One Thick coat? Two thin coats? Most important some primer!

As there seems to be shortage in Citadel Chaos Black primer and people are asking the same question again and again. Who can I buy a can? Well, before you pay some stupid mark-up price or go dire. Get this - there are other manufacturers who provide primer in a can.

Some may have had their bad experience with other brands, like it was too humid, you got to close to the model or the can wasn't shaken enough. Usually by reading and following the instructions properly, you can fix that. Unless you have leaking Army Painter cans like I have ...

So either wait until your brand is available (and remember, the manufacturer isn't the only one offering their product - there are resellers ...), instead of paying marked-up prices, or use a different company to get through your primer bottleneck.

There are other companies who provide spray primer in black, white and/or grey. For example:

• Army Painter
• Vallejo
• Tamiya
• AK Interactive
• Plastic Soldier Company

In case of simple black primer, I use Hit Color Beltons RAL 9005 jet black (matt / flat) for over a decade now and am very happy with the results. A clean, flat coat and the spray is available as 400 ml (Prod.-Nr. 320 365) and 600 ml (320 621), you can buy it at DIY stores and graffity online shops for very reasonable rates (around 3-4 EUR for the small can, 5-6 EUR for the tall ones).

Here's a brief example, I gave the ship a thin coat from above. Good coverage, no cluttered details. You can see the clean transition where I didn't go all around from the angle. Highly recommend the matt black paint. The matt white is unfortunately semi-matt and more like a contrast undercoat. So make sure you grab the right one.

Please do not simply buy primer in a DIY store, make sure the primer works for the purpose, as the thickness or finish of the paint and nozzle might not fit your purpose (for terrain maybe, but not miniatures). So give it a try first on a piece of sprue or a model you won't miss as a "casualty".