Hunting for Black Primer

For the last two years or so I have been trying to find the perfect black primer. One that coats well with minimal passes, covers evenly in dark black, is flat, and doesn't go on too thick. Games Workshop's black primer used to be my spray of choice. But, like all things perfect, they felt the need to change it up for the sake of changing it up. That left me with the new GW primer, which goes on like thick gooey spray paint. Not so bad for large 28mm black orcs but tends to take away from the detail of the 15mm Soviet flame thrower. I also tried the spray from Armory. You know the one with the little viking guy on the side of the can. I used this stuff on my Finnish army and got chalky, bumpy figures that absorbed twice as much paint as they should have. This was not good.

My latest attempt to find the perfect primer has me looking at two new offerings in the marketplace. One is P1 Black primer, priced at $9.99 per can. Also on tap is the new Army Painter Black primer, priced at 12.99 per can. Both cans are the same size.

I decided to test these products out on the new Engineer Sapper Company from the River of Heroes book for Flames of War. Besides the metal soldiers there are also resin supply trucks and I decided to do 10 new BA-10 armored cars. The first thing I did was a couple of test pieces. I vigorously shook each can for over a minute. Then I sprayed 3 soldiers and 1 armored car with each primer. The P1 product has a neat blue nozzle with a wide spray pattern. Wide and thin. This took some getting used to as you had to position the models and your hand a certain way to prevent wasting too much paint. The Army Builder can had a regular nozzle that sprayed just like all the others. This meant it had much better control in the beginning before I got used to using the other nozzle.

The initial lack of control with the P1 nozzle led to some overspray, uneven coverage, and a little frustration. Again, once I worked on technique, that frustration went away.

Once I let the test pieces dry, I came back to examine them. The Army Builder spray was thick and shiny. Not good. Very much like GW. The P1 had a nice, even thin cover and dried a nice flat black.

After trying out both primers on the supply trucks and inspecting those after they dried, I decided to do the rest of the infantry project with the P1. It was less expensive, thinner, and flatter than the Army Builder. Now if I could just convince them to put a normal spray nozzle on it.

Look for my next article on painting when I discuss and review the Army Painter Dip.