Gesso as a Primer

I have found an alternative to priming my figures with a spray primer.  I have found using Gesso a good alternative to spray priming.  This is not a new idea of course and I read about it on this blog: Priming_With_Acrylic_Gesso by Dakka Dakka.  The first part of his post kind of turned me off to doing this as it was rather labor intensive, with all of the mixing of thinners, colors etc.. that was until I read to the end where he had updated his post based on someone else's suggestion to use the Gesso right out of the bottle.  I have to say that it works really well.

One of the reasons for this change is up here in the Pacific Northwest, the winters are wet and cold and trying to spray prime outside doesn't always work.  This method allows me to prime inside at my work table and there aren't any toxic fumes.   

The liquitex Gesso is a non-toxic product so it is safe to use.  Also it cleans up with water.  It comes in three colors Black, White and Grey.  I bought the black and grey colors.  I will use the grey on my 10mm figures and the black on the 15mm and larger figures.

This bottle cost me about $9.00 at Blick Art Supply.

For this experiment I decided to prime my Pulp figures I purchased from Bob Murch. I want to do a 1930's style noir game.

The above photos show how wet and gloppy the figures look after brushing the Gesso onto the figures.  The bottle says to let it dry for 24 hours.  Most of the detail is obscured by the Gesso. 

Less than 24 hours later the figures are dry.

You can see some places where there is a little bit metal showing through. This can be touched up with the Gesso.

Once the stuff dried the details POP! rather nicely and better, I feel, than the spray primers I've used in the past.

The best part of this was the clean up.  The brush cleaned up with water and once the Gesso dried I was able to peel it out of the tray and throw the piece of Gesso away.