If you’re anything like most of us SprayGunners, you probably have quite a few sets of miniatures that you’ve collected over time, but just haven’t seemed to find the time to paint. Whether you’re clearing out your miniature backlog or have an entire Warhammer army that needs to be prepped for battle; the idea of having to prime, paint, and highlight all those minis can be daunting. The solution for you might just be zenithal priming.
What is Zenithal Priming:
Zenithal Priming is a miniature painting technique that uses a dark primer color and a lighter primer color to create natural highlights and shadows. Zenithal Priming gets its name from the word zenith. When an object is at its zenith, it's at its highest point, or more closely related to what we're describing today, directly above our model. When we spray our model from above with our lighter primer color, we’re simulating a light source. When done correctly, this will give us darker tones and shadows opposite our light source while brightening the places on our model that are closer to the light source. This adds dimension, depth, and realism before we even paint our first color.
A Step By Step Guide To Zenithal Priming:
Step 1: Prep your model.
This is probably the least and sometimes the most critical step to any painting technique. In the process of molding, printing, or sculpting a miniature, chemical residue from the production process can be left behind. These residues can have unintended reactions with your paint that no amount of technique can account for. That’s why it’s important to wash or clean your minis before you paint them. Most commonly a quick wipe down with some isopropyl alcohol or water and some dish soap is more than sufficient.
If your model was 3D printed or you built it from a model kit, it’s also important to remove any rough edges or bumps, remove any support structures, and sand any uneven surfaces that were not part of the mini’s design. Painting over surfaces like this will typically just cause them to show more and it’s well worth the effort to ensure your miniature is display or table top ready.
Step 2: Prime the Darker Color
Priming is the process of applying a special kind of paint that will act as an adhesive surface for all of your additional layers of paint while also smoothing out imperfections. For Zenithal priming, the most common color of primer is black, but as long as you have a darker color and a lighter color, this technique will work. My personal favorite is the Createx Autoborne Black 6002. I will mix that with some Createx 4021 Reducer at roughly a 10:1 paint to reducer ratio or until I reach a milk-like consistency. Once I have the consistency right, I will add it to my airbrush cup. For priming, I prefer an airbrush with a .5mm needle like the Pistol Trigger Gravity Feed Airbrush by NO-NAME Brand. I will set my compressor to between 25 and 30 PSI and spray the darker colored primer in even passes over the entirety of the model. Make sure you get every crease, crack, crevice, and the underside of the model. It is important to cover your entire model from top to bottom with primer in an even layer so your later paints will always have a solid foundation to stick to.
If you don’t have an airbrush, that’s ok. Rattlecan primers are also a great option. We have a great selection from Army Painter and Titans Hobby by Ammo.
Make sure to allow adequate time for the paint to dry between coats and especially between color changes. It should be a minute or so between coats and a few minutes between changing colors or until the paint loses its wet sheen.
Step 3: Priming the Lighter Color
Now that our dark primer color is down, it’s time to decide the angle of our light source. Most miniatures are painted in a way that simulates a light source either directly above or at a 45 degree angle from above. As you get more comfortable with the technique, it can be fun to experiment with different angles of light or even light from different sources like campfires or torches. For this example we will be spraying our lighter color from directly above. In this example I used the Autoborne Sealer 6001 White. Unlike when we painted the darker primer, this time it’s important not to stray too far from the original angle. Doing so will add unnatural highlights to the model. You want light even coats until full coverage is achieved. It’s ok if it takes 3-4 coats, overspraying can cause your paint to pool or run.
Once your model looks like our example above and is fully dry, you’re ready to paint!