Gaming Magazines and Undercoat/Primer

What do they have in common? Not much I guess, other than that is what I'm musing about at the moment, ohh, and lil sodjers of course.  I'll start with magazines and keep it brief-ish.  So, I was doing my morning round of random blog gazing and fell upon Tank Girls (aka Helen) latest post relating to Warfare Soldiers and Strategy (WSS) issue 58 in which she has written a painting tutorial on WWII Japanese, well done that girl! This is something of a co-incidence as I placed my order for a subscription to WSS last week which very much to my relief is still being printed and very much to my surprise  is now published in the Netherlands and not Spain which has some sort of War of Spanish Succession (WSS) overtones, take that Sherlock.... My relief was to find that WSS (the magazine not the war) magazines disappearance from the news agents shelves a while back was not because of anything terminal but because of publishing decisions and then a change of publisher. Im not a fanatic when it comes to magazines, if they are there they are there and if I have missed my chance at the shops etc so be it but I did enjoy the several copies of WSS that I did buy and I did miss thumbing through the latest edition. Get a copy and see what you think.

Now moving on to undercoats and primers, I have just one word to say to you  just one word (no not plastics, your thinking of the film) GESSO. Now you have probably come across gesso undercoating and priming being discussed in the forums and on various blogs as have I, and ponder it you do (the Yoda in me). While shopping with my wife recently I came across some Jo Sonja products in a sale and bought a pot of gesso. Let me explain the what-for's, where-by's and how-to's of my purchase. I spent a lot of last year practising various painting techniques and styles etc. and among them was using white undercoat which I have come to appreciate but sometimes I think black, or indeed some other coloured undercoat, would be worth using.

Hind quarter with normal under coat, no primer

 I find most all acrylic blacks and the majority of enamel blacks have a satin finish which is a pain to paint over,  the under coat has no bite there is nothing for the paint to grip onto. Gesso on the other hand is designed to provide an undercoat with tooth for canvas, to provide a surface that paints will readily adhere to, reading the label on the pot I see that this gesso is acrylic based and I figure " hey if it's acrylic I should be able to tint it with acrylic paints or inks or even washes and have a undercoat of my choosing", horses for courses. So I'm trialling this brand of gesso to see if it makes and acceptable undercoat/primer, just plain white first and I'll follow up with some tints. Oh yeah, it doesn't stink as much as my mums did when I was wee.

Hind quarter with gesso undercoat, no primer

Click on the photos to enlarge and compare in the image viewer, what do you think?

No painting at Paint Pig Schlosse for a few days 41 C yesterday and similar today, time to freebag under the aircon in front of the telly or computer working on Hesse-Kassoulet Kronicles

thanks for looking
Dave