basecoat when painting with oils

[godfather]

What base coat do you folks use the actual colour of the garment or darker, lighter? So if I want to paint something red I would paint red in acyrilc . Any suggestions.

 

[KeithP]

lighter... darker... the color should be close to the the final result that you would like on your oil tone.

There are many different "reds" avail thru Vallejo and Andrea. For example, look at the Red Lancer in my work bench. The acrylic base is Val Orange Red + Val Dark Red. Over this, the oil base is WN bright red.

Try a few experiments or let us know what you are going for...

Keith

 

[Kisifer]

I will agree with Keith. Since i started painting exclusively with oils, i found out that having a base coat very close to your oil mix helps a lot.

 

[Patrick Kirk]

Interesting topic...I was actually talking about this with my brother, Larry, and he had mentioned that some folks actually use oils directly over the primer...I would be interested in hearing a bit more about that technique if anyone would care to share. Seems to me that if one is using that technique, then the lighter primmer would be used; I dunno, just thinking out loud.

I use an acrylic undercoat to give the oils something to "bite" into not only for color, but for application, too. I try to match the undercoat (basecoat) as close to the final color as possible...so, in essence, I paint the figger twice (once with the acrylic base, then wil the oils), and suspect many of us do the same...

All the best

Patrick

 

[Roc]

I have used oils directly over the gray floquil primer, the benefits of such a method is the primer absorbs most of the oil rendering the painted figure completely flat, if you want to make clothing on a figure completely flat that is the way. The trick in using this method is to add at least one opaque color to your base color mix for good coverage


Cheers

Roc.

 

[PJ Deluhery]

I get the best results with an acrylic color very near the final oil color. Oils are often not opaque enough to cover an acrylic color that is too far off from the oil color. So several oil coats may be needed to cover the acrylic color if it is too far off. Acrylics will absorb the oils also, and using a color very near the oil color will allow you to use much less oil paint, meaning much less oil gets on the figure.

Happy painting!

 

[KeithP]

Good point on the opacity. WN Bright Red is pretty transparent. Also, you can add a bit of Mars red to the WN Bright red to tone it down. If that is a concern, you can always check the oil manuf color chart to guage how well your oil might cover. And, as I said before, try it out on a piece of scrap before the figure... THAT has saved me many a mess up :lol:

I read in one of Craig W. (Mongo Mel) Armorama articles that he will paint over the primer rather than the acrylic. Never tried it.

Keith