Priming & Basing Essentials for VoidHive Forge Miniatures

You've cleaned your resin, removed the mould lines, and your model is dry and ready. Now comes the step that separates a paint job that lasts from one that flakes off in a week: priming. And once your model is primed, the base it stands on is the final frame for your work. Get both right and everything that follows becomes easier.

Why Primer Matters

Primer creates a surface that paint can grip. Resin is smooth and non-porous — paint applied directly will rub off with handling. A good primer coat bonds to the resin and gives your paints something to hold onto. It also unifies the surface colour so your first paint layers go on evenly.

Choosing Your Primer

For VoidHive Forge models, black or dark grey primer is almost always the right choice. The deep recesses and organic textures of the range benefit from dark shadows being built in from the start. Options include:

• Spray cans — fast, even coverage. Citadel Chaos Black or Army Painter Matt Black are reliable choices.
• Brush-on primer
— useful for small touch-ups or if you can't spray. Vallejo Surface Primer works well.
• Airbrush primer — the most control, ideal for zenithal priming.

Zenithal Priming

This technique gives you a built-in light map before you paint a single colour. The method:

• Apply black primer as a base coat from all angles
• Apply grey primer from a 45-degree angle above
• Apply white primer from directly overhead

The result is a model that already shows where light hits and where shadows fall. When you apply thin, transparent paints over this, the zenithal shading shows through and does half the work for you.

Priming Tips

• Prime in a warm, dry environment. Cold or humid air causes primer to go grainy.
• Hold the spray can 25–30cm from the model and use short, sweeping passes.
• Rotate the model to catch all angles — missed spots will show up when you paint.
• Let primer cure fully (at least an hour, ideally overnight) before painting.

Basing Your Model

The base grounds your model in a world. For VoidHive Forge's alien aesthetic, we recommend dark, desolate bases that contrast with the model without competing with it.

Simple Alien Base Recipe

• Apply a texture paste (Astrogranite Debris or Stirland Mud) to the base with an old brush
• Once dry, drybrush with a mid-grey or pale stone colour
• Apply a dark wash (Nuln Oil or Agrax Earthshade) to tie it together
• Add a few tufts of dead grass or alien flora for contrast
• Optional: add a few drops of gloss varnish to recesses to suggest pooled liquid

Colour Tie-In

Consider echoing one of your model's accent colours in the base — a tiny spot of bioluminescent green on the ground suggests the Hive has already begun to consume the terrain. It ties model and base together as a single composition.

With your model primed and based, you're ready to start laying down colour. Tomorrow we spotlight one of the range's most imposing centrepieces — the Void Leviathan.