shade differences in light blues too since the base is mostly white to make light blue ( you use a white base then a few drops at a time of primary blue to get to light blue you want).. Gloss paints tend to show the effects of this shift more than flats when dry . Also it depends on the paint line and that brands pigment load.

Nobody can outright say what you will get because there are variables including opinion be that yours or theirs, so the best bet is the test shoot. And all that said, I've shot Model Master Chrome Yellow and been pleased with the result over light grey Stynylrez, quite pleased with the result. Had I shot the side by side test I bet there would have been a difference but it doesn't matter at this point because the job was done the other way no one the wiser. Just sayin.

I use Tamiya white primer under anything that I paint white.It holds on pretty good as a nice basecoat and any white paint tops it off pretty nice.

And I like to use Tamiya red primer for any German armor,can't get any closet to what they used on the real vehicles.

 And for just about anything else,Tamiya gray primer works fine.

Yellow is a finicky color. I'd be careful making any generalizations based on it.

That said, don't blame you a bit for your thought process. First experiences with yellow (even shades of yellow) can be frustrating. Heck, it often still is for me.

I suppose the white primer/base coat under Dunkelgelb would produce a more vivid look to the color. But is that realistic for anything beyond a factory fresh vehicle? I've built plenty of armor, and painted over bare plastic as well as trying black, gray, and brown primers. I've never used a white primer on an AFV or softskin build, and really don't think that I ever will. I have used white primer on aircraft, just for getting a more vivid white where needed, but that doesn't apply for anything in armor aside from interiors. Personally I think each base color/primer has its merits depending upon the end look that you are wanting to achieve. 

I have been using the Tamiya Grey Primer under every color.  No issues here...and that includes bright white parts such as landing gear bays and struts, just like Greg.

Not specifically armor-related, but I have for nearly six decades regularly sprayed even bright white over grey primers without any problem whatsoever. I have done the same with the full variety of German Panzer colors, again with no difficulties. As long as the paint itself covers -- which it should, unless it's thinned to a wash -- the primer color rarely has any effect.

The only time I stick to white primers are when spraying translucent colors like yellow or red...just to save an extra step of applying a white undercoat.

BTW, the advantage of grey as a primer color is that flaws show up easily with that color (also silver, which is in the same visual range). With white, those flaws are going to be much harder to spot.

For armor, it might be useful to match the original manufacturer's primer color, if it aids under your chipping/weathering technique (something like the 'hairspray' technique, for instance). Otherwise it shouldn't matter a jot, IMHO.

Just my ...albeit with a lot of experience behind it. 

Cheers