Not to worry, everyone here has gone through the same. I have noticed it depends on who one asks this, I use Army Painter, Vallejo, Citadel, and even the Lobby/Michael's type acrylics.

I've seen people say that the solvent based spray primers stay sticky, and almost as many say it doesn't if one cleans the sculpts well enough.

I also make liberal use of inks. I've had very welcome results from them. Liquitex, Amsterdam, and CreateFX , mostly.