Prepare to Surface..

Priming. It's one of the most important parts of painting a miniature. It may not seem like it's that important but it will affect many aspects of the model.

1) The primer color will affect the top coat colors, black will obviously make colors darker but white will make colors brighter and more vibrant. I usually prime my marines with black because I want a grittier look but when I paint Eldar I'll start with white primer. To me Eldar would rock brighter more vibrant colors.

2) How smooth is the primer? Have you ever bought one of those primer spray cans and after you prime the minis you notice they are scaly? Nothing is more annoying, it doesn't matter how great of a paint job you put on a mini if it's all crinkly looking.

3) Details. A lot of the spray can primers can eat a lot of the fine miniature details. You have to be careful your don't over load the mini with a ton of paint.

4) Minor details. It can stink and you don't want to spray indoors. And since you have to do it outside the weather needs to be warm and low humidity.

Since I purchased an Airbrush I've been priming with it. It works sooooo much better then the spray can. But I've been looking for a good Airbrush primer and it was a hard find. I tried Createx and thinned down primers but I was never really happy with the coat. Looking online I found Vallejo Surface Primer and noticed that a good many people also use it. But here in the States it's actually kind of hard to find. I was ordering it online from the UK or Canada and I'd get it but it was pretty costly. Over the weekend I went to Hobby Works in Bel Air to pick up some dark green static grass and as we were walking out I walked down the paint isle. And there it was chilling on the end deck BOOM.. Vallejo Surface Primer. Awesome. Hopefully they continue to carry it, so nice to actually be able to just go pick it up.

With normal primer your can easily rub it off while painting the mini. Typically more on metal minis and on edges. But the Surface Primer is a Polyurethane paint and is way more durable. It can be a little tougher to clean up but that also translates on the model. I haven't had any issues with the paint peeling or rubbing off and it's always smooth. That is more of an airbrush thing but it's nice to have such smooth even finish. If you are looking for a primer to use when airbrushing I'd highly recommend the Surface Primer. Definitely the best  primer product I've ever used.

I had run out of black primer so I was going to just spray the Nephilim with white then spray it with the ComArt Black. But thankful I found the primer at Hobby Works so I just went back over it with black primer. Two coats of primer and no loss of detail at all.