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Does anyone know of a good undercoat spray paint that I can use instead of the REALLY expensive games-workshop paint? I love them but it is getting a little ridiculous. Thanks!

I use $1 primer from Home Depot. You just need to be careful with it

I use Armory spray primer, under $5 a can

Duplicolor sandable primer from an auto parts store. Best I have ever used, hands down. Like $6 a can, but probably twice what any of the hobby cans comes with.

eman1_2 wrote:Duplicolor sandable primer from an auto parts store. Best I have ever used, hands down. Like $6 a can, but probably twice what any of the hobby cans comes with.

What he said. Comes in a fair amount of colors, very smooth finish.

I use the walmart/kmart/home depot flat white or flat black $1 primer. Also gray primer.

It takes paint well, strips easily.

and it's cheap.

like all paint, shake the can well.

I have tried many brands, mostly found in walmart and other home improvement stores. Depending on what colour you want I have found Krylon to be very good, just make sure you get the flat ones, they run about 5 dollars CAD. The best one I have found in Krylon are the camo ones (comes in dark green, dark brown and black), they are ultra-flat and I use the dark green as an undercoat for my cryx which looks super nice, it also doesn't go on very thick and when it drys it shrinks for a tight fit, sometimes two coats are needed or a touch up (the dark green is an almost perfect match to Catachan Green) they are about a buck more expensive than the other Krylon ones. The Tremclad rust primer works extremely well but you have to press lightly on the top as to get a light spray, it also works at any angle even up side down! (Learned this when trying to spray the extra out and it just kept coming lol) it has a super strong bond so works very well on metal models and runs about 6 CAD. Army Painter is nice, it's obviously more expensive than the walmart/home improvement ones but still slightly cheaper than GW. I tried some dollar store ones (called Colour Splash) and although it went on fairly tight it left a very weird almost sticky feeling and it smelt bad so I suggest if your going to try out dollar brands to test them out first!

Hope this helps.

The Krylons and Rustoleums work great on metal. The don't strip off well. They adhere that well.
They don't do so well with plastic.
Depending on where you buy them, they can be as expensive as GW.

Also, I've found a couple of the name brands that sell 2x coverage paint. It's thick. I recently bought some yellow to base coat my Eldar. It obsured some of the detail.
Luckily it completely stripped in 24 hours with Purple Power.

kturock wrote:The Krylons and Rustoleums work great on metal. The don't strip off well. They adhere that well.
They don't do so well with plastic.
Depending on where you buy them, they can be as expensive as GW.

Also, I've found a couple of the name brands that sell 2x coverage paint. It's thick. I recently bought some yellow to base coat my Eldar. It obsured some of the detail.
Luckily it completely stripped in 24 hours with Purple Power.

Wow, Canadian Krylon must be different than American as I get the complete opposite results lol. The paints in the picture are the ones I use regularly on my armies and although I will agree Rustoleum (in my case Tremclad) is difficult to strip the others strip fairly easily with simple green . I have used both brands on finecast, plastic (both GW and Privateer Press) and metal with not a single issue. GW primer runs 19 CAD here, each Krylon can runs 5-6 CAD here, I am surprised the difference is that extreme from one country to another.

I haven't used it in years, so maybe the formulation has changed.
It used to be, once it was on, it stayed. The base paint coat would strip off of it, eaisly, but it depended on the paint used.

Also, some things are made different for different countries.
I know cars have US, CA and California standards, for example.

There are a lot of good suggestions above. Myself, I prefer to use auto primer. It's inexpensive and covers nice.
If you're unfamiliar with auto primer, though, be sure to ask for help from an employee. You want the kind that DOES NOT EXPAND!!!! You'll fill in the small details of whatever you're priming.


Eric

i've tried a large selection of primers and the best of the best you can find is Mr. Hobby Surface primer 1200, the second best being the surface primer from Tamiya which is probably a 1000 grains. GW and the likes are more around the 400 grains

Why you want those because they are the finest available and will mask sanding marks without masking details.

the bad side is that they are either hard to get in the US or pricey. The Tamiya is around 7$ for a 180 ml, the Mr Hobby is anything between 11$ and 25$ (they are hard to get as the safety things on them are not translated.

J

for true finess of spray, nothing beats a good airbrush. I almost bought 1 just to prime models.

In order:

GW and P3 both have very good primers, but you pay a ton for those.
Army Painter is good, but slightly resistant if you use anything to thin your paint
Whichever one has the Munchkin guys on it is dirt cheap but absolutely terrible- I had something like three cans go bad in a year- two get all flakey and one explode, and I don't go through a ton of primer. I wouldn't use it if you paid me (well, maybe if you paid me more than the minis cost).

I've never used auto primer etc, so can't comment... will probably try on some old minis in the near future.

I also have used the color place wally world 99 cent primer. Shake it well, and have perfect conditions and it's a champ, little cool and or windy and it tends to turn fuzzy ( can't dry brush it). I still use it but i'm super cautious of the time frame. That and a can of it doesn't go far at all...