Thoughts on my Domino

I use multi-surface acrylics, or acrylics specifically intended for plastic. If the paint wants to dry out too quickly, which it will, I add a little bit of floating medium to the paint. It keeps the paint open longer so that it doesn't dry and "gunk" up. You can find acrylic floating medium at any craft store.

Awesome, thanks! I'll have to see if the hobby shop has some of that.

Yeah, depending on what you need, try retarder (slows dry time) or thinner (sometimes called airbrush medium). I just use thinner so the paint self levels better before drying.

Well on the original head (and many of my other female customs I've attempted...) the paint gets all lumpy on the figure, like really bad acne, or grainy. Tried doing really thin coats with lots of dry time, watering down the paint, I have no idea how on this one the paint came out super smooth for once. I have no trouble with any other colors, just white and skin tone paint. I use Tamiya paints generally and clean the figure with warm water and dish soap.

That's much more specific, now we can actually help lol

I had that problem with Tamiya too, it simply dries too fast so it clumps up on the brush, which then transfers onto the figure. You can probably do fine with it if you constantly wash the brush as you paint, but I didn't bother and stopped using their stuff.

Aaaah that makes so much sense now...*face palm* I ended up mixing my skin tone on a dense wet sponge and it kept the paint wet long enough for me to apply it. Also got two new containers of white and skin tan or w/e the color is called. I guess I'll start ordering my paints off of Amazon...the few local hobby shops that are left only carry Tamiya and some cheaper options. What is the best paint to get for painting action figures?

There's no best paint, just "okay" and "bad" lol. Eventually youre going to find that painting technique and surface prep is more important than the brand of paint. I keep my brush slightly damp at all times and I don't brush over the same area too much to avoid tearing up paint before it dries completely. I also lightly sand the surface before painting, whenever possible. I use P3 paint, costs the same as Testors and Tamiya, etc. but I like its coverage better.

The wet sponge thing is called a "wet palette", glad it worked out for you.

Most people use acrylics because they work on most plastic surfaces. You can use solvent based paint like enamel or lacquer on certain plastics, but usually not the ones we work with.

Do you have a specific effect you want to achieve? "Painting fleshtones" is a really vague goal.

When I'm trying to match a skintone, I get a skin colored paint that's about the right shade and add bits of yellow or red to get it where it needs to be. I found that adding a little yellow helps make flesh tone paints look more natural because usually theyre too pink straight from the pot.

I don't go for hyper realism, but for that you'd start adding bits of blue and green for veins under the skin, etc.

(Looks like you're painting Domino, isnt her skin just white?)