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Looks like there might be some confusion as to why you wash castings before painting. The recommendation to wash castings with warm soapy water is to remove any residue of release agents when the casting was popped from the rubber mold. Just like you might want to wash dirt off of your house before painting so that you are not just painting over dirt which might come off later. Most folks can get away with not doing this step and only wash during bouts of paranoia. Murphy's law guarantees your worst painting jobs will last a lifetime, but your exquisite masterpieces will have gobs of release agent popping off paint like a woman's tube top during Mardi Gras. Adding primer gives you a middle layer of material that not only bonds to the metal, but offers a rough surface on the outside for the paint to stick. White primers really make your colors pop, especially light colors. Dark primers like black or brown really accent the shadows and textures. Don't prime too thick or you'll lose detail. So, the general steps for painting a casting are: wash with warm soapy water, prime, paint a base color, hit it with a watered down ink wash for shadows, then lighten up the base color and drybrush for hightlights. The difference between expensive acrylics (Citadel, Vellajo) and cheap acrylics (Plaid from Walmart/Hobby Lobby) is the amount of pigment vs filler. The cheap ones are fine, but for those pieces that are a real focus of the layout, you might splurge on a few nice colors.
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