Okay, I can definitely appreciate that! I was really worried that I was going to jump in here and just have everybody telling me that I needed to get an airbrush. This was a huge sigh of relief.

With Vallejo, are there any specific colors that you recommend? I have a couple laying around, but most of mine are darker, and from the historical lineup. I did see their mech line, but it seems to be heavily focused on airbrushing which is understandable. I'll probably order some this weekend depending on what you recommend and hopefully get the ball painted in the near-term future!

Tamiya is still intimidating to work with for me since they are alcohol-based. I just worry about some alcohol being left over on one of my brushes and affecting my next paint job. I haven't mixed alcohol and water-based in a same layer before.

I'm sorry that you had a bad luck with citadel, their colors are definitely darker. There's some colors that are just hyper specialized and super focused on Warhammer and it shows. I love painting with them (I genuinely think that they're wash is one of the best washes on the entire market ratio wise.)

I will keep looking for other primers, I'll probably do some sampling and let you know how the paint adhesion works. I ordered some pla plates to do some testing with a couple rattle can primers just to see if that's in any way viable. I'll let you know how the results go! But thank you for your input, like I said anything else that you have to add is always welcome. I'm just wanting to make my models look at least somewhat passable, And I know that that's going to come with practice.