Saturday, November 23, 2013

Review: Vallejo Surface Primer

For the longest time I have been a die hard fan of Duplicolor Sandable Primer. Until today. I got a tip from my friend Bryan about using Vallejo Surface Primer and spraying it on using an airbrush. Now at first I was a bit skeptical, but Bryan is a very reliable source of information and I figured I'd give it a try. A few clicks later and a 200ml bottle of white primer was on its way. It sat on my desk for a few days since I was still focused on finishing up Bishop and needed to decide what to prep. I also spent a little time building a better (and collapsable) backstop for airbrushing in front of. Last night I broke out my low grade airbrush and primed 3 models. So how did it go?

The Good:
This is really amazing. The Vallejo Surface Primer is good to begin with, but using it through the airbrush is almost effortlessly perfect. The primer itself goes on nice and smooth and works well. The biggest problems I've always had with it pooling and not getting proper coverage was due to using a normal brush. But with the airbrush I can easily get a nice thin even coat over the whole model and do it really quickly. I even did a little test painting already on the coat and paint adheres to it really well. Plus the benefit of being able to prime indoors without nasty fumes is just enormous, especially with winter setting in. No more fears of grainy primer coats ruining an otherwise good model!

The Bad:
Honestly the only drawback is the setup time to use the airbrush as opposed to the spray can. It also requires a bit more attention to cleaning than normal due to it being primer. Beyond that small time investment, I'm hard pressed to find another drawback.

The Verdict:
I don't see that I'll be using can primer again unless I'm in a huge rush. The benefits far outweigh the drawbacks. I highly recommend that anyone out there with an airbrush look into doing it this way if you aren't already. Now I just need to order some in black and grey and I'm off to the races.

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