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Taking this out of the gesso thread.. and opening it up for input..

Situation:
I have a Land Raider that I paid a very small sum to get painted up. Very small sum, let me repeat. When I got it back, it appeared ok from the pictures I was sent, but upon having it in hand, it lacked a lot. Mainly, the entire underside and lower rear side of the Land Raider was unpainted, and still bare plastic. Huh? When I queried the painter, he said that since his local group never turned over tanks to represent damage, he just didn't think to paint it. what... ev...er.

So, now I have a partially painted tank. MOST of it is fine and dandy from 18 inches away, but the lack of paint bugs me. And... when I swivel the Lascannon sponsons, the interior side is unpainted as well.. and as I explored the paint, I kept finding things that looked gray from 18 inches, but bare plastic from 2 inches.. arrrgh.

So, I want to match paint on this, BUT I refuse to paint over bare plastic.. and am now looking for a gray/black neutral primer that is brushable.

Slight update to original post, and the reason for this one..

I realized the lack of paint on the bottom of the tank ONLY when I was in the middle of matte sealing the tank. The original painter didn't do that either. So, I wanted to protect what he had done, and got the sad news about the underside being bare after flipping it for spraying.

So, the modified question for this post is..

It is a smart/bad decision to go ahead and matte coat the bottom of the tank and use THAT layer as the primer for the bottom of the tank, and then matte seal it again when I am done? Or, should I continue to persue the gesso brushable primer idea instead, knowing that some of the tank and areas I need to paint are already sealed?

Lacking that, is there something else I might want to consider doing to make paint stick to the bottom of the tank?

Most likely, your paint WILL adhere to the matte. I'm not sure, though, if it will work as an acceptable primer.

I'm not one of those "stick it to a cork" guys when painting. I CANNOT paint that way. I've got to hold the model and turn it over in my fingers. So, I've been known to periodically throw a matte coat on my models, then continue painting over that.

Eric

Painting gesso over matte sealant should not present a problem.

And just so we are all on the same sheet of music, see this link so you can find out what gesso is:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gesso

Just mask off what you don't want primed and then prime it.

If you seal with Testor's Dullcote, I know firsthand that you can paint over it. It's how I do all my freehand, actually. The Dullcote seals the prior paint layers, and then I paint over it with grey, then white (Ultramarine player ). The Dullcote even allows me to scrub away any mistakes with a moist brush. Dullcote seems to give plenty of tooth to the surface, so paint away!

Jim,
Remind my why you don't just use another brush on primer, like Vallejo?

Eric

question..is it a painter that advertises here?

That to me sounds like it should be a BTR..you paid to get a vehicle painted and only got 3/4th's? 4/5ths? painted.

Sounds like someone I don't want painting for me.

@MM no.. I didn't know Vallejo made a brush on.. off to check that out!

@ kturock.. NO, not a painter here on Bartertown. This was a transaction from another site for a guy who was thinking about taking the plunge into being a pro-painter. He came to me to offer to paint a vehicle, I had a LR needing painted.. so it worked. He quoted me a price, and I told him he was MUCH to low.. but he was fairly serious. I sent him the tank, he had it for 2 months or so, and kept coming back and telling me I was SO right. The effort it was taking him was MUCH more than he had quoted me, but he insisted on honoring the original deal. (Which was nice and gave me insight into his personal integrity). Eventually he told me it was done, and based on this deal, he was gonna stick to painting for his local group instead of trying to go pro. Glad he had a learning experience from this, and I have NO bad things to say about his conduct through the deal He DID show me pictures of other vehicles he painted, and the bare spots on mine were bare on his, so it does seem like a continuation of preference.

-P

If your FLGS sells Vallejo Game Color, then they probably have the primer.
It's in the Game Color line and is right next to white. IIRC, White is #1, then the primer is #2.

Eric