Noob painting advice

Hey Freaks,
I recently picked up an airbrush to try my hand at painting some of my own 1/6 head sculpts. I've you tubed a lot of things but have some other noob questions to get me started in the right direction.

Should I primer the sculpt before painting? If so what kind of primer? Regular spray can primer? Rustoleum, krylon, etc..

Base coat...will plain white acrylic to the job?

Best combinations of acrylic paint for skin tones to get me going?

Best method to apply sealer? Brush?

Also looking for a good silver metallic acrylic paint. Any suggestions?

Thats all I can think of for now lol any help is greatly appreciated

1) Should I primer the sculpt before painting?

In general yes... only time I'd say know is if you have a cast-in-color head where highlights are neeeded over full-on paint. But in general primer is needed or the paint may not adhere to the sculpt and can literally wipe or flake off. I would not use something like krylon as they are made for large surfaces, I prefer Model Master primer and I prime human sculpts with white (grey is harder to cover I've found) and may use grey for darker colored accessories.

2) Base coat...will plain white acrylic to the job?

The white primer will also serve as the base to work off of.

3) Best combinations of acrylic paint for skin tones to get me going?

That is tricky... everyone is different but what I do is use 3 skin tones (light, medium and dark) to achieve my base skin tone that I work off of. The way I mixed them was a bit by trial and error but I take a body I want to match and try to get my medium tone as close to that as possible. For Caucasians this involves a mixture of primarily a brown and a pale flesh tone paint, but I also add a bit of red, yellow and black until I get the tone I want. I mix a large batch of that color. I then separate the medium tone into 3 containers that can be sealed (as I use this for a long time). One container will get most of the paint as I will use that as my medium tone and the other two are filled about half way. In one I add a lot more of the brown (making a darker skin tone) and the other I add a lot more of the light fleshtone (making a lighter color).

When painting the head I generally do two coats of the dark first, then two of the medium and finally two of the light. Then I hit the highlights with a pinkish flesh tone for color and then go over that again with the medium or light skin tone to blend it back in.

3) Best method to apply sealer? Brush?

I use both a brush-on sealer and spray sealer... I find for the skin and eyes I prefer the brush on sealers (Model Master Matte Clear Acryl and Gloss Acryl respectively) and for hair and accessories I like the spray kinds (Testors Dulcoat and Gloss Coat).

4) Also looking for a good silver metallic acrylic paint. Any suggestions?

I just buy the tubes of paint from craft stores... they have some pretty nice silver and similar tones. The one thing you can't paint w/o a airbrush is chrome.

Thx, GB! very helpful stuff there

Happy to assist... and obiviously this is just what I do; and there are many other ways to go about it that work and might be better suited to you.