wood kit painting..How to, what to use?

I spray paint my wood models with a auto primer first, believe it or not the best is from K-mart. Then air brush with Floquil paints. If you want to use water base paints you need to reinforce the building. Corners, around doors and windows. Hope this helps. Don

I use the cheap acrylic paint from craft stores. No problems with warping.

Priming both sides helps. Also priming with a spray primer or shellac seals the wood grain, then you can sand the wood and get a smoother top coat. Also something like shellac as a primer (not water based) is less likely to cause warping. You can paint acrylics over shellac.

Do not forget lacquer based sanding sealer.  May not be available everywhere.  In my opinion, water based paint should never be used on wood or card stock models.  Works great on real houses, but models warp with excess moisture.

I agree.  I only very rarely will use any kind of water based paint on any model of wood.  I reserve the Polly Scale, etc for use on applied details or for weathering on top of the solvent based paint, usually Floquil.

Am I better off using a airbrush set-up? I am used to using acrylics w/washes for scenery and then out of my element w/structures. When I get a kit should I spray prime ALL loose parts and then construct? How can I acheive color control like I do w/washes of a water based paint but do that w/solvent based? Don't mean to seem like an idiot here , all these items are to expense to just constantly experiment. 

great posts here! I like the latitude and value and even availability of the water based material and the suggested prep makes great sense to utilize. My scenery work w/foam covered by brushed canned joint compound (light coat) then a coat of a light brownish flat latex house paint then go to town w/spray black and toned washes and brushing creates great rock effect. I am going to try a couple of the different methods here. I want to note that I do clamp flat all my structure work so even though warping has occurred I had it clamped flat to dry and in doing so have not lost any pieces due to warping. Maybe to make my platform filled w/structures it will be easier to purchase manufactured mobile homes and just place them.HaHa Thanks guys please keep this thread going w/ideas, I will note progress w/ pics real soon!! Richard