Atomic Playboy

Gesso, Italian for chalk, is a substance historically used in panel painting to prepare the surfaces before painting on them.

Acrylic gesso is used to prime a canvas before painting. But I’m finding another use for it: priming my wargaming miniatures!

I had seen it mentioned a couple of times, but it wasn’t until I was randomly googling for inspirational pictures that I found this excellent article about priming models with acrylic gesso that I decided to try it myself.

I have a Panduro hobby store within walking distance, and sure enough, they had non-toxic white acrylic gesso. A big can with half a liter for 115 SEK, which is a bit more expensive than a spray can of primer paint of the same size. But gesso will most likely end up cheaper in the long run, since all of it actually ends up on the model, unlike spray primers.

The Trial

I dug out an old sacrificial model: a Chainmail orc druid, and went to work.

I decided to try gesso without thinning it, and squeezed out a thumbnail-sized pile on the palette. It’s acrylic and intended for canvases, so it’s a lot thicker than the Vallejo paints I normally use, which are designed for miniatures. It still spreads nicely though, with a viscosity something halfway between cream and toothpaste.

There’s one habit you’ll have to throw out the door right away: don’t paint it on in thin layers. In fact, just goop it on there generously in a thick coat. Don’t worry if all the details vanish — gesso shrinks as it dries, and all detail will be preserved just fine. Make sure to use stabbing motions with the brush to get it into all crevices and finer details so you don’t end up with air bubbles between the model and the gesso.

Out of old habit I used a thin coat on one of the arms, and it didn’t take many minutes for that to dry enough to show that the brush strokes left visible streaks on the model. Use a thick coat and let it shrink on its own as it dries!

Once dry it has a chalky texture, but it stays on and doesn’t leave any residue when you touch it. You may want to have a dedicated brush for this — I used a fairly big, soft brush.

Final Verdict

Priming with gesso has a few downsides compared to spray priming — it takes longer per model, and needs a lot longer to dry. But the upside is that I can reach all spots on the model I can normally reach while painting to make sure I get a good cover on the entire model, unlike spray primers where you need to turn the model around, put it on its sides, and spray from funny angles to reach all areas.

The biggest upside for me is that I can prime it right here at my desk — I don’t need to hope for suitable weather and air humidity to do it out on the balcony, or set up a paint box and snort funky fumes in the bathroom if the weather is too bad.

It does take longer, but I don’t really mind priming five models at a time and let them dry overnight before getting to work on them. So gesso will be my new primer from now on.

I’m seriously thinking about picking up wargaming again. I use miniatures to represent combat in D&D anyway, so there’s quite a bit of overlap.

Too bad that Warhammer (or Warhamster, as I call it) is so expensive. Games Workshop has lots of nifty miniatures in both their 40,000 range and Fantasy Battles range. 40k is probably the most popular, but if I get started I’m thinking about Fantasy Battles. I get the impression that FB players are more mature, while 40k draws all the low-end teenagers with its big guns, tanks and heavy armor. Not that FB doesn’t have big guns and heavy armor too, though…

For the latest edition of FB, the Undead have been split in two different (and often opposing) armies: Vampire Counts and Tomb Kings. In previous editions, the Undead used to have all sorts of ghosts, skeletons, zombies, vampires and mummies. Now the Vampire Counts have all the typically gothic undead, and the Tomb Kings have been refitted with a pseudo-Egyptian style with mummies and skeletons.

What I really like about the Tomb Kings is that it isn’t just a shambling horde of bones and mummy wrappings with rusty weapons; it’s a resurrected, well-organized army lead by an undead Pharaoh. Just the way I like my undead.

There’s one scene in The Mummy (you know, the pulp movie with Brendan Fraser and Rachel Weisz) that sums up the Tomb Kings perfectly. Near the end of the movie, three undead tomb guards march up in phalanx formation with their shields and kopesh swords held ready.

Ye gods, I’m in rant mode. Sorry about that. I just like Egyptian mythology. And undead. Especially in combination.

Skeletons and mummies are easy to paint, too. Black primer (I never use a white primer, even for skeletons), base coat of bleached bone, a brown ink wash, and then drypaint and highlight with skull white. Or skip the skull white to get a weathered and ancient look. These guys are supposed to have been buried in the desert for a thousand years.

Well, there’s more to paint than just bone, since the Tomb Kings are organized and well equipped. But still pretty easy, with open areas on shields and weapons.

…but as I said, it’s darn expensive to have a GW game as a hobby. The Tomb King battalion box costs 1800 SEK, but gives you a full army. A bone giant costs 300 SEK…

Not planning to start playing WFB at the moment, though. I have better things to waste my money on. And I would like to have a look at Mechwarrior: Dark Ages too.