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I suppose clumpy is a bit of an exaggeration... but certainly the paint is not smooth and looks rather flat overall. Is there any way to salvage a model at this point, especially using metallics, without stripping the model?

Without seeing the damage it's kind of hard to come up with a solution; if you don't have detail obscuring clumps I can certainly recommend a method of painting gold.
All paints should be thinned to a milky consistency. Especially with this technique as a good five or six coats may be necessary.

1) Black Undercoat

2) Start off with a basecoat of Iyanden Darksun. Light coats until it masks the undercoat.

3) Shining Gold, as many light coats as necessary to cover the previous.

4) Devlan Mud wash, especially recessed areas.

5) Drybrush Burnished Gold, make best effort to avoid recesses.

6) *Very* lightly drybrush Mythril Silver.

Here's some of my results; forgive the poor image quality... I'm no photographer.

Hope this helps.

Cheers

Thank you... yeah I can't include a photo because I will be entering this model into a contest.

I actually typically use a method for gold similar to yours. My problem actually started with too heavy of a primer. I should have stripped it then, but now it's too late.

Got another one.

Get some very fine sandpaper used for wet sanding and attach some to a small sculpting tool. You can use this to sand down the area you didn't like.

Like the previous poster said, work in multiple thin layers. I have been using this formula for Dark Elves gold areas on armor:

- Basecoat Tin Bitz or Scorched Brown (leads to different effects)
- Cover almost all but deepest recesses with Dwarf Bronze
- Add Shining Gold to Dwarf Bronze and do another thin layer
- Then paint pure Shining Gold
- Add a tiny bit of Chainmail to mix and paint as a highlight, preferably while wet
- After dry, wash with Gryphonne Sepia
- After dry, wash recessed areas and around gold area (as it connects to other areas) with Badab Black
- After dry, very fine line highlight with Chainmail

Hope this is helpful,

Blackbone

Wet sanding really? ...sounds scary lol. So you actually just sand down a portion of an already painted on model?

Does this really work? Will it cause any strange layering discrepancies?


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Ok you guys gave me some ideas. Figuring that I could just strip/wet-sand this part anyway I did some experimenting.

I first gave all the gold a wash of thinned Necrotite Green (P3)... mostly in raised areas.
Then I made a wash of the same green and Vallejo transparent red, which made a delicious red-brown and I pulled the paint into the recesses of the gold mostly.

I can tell you, even stopping right here, the gold took on so much life.

Then, like you guys were suggesting I started back up with multiple thin layers of Vallejo Polished Gold and then eventually getting some mithryl Silver in the mix.

Result - 100% better. Thanks!