Day 04 - Painting the Gray Base Coat

Since we have a nice coating of clear matte that is dry it's time to apply some paint.  I asked my good friend and expert modeler Scott Perry
( http://modelrailroadersnotebook.blogspot.com/
which comes first, the chicken or the egg?  Actually I asked Scott if I should paint the pieces first and then attach the reinforcement, or attach the reinforcement and then paint.  Scott said to paint first, so paint we will do!

Since I was low on paint I went to Hobby Lobby (with 40% off coupon in hand) and picked up a few things.  Left to right:  a 6 pack of jars, (2) each of flat black and flat white Testors enamel, paint thinner / brush cleaner, a 15 pack of #11 hobby knife blades, and some modelers putty.  The jars are for cleaning the brushes and paint storage.  The putty is for....well, you know what it's for!

What's this?  Well, I seem to subconsciously like to knock over paint bottles, so I used Scott Perry's excellent idea of creating a little foam base for the paint bottle.  It wedges nicely into a little plastic tray to contain drips and whatever.

Here I'm painting the front porch deck with Testors flat gray.  I'll give everything a coat of the same gray.  This coating isn't to seal the wood because I did that with the clear matte spray.  The gray will be used as an undercoating for the top coat to give variation in the color.  You'll see this later.  By the way, it looks like my brush has been through WW II - I quickly switch to another brush.

I've got to admit that by the time I'm done with painting everything I'm sick of painting!  Why didn't I use spray paint?  Well, since I'm using Testors paint as the top coat and as the base I wanted to ensure that there wouldn't be any funny business with reactions between different paints.

Why did I paint the areas noted with the arrows since they aren't part of the finished structure?  I will use these areas as test areas for different paint colors, techniques and such before painting the actual structure parts. 

Remember those little jars I bought to clean bushes and store paint?  Well, they are made of plastic......and NOT of the kind of plastic that is resistant to solvents!  When I took the cap off of this one when the thinner / brush cleaner had been in it overnight it crumbled in my hand!  It was a good thing that I wasn't near the work area!  I'll mark these as "For Water Based Only"  I should have known better!