A black base, or black primer, is for pre-shading, but works better for armor and aircraft models as they are usually painted in dark colors. Ship models are usually base colored in a medium to very light gray, so coverage could be an issue, ie.; it will take more coats of a light color to cover a black base. Also aircraft and armor models are a much larger scale - ship models being smaller have correspondingly smaller details, so it could prove easier to use a dark, or black, wash (post-shading) to accentuate them. Although, when I get around to building my 1/144 Revell Fletcher, I definitely will use black pre-shading.
A black base, or black primer, is for pre-shading, but works better for armor and aircraft models as they are usually painted in dark colors. Ship models are usually base colored in a medium to very light gray, so coverage could be an issue, ie.; it will take more coats of a light color to cover a black base. Also aircraft and armor models are a much larger scale - ship models being smaller have correspondingly smaller details, so it could prove easier to use a dark, or black, wash (post-shading) to accentuate them. Although, when I get around to building my 1/144 Revell Fletcher, I definitely will use black pre-shading. :wave_1: