Painting aelves

[Darthbeerder]

I am finally getting round to painting the aelf half of the spire of dawn set and need some advice. I have always painted chaos / khorne stuff even since before my 10 yr break from the hobby. As such I have always used a black primer and have little experience with painting bright colours. What are the main differences that I could expect if I prime with white ? Any advice will be appreciated as I dont want to waste time having to strip failed experiments !

[MKragh]

I am generally only use white primer unless I am doing something very special, so I should have a few pointers. Keep in mind that what advice you need does depend on your style of painting.

- With white primer you do have to make certain you get into all the details so you avoid tiny white spots. This is usually not too hard so I wouldn't worry about it, and if your paint-scheme includes a wash it will take care of the problem.

- Often people that use a black primer start from the shade and highlight, because the black base provides natural shading. I find that with white it is easier to do the mid-tone first, then shade the darker bits and highlight at the end. As such I choose a mid-tone that match what I want the final colour to be. 

- Nearly all models paints are translucent, so you will need two thin coats to get an even coverage and avoid the colour looking pale. For black I find you might need 3, but that depends on how much you thin your paints.

There might be more but I think that covers the basics. I do think you can get the same results with either black or white primer, but if you want bright clean colours you have to work harder using black. I find a main problem many people that use black primer have is that their models end up being too dark, so even if they are very well painted it can be hard to tell once they are on the gaming table.

[Darthbeerder]

Thanks for the advice ! The bright clean colours are exactly what im after , need a change from the dirt and blood lol