I noticed that Meng has released pictures of their new Jadgpanther and King Tiger Special edition and the models look to be in tan plastic instead of the primer reddish color of their previous armor kits. Anyone know if they are phasing out the red plastic because it was a cool idea on paper but I don't really like it when it came to building one. Maybe I am just so used to grey plastic...

Dark colors are hard to cover and that was a deep, dark red so they might be going for a neutral color plastic.

Could be worse though. They could insist on dark olive plastic like some of us have to deal with for Allied armor. I actually left out the interior on an Academy Lee and Stuart because I just didn't want to have to paint the interior white over that dark olive plastic.

Or dark blue navy aircraft and you have to do that white underside?

Some companies used grey plastic for decades, long before Dragon was even a glint in anyone's eye. Mostly for aircraft kits. Armor kits were olive or sand or dark grey but all the aircraft were grey. I remember this with all higher series (boxed) Airfix kits going back to the 1970s and then in the 1980s they regressed to black plastic for the new Lancaster.

But the hard plastic figures were molded in white which was so easy to paint.

And then there was AMT and MPC with everything was molded in white. I'm doing an olive drab jeep and it's all molded in white. I started painting whole kits early.

and there was also the 'molded in three colours' by Matchbox
https://modelingmadness.com/scott/allies/previews/mbx/pk105preview.htm



Tan, light and dark grey.
Possibly more colours, some greenish tan?
/ Robin

When I was a kid, I loved that Matchbox molded in 3 colors! Even now though I can see advantages: what if instead of just sprue letters, the sprues are actually different colors? So Sprue A is tan, Sprue B is Grey, Sprue C is olive green, etc? May make hunting for the right sprue a bit easier...

Damon.

A lot of people (like me) use primer, so that might cover up all the plastic color. Why bother mold in color when it's going to get covered up?

These are CAD renderings, not actual plastic photos... And their earlier armor kits plastic was not always reddish anyway.

Pastic colour is a funny thing and will put me off certain kits.. for example. The green plastic Meng use is awful, like on their AMX30 and the Tortoise. Soft, easy to scratch and difficult to clean up. then we have the horrible silver stuff that Zoukei mura use. It appears to have no surface detail, ie:- you cant see it until primed. Again this makes fine clean up difficult if you cant see what you're trying to remove or avoid whilst sanding sprue joints off for instance.

My favourite is the Meng and Hobby Boss tan plastic. hard enough to be easy to use, soft enough to work with. Saying that the new Thunder models plastic is nice to work with and is very tough on those tiny little parts that snap so easily.

The dak red utilized by Meng reproduces the actual minium primer on German tanks, so it can be seen in many points where the paint is supposed to be scratched. It is not a bad choice, in my opinion.

Certain colors used in certain plastics can affect its hardness and resiliency. The wonders of chemistry.

I can work with nearly any plastic. I'm flexible. But I'm lazy and I'm not into priming plastic anymore.

The great majority of model builders aren't. A company doesn't choose its plastic color based on what a tiny minority of advanced builders will do, but what the majority of casual hobbyists do.

I'll never forget that anime series about otakus that went over scale model building. Pretty fastidious since many robot kits aren't easy builds, but molded in color is the thing. And the character even had a full line-up of Tamiya and Gunze tools.

I would suggest the majority of builders I know, at least in the UK, of whom I wouod describe as 'keen hobbyists' all prime models. In fact it's only on Armorama that I have ever known people say they do not prime.

It is certainly not an advanced skill to spray a model, black/white/pink as an undercoat.

I for one really don't mind what colour a model is molded in, it's getting several blasts of paint.

There are some guys who not only don't prime, but they don't paint. Polishing the plastic instead. I did it on a police car kit and it worked well. Only the interior and some details got paint.

Then there are the Asian kits that are specifically produced so they require little to no painting. There was a great anime about otakus in Japan that went over the whole building experience (among any number of manga about it and there's no priming and very little painting on those robots and other licensed kits)

Plenty of keen hobbyists who don't use primer outside the realm of military modelers. We're the exception, not the rule.

One aspect of the issue is that unless the "primer" has a particular chemical composition, it's just another coat of paint that adds nothing to the adhesion of the top coats. Some people use thick paints that are called primers but are more correctly called surfacers and are intended for filling small joints and scratches and sanded smooth.

I wash my models immediately before painting and that addresses the majority of adhesion issues like skin oils and sanding dust. If your purpose for priming is to find flaws and cracks, a light cover coat of you primary color works just fine.

Some of the need for "priming" may come from these gonzo weathering techniques where people are using multiple layers of paint and scrubbing or working the finish. The primer in these cases may be more of a barrier coat to resist the abuses of the finish.

KL

I always prime my builds, as I work with acrylics. The primer adds bite to otherwise fragile paints. In addition, I use the primer as part of my color saturation.

The only time I ever prime anything is when the surface is multi coloured and the top coat is a light colour like white or yellow or has bad coverage like red. In those cases I use a light grey.
If the plastic is already light grey and I will paint with green/brown/dark grey there is no point in priming.
/ Robin

I've found that certain lacquer based clearcoats will cause Tamiya paints to wrinkle & craze if they are not applied over a primer. I also find some paints or colors are "enhanced" depending on the primer color I used (this may be just a subjective thing, but it works for me!). Finally primer colors can help spot areas you may have missed during the painting process, such as using dark yellow over Tamiya's tan plastics, etc...

Damon.