Materials Primers and grey dolls

There are several reasons to prime a doll before casting.

The most obvious is to give tha entire doll a good surface. A neutral, medium grey is great for making small defects show up clearly, so that's why many primers are colored like that.

A second reason is to reduce the risk of bad reactions between the original sculpt and the silicone. It is easy to test the silicone with the primer, but testing it with every single material used for making the original sculpt can be a lot of work. Especcially if you have done a lot of experimentation with different materials and can't be sure what has possibly contaminated the pieces.

 

Most dollmakers seem to use mr surfacer. It comes in 3 (maybe 4 but I have only seen three) thicknesses, 500-1000 and 1500 with the 1500 being the finest. It fills cracks and sanding lines so it really makes surface surface of your doll really smooth other than also priming it. So your cast is also vvery smooth. And while it also comes in white and black the most used and sold color is that grey. The reason I believe most work with that one is that it doesn’t react with silicone aka doesn’t cause bubbling in your cast, while some other primers do. I have only used it as a primer before painting but its good stuff. You can buy it in a spray can but also in a jar to use with an airbrush. It also shows where your doll still needs work, so thats why you will sometimes see dolls with white patches, where they got sanded again. But always before the cast they will get completely primed.

 

Thank you so much for this info it is helpful to me too!