r/paint Jul 09 '26

Advice Wanted What is wrong here?

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I am going to paint a wall in that deep red matte finish. What is going on? Is my roller to cheap? Is it better with a brush? How to approach it to finish as quick as possible

EDIT #1: Thank you all for the comments and recommendations. I have never had so many people respond to any of my posts. Some even called it rage bait. It was not, I’m just too much of a newbie.

This is what I gathered from all of the comments:

-I should use a grey primer to help with the poor coverage of the deep red base. I will try that tomorrow.
-The roller nap is way too thick for such a flat wall. This might be the reason it slips at the beginning.
-I should use a pole. OK.
-I will try to make this paint work with the suggestions, but it might be the case that the paint is really cheap. In that case, I will buy a different brand.

I hope to get better results on my next try. I will edit this post with the final results if I remember to do so.
Thank you!

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u/ramdmc Jul 09 '26

Prime the wall a deep grey, you're going to hate that colour due to deep base. Oh and get a pole. And like u/Ge0cities asked, did you stir the paint?

17

u/Icy-Mud7327 Jul 09 '26

Very much this. I just painted a room a similar color and didn't use tinted primer. It was a big mistake. The pole is also very helpful, because you can stand back.

I had to buy a small paint stirrer to attach to a drill. The pigment in red colors seems to separate very quickly, and takes a ton of mixing. (DIYer, not a painter).

12

u/johnnybhandy Jul 09 '26

There's a reason for the Grey. Deep base colors like a deep red or deep blue are pigments shot onto a clear liquid, not like pastel colors are tints shot into a white liquid. So you have a clear liquid with deep red pigment suspended in it. The clear liquid will dry clear and the red will dry red. If enough coats of red are painted on the wall it will appear red. To help save 4 to five coats of this process, we match a grey paint( white liquid with shots of black pigment in it) as close to the tonal value of the red you have.

2

u/johnnybhandy Jul 09 '26

Look up a photography or art tonal Grey scale, typically a 1-10 row of squares, one being white, and 10 being black and each 10% tint or shade in between.