Hi everyome, is it essential that I use a base coat when i'm painting my plastic models?

If so what colour is best to use. Can anyone give me advice on the paint to use. What would be better, Humbrol or Tamiya paint?

Your help would be much appreciated

Thanks

First of all - welcome to the site

Secondly in response to your question, (and this is a personal response) I would tend to say yes,a base coat is a good idea. There are several ways of doing it:

1) One that has become Very popular is to use acrylic car-primer (Grey) which you should be able to pick up easily and cheaply in car accessory shops (Halfords for example)

2) The other is spray enamel. Tamiya do their own, personally I prefer the Citadel (Games Workshop) 'Chaos Black' which I find is quick-drying and covering.

The reasons for using a spray primer are twofold, firstly to give a 'key' for the top colour, secondly to check for any imperfections in the build....Cheers, Jim

Thanks mate. Anyone else got any personal advice.

Hi Newms,

I do the car primer thing (light grey) on everything I paint.
Show errors but take finish colors easy. I give mine 24hrs to dry.

IMHO works great and it's cheap ($1 US per can).

Good Luck
Tom