I’m primarily an airbrush prime and basecoat kind of guy except for large terrain projects where I pull out the less pricey rattle cans. This being said I’ve gone through numerous primers over the years. Vallejo was my go to for a long time but I found it prone to clogging up my airbrush. I simply suffered with that for a long time until I finally tried Monument Hobbies’ primers. Monument Hobbies’ primer required a lot of cure time and I wasn’t overly happy with the bonding as the miniatures seemed to chip pretty easily. I settled on Badger’s Stynylrez primers for a bit now and they’ve been sufficient. Still nothing has yet been the definitive “it” of airbrush primers to me. (I have used the small cans of both Tamiya and Mr Surfacer primers back in my scale model days, but I prefer the airbrush method.)

Kick-Ass sent me three bottles of VMS No-Peel Primer to try. No.7 Black, No.3 Standard Grey, and No.1 White. As the numeration implies there are other colors available: No.2 Aircraft Grey, No.4 Panzer Grey, No.5 Iron Oxide, No.6 Mahogany Brown, No.8 Tank Green, No.9 Gloss Black, No.10 Dark Yellow, and No.11 Olive Drab. These come in 100ml bottles and will run you $21 at MSRP or $17.95 over at Kick-Ass.

Historically I have not been one to prime things in a color beyond grey, white, and black, though perhaps I should try saving myself time with those. The one I’d be most interested to try beyond the three I have is Gloss Black, as it works great as a basecoat for shiny metallic airplanes.

I sat down recently with three 15mm Sherman tank hulls and primed each one in each in the colors. All three primers went on very nice and smooth. I had no functionality issues with my airbrush while shooting them. I did not thin them at all, instead using them straight out of the bottle. The listed drying time is two hours and that is probably correct. At the one hour mark the black especially still seemed a little wet, however I wasn’t able to revisit them until about the 6 hour mark at which point they were perfectly dry.

Despite the black not being Gloss Black it still has a little sheen to it, so I’d be extra curious to see how glossy the gloss is (If their Gloss Varnish is any clue it will be very glossy). The black was good, and I tend to use black primer a fair bit so I think this will enter my regular lineup.

The standard grey primer produces a lighter neutral grey color which I really like. As I paint 15mm I’ve been challenging myself to keep things a little brighter, and this seems a good middle ground. If you’re a speed painter / Slapchop painter this would make a decent starting point for that process, though I’d like to see the No.4 Panzer Grey version which looks like a darker grey first.

I rarely use white primers, they are just too bright for me unless I’m putting a bright color over the majority of it. The VMS white primer covered very nicely with two thin coats, which can be a rare thing for a white color. The model is a dark green plastic so you can see how well the white covered it up.

After letting them hit their drying time I flipped each tank over and pulled off the blue tack spot where I attached the painting handle. This left me a starting point to test the “No-Peel” claim and well….. I could not get it to peel. With a fingernail I was finally able to scratch some primer off but I’ll admit I was trying to achieve that and I think it would be hard to do otherwise.

In conclusion, I’m really pleased with these primers. I’m going to burn through the rest of these bottles then I’ll likely be replenishing and using these as my new standard. Maybe I’ll even try some colored primers. Thanks again to Kick-Ass for the samples! If you want to try them out why not get them here.

-Evan