How to Prime and Base Coat Your Miniatures

How to Prime and Base Coat Your Miniatures — A Beginner's Guide to Getting It Right

If you've just bought your first box of miniatures and you're staring at them wondering where on earth to start, this is the article for you. One of the most common mistakes new painters make is going straight to a brush and a pot of paint without any preparation. The result is usually paint that rubs off, colours that look dull, and a model that ends up looking worse than it should. The good news is that avoiding all of that is straightforward once you understand priming and base coating — the two most important steps before a single highlight or shade goes on.

We see a lot of new painters come through the doors at Wandering Adventures and this is consistently where the questions start. Here's everything I tell them.

Assembling Your Miniatures — Don't Skip This Step

Before primer goes anywhere near your model, it needs to be properly assembled — and that starts with mold lines. These are the thin raised lines of excess plastic that run along every piece from the manufacturing process. They're easy to miss when you're eager to get painting, but primer and paint don't hide them — they make them more visible. Run your finger along every surface before assembly and scrape them off gently with a hobby knife. Five minutes per model here saves a lot of frustration later.

When gluing, use plastic cement for plastic kits rather than super glue. It actually fuses the plastic together for a stronger bond. Apply sparingly, hold firmly for 30 seconds, and leave to cure before handling. Check for gaps where pieces meet — filler or a small amount of green stuff smoothed over a seam before priming will be invisible once painted. Leave it and it'll show forever.

Finally think about sub-assemblies. Some models are genuinely easier to paint in pieces — arms off, pilot separate from vehicle, backpack separate from torso. A little planning at the assembly stage saves a lot of awkward brush angles later.

What is Priming and Why Does it Matter

Priming is the process of applying a base layer to your model before you paint it. A primer is a specially formulated paint — usually applied by spray can or airbrush — that does two things. First it gives the paint something to grip onto. Plastic, resin, and metal are all naturally slippery surfaces and regular paint won't adhere to them reliably without a primer underneath. Second it creates a consistent surface colour to paint over, which affects how your subsequent colours look.

Skipping primer is the single biggest mistake new painters make. You might get away with it for a session or two but the paint will start chipping and rubbing off surprisingly quickly, especially on areas that get handled a lot like bases and weapon barrels. A good primer coat takes five minutes and makes everything that comes after it dramatically better.

Spray Can vs Brush-On Primer

For most beginners a spray can primer is the easiest way to go. You hold it about 25-30cm from the model, apply light even coats, and you get consistent coverage without brush marks. Citadel, Army Painter, and AK Interactive all make solid spray primers. The Citadel sprays are the most widely available and they work reliably straight out of the can.

Brush-on primers are useful when you can't spray — if you're in a flat with no outdoor space for example — or when you're working on a single model and don't want to open a spray can. They work well but take a bit more care to apply evenly without leaving brush streaks.

One important note — always prime in decent weather. Cold temperatures and humidity are the enemy of spray primers. If you spray on a cold damp day you risk a chalky, grainy finish called frosting that ruins the surface of the model. Aim for above 15 degrees celsius and low humidity if you can.

Choosing Your Primer Colour

This is where a lot of beginners get confused because there's no single right answer — it depends on what you're painting.

Black primer is the most common choice for dark armies — Chaos Space Marines, Nighthaunt, dark fantasy models. It pre-shades the recesses of the model naturally and makes darker colours look richer. The downside is that it can swallow lighter colours so you'll need more coats if you're going bright.

White primer is the go-to for bright colour schemes, light armour, and anything where you want colours to pop with full vibrancy. It's less forgiving than black because every imperfection shows, but the results with bright colours are significantly better.

Grey primer is the middle ground and honestly it's what I recommend most often for beginners. It works with both dark and light colour schemes, it's forgiving, and it gives you a neutral base that doesn't fight against whatever you're painting over it.

Coloured primers are also worth knowing about. Citadel's Wraithbone and Skeleton Horde sprays are popular base colours for Age of Sigmar and anything with a warm bone or cream tone. Army Painter do a huge range of coloured primers that can actually double as your base coat, saving you a step entirely.

What is a Base Coat

Once your primer is dry, the base coat is the first layer of actual colour you apply to each area of the model. This isn't your final colour — it's the foundation that everything else gets built on top of. Think of it like undercoating a wall before you paint a room. The base coat establishes the colour and gives you something solid to shade and highlight over.

Base coats should be relatively thin and even — you're not trying to get perfect coverage in one pass, you're building up the colour in two or three thin layers rather than one thick one. Thick paint obscures detail, fills in recesses, and dries unevenly. Thin paint flows better, dries flatter, and preserves the fine detail that makes miniatures look good.

Thinning Your Paint

This is the part where almost every beginner goes wrong at first. Paint straight from the pot is almost always too thick to apply directly to a miniature. You need to thin it down with water or a dedicated medium until it has a consistency closer to skimmed milk than to double cream.

A good test is to put a small amount of paint on your palette, add a drop or two of water, and mix it. Drag a brush loaded with the thinned paint across the back of your hand — if it flows smoothly and covers evenly it's about right. If it sits in a blob it's too thick. If it's so thin you can see straight through it, add a touch more paint.

Citadel Base paints are specifically formulated for base coating and have good pigment density that means they cover well even when thinned. Vallejo also makes excellent base colours with consistent pigmentation. AK Interactive's 3rd Generation range thins beautifully and flows off the brush really well — I use them regularly for base coating larger flat areas.

A Simple Process to Follow

If you're just starting out, here's the exact process I'd recommend:

Clip your models off the sprue and clean up any mold lines with a hobby knife or file. Glue them together if needed and leave them to cure fully. Then prime — one or two light coats from a spray can, letting each coat dry before applying the next. Once the primer is fully dry, usually an hour or two, start your base coats. Work area by area — base coat all the armour first, then all the cloth, then all the metal, then skin and details. Don't try to do everything at once or you'll end up with a muddled mess. Two thin coats per area, letting each one dry, and you'll have a clean solid foundation to work from.

From there you're ready for shading, highlighting, and all the fun stuff. But get the primer and base coat right and everything that comes after it is easier, more enjoyable, and looks significantly better.

One more technique worth knowing about as you progress is zenithal priming — a two-coat method using black and white spray that pre-shades your model before you've touched a brush. It's a game changer for speed painting and making Contrast paints look their best. We've got a full guide on it over on the blog at wanderingadventures.ca/blogs/news.

What You'll Need

To get started you really only need a few things — a spray primer, a selection of base coat paints for the colours in your army, and a decent brush. We stock everything you need at Wandering Adventures in Vaughan. For primers check out our Hobby Supplies range at wanderingadventures.ca/collections/paint — and if you're not sure what to pick up for your specific army, come in and ask. Helping new painters get started is genuinely one of our favourite parts of running this store.

Everyone starts somewhere. Get the foundation right and the rest of the hobby opens up in front of you.