| Acrylic
Primer
Six Bottle Set
Lifecolor Acrylic Hobby Colors Reviewed by Devin Poore, May 2020
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| Lifecolor has offered a primer in their line of acrylic
paints for some time. This set adds several colors to the primer base,
and packages them together in a handy set.
For testing purposes, I both brush painted and airbrushed the Red Brown offering onto a square of bare styrene, and a section of resin ship lower hull. The primer went on easily by brush, no thinning required, and dried to a nice, smooth, and uniform appearance. Initially I had issues with airbrushing the primer, as I thinned it with water, and must have gotten the ratios wrong, as the primer went on very thin, splotchy, and didn't adhere well. Later, I did another test, thinning the primer with Vallejo brand primer, and it performed much better. My recommendation would be to pick up some of Lifecolor's thinner if you're going to spray this, because, as I've said before and will say again and again, you will always get better results out of a paint if you use that manufacturer's thinner. Cleaning of paintbrush and airbrush were both done easily using Medea airbrush cleaner, and also a custom mix of Simple Green and water that I have on hand. The real test of a primer is how well it sticks, and how well it sands. Acrylic primers differ with lacquer based varieties in that they must dry fully before working with them. Where Tamiya lacquer primer can be sanding within an hour or two, these acrylics need more time, but once cured, work just as well as their lacquer counterparts. After drying for 12 hours, both samples were dead-matt, any gloss you see in the photos is glare from my lighting setup. I was unable to scratch the primer off of either test piece using light fingernail pressure, and had to scrape at it with a scalpel blade to get it to scratch. So, good adhesion. The test pieces also sanded smoothly, feathering at the edges, and not rolling/balling up as I've seen some acrylic primers do. Another good sign. |
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| CONCLUSIONS | ||||
 These
primers work well and are easily applied, by both brush and airbrush. With
the various colors, intended to both be a primer and a basecoat, they're
more intended for armor modelers, but ship modelers can make good use of
a few of the shades; the red brown looks close enough to a hull red, and
the white and dark gray primers are pretty universal. The only issues I
had with testing these were pretty much brought on by myself, specifically
thinning them improperly with water. Once I fixed that issue, though, they
performed well and should be quite useful.
Highly Recommended. Thank you to The Airbrush Company Ltd aka Airbrushes.com your Lifecolor source for the review sample. |
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