White or Black Underwear?

In the comments to yesterdays post, Paul mentioned that he uses a white undercoat when painting figures to avoid overly darkening the topcoat of paint. As I had a few spare figures laying around I thought I'd paint one in exactly the same way as yesterday but with a white undercoat.

On the left is the figure from yesterday while the one on the right started with a white undercoat. I think the difference is most obvious on the faces of the figures with the white undercoat giving a lighter skin tone. One thing I did find was that I had to use more paint for the topcoat as the white showed through a lot more than the black did, and any spots I missed were very obvious.

At the end of the day I don't think there is much to choose between the two approaches but I think I'll probably stick with the black undercoat as I found it ever so slightly easier.