Paint not covering well?

[Sharkdog]

Hello!

I figured this would be a good spot to ask this.

I've recently built a 1/144HG Extreme Gundam, out-of-box. Since I'm starting to want to get more out of my kits, I've started doing a little more work on them.
For this kit, I did that by finally panel-lining it (with a black gundam panel marker); I'm very happy with how that turned out.

After spending some quality time up close and personal with the kit, the tiny but bare thrusters on the back started bothering me a little, and I decided to do a little detailing, and make the insides of those yellow.

So I go out and get this:

(and some masking tape)

I masked the thruster off, and used a fine brush to brush on some of the primer. The primer went on quite well, and looked like it covered the surfaces quite well; so far so good.

I then applied some of the yellow, with a little bit of thinner. This seemed to go alright, but it wasn't on thick enough and I could still make out the grey underneath, so I figured I'd do another layer.
Now I've got something that looks like this:

(Initially it even looked better, just not thick enough: https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-ksnCSE29l6M/Tev8O_rYKYI/AAAAAAAAgag/vakO0ORas-0/s400/1000000221.JPG )

The more I seem to try and paint on, the less it seems to adhere, particularly in the thruster on the left. Even unthinned, I get the same result, and it just looks like a mess.

Anything I could do to still get this to look good (save using an airbrush or spray paint)?

PS. Bonus pic of Extreme Gundam rocking out, because it is extreme. Love, Shark.

[FichtenFoo]

Red, yellow and orange generally need a white base-coat. The pigments are thin and shows a dark background color otherwise.

[Sharkdog]

Awesome, Thanks FF!

I'll definitely give that a shot, I don't have any white primer on hand, but I should have some white paint that should do the trick.

[Sharkdog]

Just a quick followup, your advice has worked out great!

I ended up using a spray can of Tamiya Pure White that my brother still had lying around as my 'primer' after I tried to sand it up a bit (the recesses being so tiny, it was pretty hard to get into.

After a few carefully sprayed coats of white, I sanded it again ever so slightly (with p2000) to get the gloss off of the white, and then brushed on the Flat Yellow Tamiya Enamel that I had (not thinned at all). After two coats of the yellow it looked great, and I added one more coat just because. In the end it looks like I brushed it on a bit thick, probably partly due to me not having any enamel thinner on hand. I'm still very happy with the result though.

I'm very happy with how this turned out, since I'm new to all this stuff (aside from building Gundams, I never painted or customized anything before).
This being a 1/144, and the thrusters being something you barely see, I'll probably leave it like this!

Pictures of the results:




Thanks again for the tip!

[Grail]

When I hand paint with Tamiya I rarely use thinner either. Just a tiny bit of water. Helps to minimize my getting the thinner ratio wrong and getting sloppy results.
I usually reserve thinners for airbrushing.

[Sharkdog]

That was with Tamiya enamel paint though.

I do intend to 'switch' to Tamiya acrylics mostly, especially for what I'm doing now. That's partly because I want to try out Tamiya's new Panel Line Accentuation stuff. As far as I know it's just pre-thinned enamels (Black, Brown and Gray).

But who cares, I'm lazy enough to buy that and give it a shot!