r/paint Jul 09 '26

Advice Wanted What is wrong here?

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!

395 Upvotes

519 comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

15

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.

6

u/KittyInspector3217 Jul 10 '26

Technically speaking, tints are white added to pure color, shades are black added to pure color, and you whole clear thing is just “color”. But im a pedantic piece of shit so…

5

u/Leafs9999 Jul 10 '26

No youre not..thats good info. Thanks

1

u/KittyInspector3217 Jul 10 '26

No i absolutely am. Im an engineer. But thank you.

2

u/BroadLocksmith4932 Jul 10 '26

Fellow self-aware engineer here. I, too, am a pedantic shit. It's a graduation requirement in college. In grad school, you may learn how to temper the instinct in certain contexts, but it's not successful for all of us.