Stepping away from 40K, and miniature armies in general, for a moment... I participated in the Reaper Bones Kickstarter with the intent of bulking up on generic fantasy and science fiction minis to use in RPGs. I've not really done that sort of painting for decades and when I got involved in contributing to writing a couple of RPG projects with the Ubiquitous Rat it seemed like a good time to refresh my collection.
My first experiment with the Reaper Bones Kickstarter Mini set are some IMEF Marines. The Bones project had "paint it right out of the box" as one of its listed benefits. This group of minis, and a group of the heavy marines was done, in part, to test this claim. The other goal of this set of minis was to experiment with creating a feel for the SFRPG setting I've been working on with Ubiquitous Rat for a while. More on that as it evolves! These guys are to represent a T-ReX boarding party with low velocity and 'less than lethal' weapons. T-ReX is a team brand that represents the New Republic of Texas in the Serene Dawn SFRPG.
These, and the (ViSPro Mediation Team) heavies that are still in progress, were taken out of the box and, due to the very flexible plastic they are cast in, mounted on standard 25mm beveled edge round bases. This really helped with stability and gave the minis a little more weight improve the feel of them.
I had a hard time with the base coats and the paint, especially at the edges, faded over a day or so and had to be reapplied. This resulted in a slightly ratty appearance and really irregular shading and highlighting. The next batch of Bones I paint I'll try a regular wash/scrub and see if it clears the problem. I'm hoping that, once washed, they will perform as advertised without need of primer. More to follow.