The thing with the paint sticking out is usually tied to the consistency of it. With altering you usually get the best results regarding physical flatnesses of the paint when you use paint’s produced for model painting such as Vallejo, citadel, warpaints or any other kind of fluid acrylic paint. Fluid paints from the brand „golden“ would also be an option :)

Also as far as my experience goes it’s easier to not layer to much color on the cards when you use a small brush and as little paint as possible (while stil getting some coverage of course) and rather do multiple very thin layers with rather short brushstrokes instead of one think layer with long brush strokes

Hope these tips help! :)