Acrylic Paint help needed.

Acrylics dry way faster than enamels, to get good coverage you best add an extender/retarder to the thinner this will extend the drying time and allow for smoother finishes and less brushmarks. Also often sold (premixed) as leveling thinner or airbrush thinner.
Acrylics also work better on top of a primer as it gives more grip to the colour.

Don't have any direct experience with Testors paints so take the above with a pinch of salt as it might not apply.

Dave, the only time I have had a similar problem with acrylics has been when I have not wasged the kit before painting, and therefore mould release agents have still been present on the surfaces to be painted.

Apart from that nothing else rings a bell.

Karl

I have the same problem trying to hand brush acrylics. That's the one thing I hate about using acrylics, it is real tough to get a good finish when hand brushing them.

The retarder and primer are both great ideas and will help a lot. The retarder slows down the drying time and the primer gives the acrylic something to hang onto. The best advice I can give is to thin the paint some so it will flow pretty well, and get it done on the first pass. Everything is fine as long as you don't make subsequent brush passes over the first pass. Get it covered on the first pass and move on and everything should be OK.

Also, watch for "Skinning" on the bottle or palette or whatever you are using to get paint out of. Acrylics dry so fast I usually get one or two brush strokes and when I go back for more paint the surface has already skinned over and dried a little. If I have to hand brush acrylic I usually pour a little out into an old paint cap or something, add a couple of drops of water and paint quick.

I prefer Tamiya Acrylics, And i use a huge brush when i am brush painting. The reason I like tamiya's are because they dry so quickly (once i painted this part xf1 flat black, used my rolly rolly chair to slide accross the room to grab a microbrush, when i got back it was already dry which is around 20 seconds) better yet just use an airbrush no azteks

Make sure that your model is very clean, as oils in your skin will not be very helpful in the acrylics bonding to the plastic. Also, acrylics are much more difficult to handbrush. I don't even thin them, as then I'll experience your problem all the time. And as with any paint, a couple of coats are neccessary for a good finish. And allow the paint to dry betwee coats, as if the underlying coat is still wet, the new coats tend to 'scrub' it off.

Are you having coverage problems with all of these paints or only with certain colors? The greens and grays should cover very well. You could just paint a coat, let it dry and put on more coats. They dry fast enough so you can put on multiple coats to cover. If the problem is with whites and yellows or some tans, then priming it with a medium to light gray first will help.

We've only tried, flat black, flat red, silver and tan with the same results.. We are back at it tomorrow and will start by rewashing ever part.
Thanks guys and gals for your help and thoughts on the subject.

Red is a color that doesn't cover very well with either acrylic or enamel. in general enamel paints are better with metalic colors so silver is one of the colors that don't work as well in acrylics. As for black and tan, try painting multiple coats instead of covering with one coat. Acrylics dry very fast so you can bulid up the color. Sometimes I have trouble covering with tan too. In which case I either paint many layers or prime the plastic.