Best colour primer for red paint

[Starspell]

After a little advice here. Going to be starting a BAe Hawk T.1A Red Arrow shortly. It's the Revell kit in 1:32 and is molded in red plastic.

What colour would you use for primer, white or yellow? (Personnally I would have gone for white, but recall seeing somewhere that someone suggested yellow).

Or should I just not prime and go red over red?  Planning to use lacquer, (MRP-184, Signal Red (BS537))

 

Blue is the complimentary colour for red but think that would make the red too dark ?!?!?

 

Anyone got an opinion or experience in this?

[Black Knight]

I prefer gloss orange as  a 1st under coat for red, and yellow, on grey or white plastic, then use a matt red over that. On red plastic I use Humbrol 19 bright red to match-in any fillers, then its straight on with the proper shade of red

[colin]

Depends of how bright you want the red to look, the primer colour can change the look of the top coat.Pink/yellow/white seem to give a bright red, grey more dull red

Some of the car modellers may chip in as they have more knowledge on this matter imho

[bmwh548]

In the car world I'm pretty sure that unless the manufacturer clearly states a certain base color is required you will always be going over grey primer. It's what I always do and it matches the supplier's catalogue. Then again I use automotive paint which has a pigment that is much better than that of most modelling paints.

All three have been painted over grey primer using color coded automotive paint. First one wasn't clear coated yet.

 

[Jamie @ Sovereign Hobbies]

Given that you're painting a model of a jet, it depends very much on what you want to achieve. In real life, real paints including model paints are opacity checked on a half black/half white test card at a given film thickness (100 microns in our case is the maximum - some might be completely opaque at less than this). I mention this because achieving the necessary film thickness for opacity renders the primer colour entirely irrelevant as far as final appearance goes. Why is there such a film thickness used? Why not just dump in more pigment? The cynic might think it's because pigment is expensive and that's true, but the technical reason of greater concern is that too high a pigment to binder ratio leads to various Bad Things(TM) happening such as chalking, peeling and so on.

 

You will find just as many people telling you to use this colour or that as a primer to make your red paint "pop" as you'll find people diluting the red paint with something else to achieve "scale effect".

 

The upshot is that any colour of undercoat is acceptable, and good coats always go on better over some dry mist coats before laying down a wet coat.

[Peter Browne]

A yellow undercoat can make the red pop, it that is what is wanted.  Check out: