Recommended Primer for Painting Acrylics with a Brush

Tools, Techniques, and Reference Materials Painting and airbrushing
1

Hello guys. This is my first post. I’m a noob on a shoestring & I want to know if anyone can recommend a good primer for paintbrushing acrylics.

2

Hycote plastic primer is well recommended, or should I stick with Revell’s brush-on offering?

3

I assume you don’t have an airbrush,I use Tamiya Extra Fine or Mr Surfacer 1200,although in a spray can,they can be easily applied without building up if you are careful,and they level out nicely,and are tough.

4

Personally I prefer to airbrush primer on, to better control the amount applied. Rattle spray cans would be my second choice, and hand brushing on a primer a distant third. Primers tend to be a bit thick and can obscure fine surface detail when hand brushed on.
Tamiya makes some great primers that I’ve really liked. Gunze’s Mr Surfacer products also have performed well in my experience. Lastly I’ve also been using Mig One Shot primers on several of my projects. The Mig product is probably the easiest to use, as no thinning is needed for airbrushing. Just put the stuff into your airbrush cup/jar, put your compressor at the recommended air pressure, and shoot it on.

5

Thanks for your input guys. I haven’t got an airbrush but intend getting one soon. For now I’ll use a spraycan as I don’t want to lose detail. It seems I can’t go wrong with Tamiya so it’s Extra Fine for now.

6

I build mostly 1/72 AFVs and planes, and 1/9-1/12 busts. These days, I go as simple as I can without sacrificing quality; I’ve been using Krylon primers in white and gray, with no loss of detail (unless you just sit on one spot, of course).

Just be sure to shake it well to mix the innards.

7

The Mr line of primer surfacers will work as well.

8

Krylon may well have changed their formulation since I used it as primer maybe 20 years ago. Back then without decanting and adding more thinner the only one IMO thin enough from the can to be in scale for models was the Platinum Gray. Assuming I was still putting a color coat on over the primer. That was using a hot water bath to heat the cans. Course I can’t speak for Krylon today.