Title. Been doing this hobby for years and never thought about this. Is chaos black a primer? Nothing on the can says it is.

Just put a glob of paint on the wet pallette and within a minute it always looks like this... anyone know what's wrong?

I've seen a bunch of different setups and mini's on stands. What is the most efficient way to have a priming area?

I know it sounds funny considering the term mini but I'm not fond of the super small minis. I don't like straining to see details. I don't have a 3d printer so where can I look to find larger figures? Especially humanoids. I can find various DnD monsters in larger size but not humanoids. Also possibly some Sci fi options in addition to fantasy.

Edit* I'm in Ontario Canada but I'm fine purchasing things online from other places.

I normally use krylon flat black primer, for slap chop dry brushing I see a lot of people use Vallejo but would using super cheap craft store grey paint work? Since the grey ends up going under a more expensive paint anyway it seems wasteful to use an expensive brand for that step

I have a ork morkonaut i need to strip and im looking at the usual suspects for stripping and the amount needed to strip such a large model is quite costly and im wondering will gasoline work as a stripper or will it destroy the plastic?

So I bought a paint agitator to make mixing paint easier. The device came with these metal balls. What do I do with them? Do I put it in the paint bottle? Also do I have to use them? Thank you so much.

I have a rocky history with varnish. I've given up on spray entirely. I've since moved onto Vallejo and found I needed to water it down. Despite applying very thin coats it still came out cloudy in parts. The dropper bottles say to water it down if needs be. Water seemed to fix this problem somewhat but I still notice cloudy areas from time to time.

AK Ultra matte has been my go too since for matte varnish. Do I need to water down AK? It's very watery already in comparison to Vallejo but I've had people say you don't have to water it down.

Also how many coats of varnish do you guys use? My default is two.

Ignore the Dreadnought, he's waiting for a display case to arrive.

I've finally mustered the will to assemble and paint my Intercessors. I've decided that with this project i want to focus on the details on the heads, since i'm not the best at painting small details and tend to mess up the surrounding area, leading to endless cycle of "touch-ups" that leave the models kinda messy.

So i've stuck a ball of plasticine to the connection area of the neck, where i plan to glue the head to the model after everything's painted and ready to go. Now, what i forgot about, are the jump packs. Only after i happily applied the primer over the jump pack connection points, i stopped to wonder - will the glue (I'll probably be using Tamiya Extra Thin Cement for that, but i do have Army Painter plastic glue as well) hold to the primed area, or should i carefully strip the primer off of the connection point using the sprue tool (or whatever it's called).

Also, is painting heads separately even a good idea? I started painting 4 months ago and I've painted my Eliminators and Bladeguard veterans fully assembled (minus the shields on the veterans) and after varnishing and looking at it from time perspective, they turned out okay. I'm probably not going to play with these models, they'll have a cozy spot in the display case, so i want them to look good. Is painting the heads separately a good idea, or should i just stick 'em on and practice?

For reference, I'm spraying at 20-22PSI for paint and more like 25-28PSI for primer, usually from about 4-5". The paint (and primer also) lands on my models visibly wet, like it looks as though I watered it down too much on a palette and painted it on with a brush. I tried to get a picture of it but could never get it quite right where the image showed the shiny wetness of it. And it stays wet for a while, not "a long time" necessarily but, I dunno, 5ish minutes? In terms of dampness and drying my airbrushed paint is behaving much more like brushed-on paint.

I could swear one of the early airbrushing rules I was told was that the paint should basically dry as soon as it hits the model. Up until now I have only used the airbrush for priming and basecoating, but I want to try some blending on a Nighthaunt model and I'm not sure how well that would go if the paint isn't drying properly.

If it matters (I don't know if it does) I also feel like the spray cone of my airbrush isn't that large. Like I feel like it should be covering more ground than it does as I make passes over a model, but if I move it farther away than I normally spray at hardly any paint gets on the model at all.

Am I doing something incorrectly in technique or setup, or is this WAI?

Much obliged, airbrush masters.

ETA: I do use flow improver. My usual ratio is about 1:3 flow improver:thinner. I don't thin with water, just the flow improver/airbrush thinner mix. This happens with basically every paint and/or primer I've used. I have considered that my paint might be too thin, but I am finding that if I don't thin it to a certain point I get killed by paint drying in the works and blocking the brush, requiring a teardown cleaning. FWIW I do use the Vince Venturella method of a drop or two of flow improver into the cup before anything else, though I would have thought that might work itself out pretty quickly.

Before anyone says it I have no earthly idea what "the consistency of milk" means (what fat level milk anyway?) but I have found a paint consistency I can spot and replicate, where anything thicker than it causes the airbrush to jam up.

I'm using a $60ish Gaahleri trigger-style airbrush with a 0.4 needle. I got this after the cheapo airbrush that came with my compressor basically refused to spray paint.