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I'm doing my first ever repaint, and as a base color I'm using Testors One-Coat Lacquer spray. I'm having some problems with it. Here's the steps I took before spraying:

-Disassembled the toy
-Removed factory paint w/ rubbing alcohol
-washed w/ warm soapy water
-allowed to dry completely overnight
-mask off areas that are not to be painted.

My problem is that the spray seems to go on smoothly...then I come back when it's dry and portions of the pieces have gone all pebbly. Some parts are perfect. What gives? I'm currently using Blazing Black, a glittery black color. Should I just give up? I've sanded off the lacquer several times, trying to get it to be smooth.

If I do give up, will the metallic black enamel paint have the same glittery effect? Is there a way to get rid of the roughness without ruining the parts that are perfect?

Disclaimer: I haven't used One-Coat, so I'm not familiar with it past a couple minutes surfing scale model sites. That said, I have a few questions first:

Which figure are you painting?

You mentioned some parts come out fine while others don't. Are the parts that don't come out right the same material as the ones that do?

Did you prime the parts first?

The figure is Animated Electrostatic Soundwave. What I mean is, half of a part will come out perfect, and then one half of the same part will be all rough, like it has really bad acne. It looks fine when I spray it, then I come back and it's all pebbly. No primer - the hobby store I got it from didn't have any for sale.

Weird. I know the softer PVC plastic will react with paints, but Soundwave's all ABS plastic, AFACT.

I'm honestly stumped on this one.
It sounds like there's oil or something on the parts, or you're holding the can too far away; I don't think either would generate the random patches you're describing.

Best I can suggest would be to strip the parts and wash them again, then get some flat black lacquer and use it as a primer. If that turns out okay, go ahead and spray a light coat of the Blazing Black.
Either that or give Testors customer support a call.

Sorry I wasn't more of a help.

that's cool - I'm kind of glad I wasn't just doing something incredibly stupid that EVERYONE knows about, you know?

I went through some model car painting forums, apparently the phenomenon is called "orange peel" and it happens when the top coat of the lacquer dries first. So I need to use thinner coats and do it in the shade, I guess. They also talked about polishing the paint and sanding and all sorts of other stuff I have no idea about. I'm thinking I'll go to an actual model car specialty shop in town tomorrow and figure out what exactly I'll need.

Any chance we can get a mod to lock this thread? It just seems to be acting like spambot flypaper.