Something Clear, Acts as Primer

[ElectricPaladin]

Here's an odd question: I have a home made banner bit. One side is a banner printed off the internet, the other side is the greenstuff I used to give the banner a bit of thickness and a wavy shape. The problem is that while the front of the banner is awesome and colorful and way more detailed than I could ever freehand in a million years, the back is... green. Greenstuff doesn't take paint too well, as we all know, but masking the front of this flowy banner shape so I can spray the back will be nigh-impossible. I'm trying to figure out of there's something I can spray the bit with that is clear, but holds paint decently well. That way the front will be sealed and the back ready to be painted, then sealed, all in one fell swoop.

At the moment, I have two clear sprays: krylon clear acrylic paint and testors dullcote, the latter being what I use to seal minis.

In the final arithmetic:
• Will the krylon or testor's work to seal the mini and also accept paint better than greenstuff?
• Is there a better solution?
• Is this a fool's errand and I need to work out a new solution (suggestions welcome).

[magickbk]

I'm not a big fan of Krylon on models, so my opinion is biased, but I would use the dull coat (or any other matte spray), do your painting, and then matte spray again.

[Sly]

Once I had a bottle of some Japanese clear primer, it was applied with a brush rather than a spray. It was a metal primer (back then most or all minis were metal), so I don't know how well it would do on greenstuff, but it definitely helped paint grab and hold onto metal. If you can find something like that now, it would be easy to use a brush to apply it to only one side.

[Slacker]

My guess would be with the dullcote, but I haven't used it for this purpose myself. I would suggest mixing up some small pieces of scratch greenstuff and testing each to see how they look with each product and how they accept paint.

Optimally I would have done the greenstuff work, primed the piece, applied the printed out banner as a decal. A while back there was a basic rundown on making your own decals here (http://www.belloflostsouls.net/2010/12/tutorial-custom-decal-sheets.html). Theoretically this could still work if you don't think it would add too much thickness to the banner to go over the print-out you have already applied.

[Houghten]

It's not clear, but what about Imperial Primer? Just paint it on to the green side.

[whargoul666]

I paint over krylon matte all the time. Paint my arms, matte them, paint the shoulder pads, gloss them, apply the decal, touch up to decal, and matte again. It's not great, it causes cohesion problems, but one light coat of paint clears that up. I also like to use paint on primer on areas I can get away with it (like after I matte the arms I reprimer the shoulder pads, but not when I am touching up). I would think that paint on primer is your best bet. Seal your banner from the front then primer the back, that way if you get sloppy you can just wipe it off.

[SotonShades]

I would suggest do a test piece. Make a second banner (not necessarilly quite as detailed) in the same method as the first, spray it with one, probably the dullkote from the support it appears to be getting. If ti works, brilliant. If not, you still have your original banner and can make a third to try other methods out on. To be honest, I have never had too much issue painting straight on to GS, usually after a repair on an otherwise finished, painted model. Maybe buy a pot of the paint on primer from GW, or another source of hobby goodness, and then use your matte spray to seal it afterwards.