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I've been having a lot of trouble with metallic paints. My research indicates that almost everyone finds them difficult to work with, but I haven't found any tutorials that address my problems directly. If anyone can provide suggestions for dealing with these issues, or just point me to a suitable tutorial, I'd really appreciate it.

1.
I've been ending up with a lot of small, hard clumps in the paint that inevitably get stuck in inaccessible recesses of the model, or just in the middle of the area I'm painting, requiring me to scrape them off (along with a lot of other paint) and start over. Thinning the metallic paints only seems to make the problem worse - the clumps remain, and they stick out even more. Using the paint straight from the bottle hides the smallest clumps fairly well, but results in a "goopy", uneven look. What's the right way to deal with this? I assume these clumps are groups of metal colorant flakes that have stuck together - is this to be expected, or does it mean that my paint has gone bad?

2.
Most of the metal I've done is supposed to be fairly bright and clean looking - more like brushed aluminum than iron or steel. Almost all the tutorials on metallics seem aimed toward painting very dark (and often dirty or rusty) metal that's mostly gray/black with very bright silver reflections on the outer edges. Most of them suggest starting with Boltgun Metal over black, then drybrushing with Chainmail, and possibly following with washes and/or Mithril Silver highlighting. I assumed that I should just start further up the brightness ladder, putting Chainmail over black, adding a little bit of black wash (mostly just at the edges), then adding highlights with Mithril silver. I get the overall level of brightness I'm looking for, but the highlights don't really show up (it ends up looking a lot like I mixed the two colors together before painting). Can anyone suggest a good technique for bright metal?

3.
Most of the models I'm working with have large curved surfaces of silver/gray metallic color surrounded by raised edges of another color. I'm confused about how washes and highlighting work on these surfaces, if they should be used at all. My best guess so far is that I should put black wash only around the raised edges to create a shadow, and that the apex of the curve should be drybrushed with a brighter silver. This hasn't looked great so far, but it's possible that I just haven't had enough practice yet. Is there a better technique I should be using?

i always start over a black under coat but if starting from white you might want to basecoat the metal parts black.
no matter what type of metal i'm doing i always then do a basecoat of tinbitz. this covers really well and most of the other metallics go over it better than any other basecoat that i've found.

for bright shiny silver i would then go bolt gun metal basecoat then heavy drybrush of silver.
follow this with several very thin washes of black and blue inks. for your models i would use the washes to line the creases then maybe draw out some of the colour with a clean, damp brush - the idea is to drag the ink out, making it thinner the further you get from the crease and thus creating a smooth transition.
i also find that the metalics are great for drybrushing anyway and if the above blending technique described above sounds a bit complex then go back to the washes step and cover the whole area until you get the shaddow colour as you want it before drybrushing the silver highlite.

tip 1.
always shake the bottle hard before using, esp if it has sat on your shelf for a while. if it still hasn't mixed properly (usually the case with the hexagonal bottles with the screw top) hand mix with a bent paper clip.
note - i really don't like those bottles and have thrown away quite a few of my metallics from that period. i still have the original flip top ones anyway (i think coat d'arms are the original paint makers and they may still do their own range with different names - i leave others to add to this point). the new flip top tin bitz, so far, is great, but paints don't always age well (although i'm still using some i bought back in the late 80's!).
i don't like the foundation gunmetal so far - not great coverage & was hoping to leave out the tinbitz stage.

hopefully this will get rid of the lumps.

tip 2.
metallics love ink washes and drybrushes. sometimes i do several rounds until i get the result i want.

tip 3.
don't try nmm unless you are really good! i've tried it several times and i have had no luck so far.

here's some egs of my work -










http://i301.photobucket.com/albums/nn53/bubber1234/VAMPR.jpg

http://i301.photobucket.com/albums/nn53/bubber1234/VAML.jpg

http://i301.photobucket.com/albums/nn53/bubber1234/MINR.jpg

http://i301.photobucket.com/albums/nn53/bubber1234/bloatfrontright.jpg

hope all the links work - usually use imageshack but is sooo sloooow so trying photobucket instead.