by Pesren
Hi Oskar, thank you for saying so~So, I've never bothered with Slapchop myself (no judgment, I'm just not an expert), but based on what you're describing, the issue is definitely the black primer. The colors that come out of washes & quick paints have almost no ability to overcome a base coloration of black. And depending on how thickly applied and dense the pigments of your grey paint layer, the black primer might still be poking through a bit. Given the instructions for quick paints generally want very light color primers, a grey that has even a bit of black poking through could still be too dark.
While again I've not used slapchop/zenithal, my guess is to make it work right, you'd either need to multiple layers of the light grey paint rather than one layer (possibly apply it in more places as well), or spray the grey primer as a second layer of primer after the black, with the goal of covering most of it in grey... leaving only the black peeking in a few recesses underneath. If you're not seeing pure grey on the areas you've coated with grey, it probably isn't dense enough for the job yet.
Alternatively..
So I wonder if I should've just primed them all with a grey spray and then just slapped some (1-2-3) nice contract colors on them. And then just forget about the Slap Chop method.
I would definitely say that's a safer way to get started. It might be helpful for now just getting the rhythm and practice of that before trying stuff like slapchop, which aims to speed up the addition of shading effects. I'd mentioned to Thilo above... one way I found on the earlier end of my painting to improve quick-painted colors is simply to do another layer of that color. The quick paints will gradually darken if you apply more layers of themselves, so by carefully targeting crevices/shaded spots (armpits, insides of legs, inner layers of clothing, undersides of things), you can add a bit of shading dynamism that way.
For medium-to-dark contrast/quick colors, the same color applied again might be all you'd need here. Alternatively, if you have Greys, Blacks, Dark Blues etc. in the set, (Ratling Grime, Space Wolves Grey, Black Legion, Basilica Grey etc.) those will absolutely fill the bill. As time goes on though, you might find there's some fun in trying to tweak that a bit. Maybe a yellow color should become orange/brown as it fades, rather than grey/black? Example I like with my Luke Cage here:
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Maybe red could get some purple contrast? Green could get some blue? Over time you might find this is a fun way to experiment with the colors/shading, and you'll be in control of it rather than the black primer telling you where you can color or not 😃
Thanks for replying! I wish you the best as you continue on this. Feel free to ping me in the future if you have questions. =) Again, not an expert or an arbiter of what's good, but you've probably figured out now, I really enjoy talking about the painting hobby with others!