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Absolute novice to painting here, using some old unpainted/primed models to train myself for newer ones.
I'm planning on building a SM Army following the color scheme of the Angels Porphyr/Eagle Warriors.

Three Marines here.






Far left, top only marine was gesso without being thinned. Looks bad now that it's dry.
Middle Marine I feel was too far thinned.
With the right marine, I feel like the consistency was better, but still too thin.

Am I far off?

Your gesso is pooling and obscuring a lot of detail. Is there something preventing you from getting some spray primer and just doing that instead?

Not Really, I just have a tub of gesso and figured I would try it out.

Most of the people who prime figures with gesso do things a bit differently then you are right now.

Basically - you want your figure to look like the blob while the gesso is wet. It will shrink to fit, but you need a certain level of thickness to actually prime properly with it.

http://www.miniwargaming.com/content/ig0nF1LsNGE9 (Lots of other links for it out there as well...that one just happened to float to the top of the barrel).

A lot of people use it full strength right out of the bottle - but most add a little bit of water (I think just so they feel like they are doing something). After that - glop it on and push it down into the cracks and crevices. Set the miniature aside and wait.

Because of the way it dries - it won't really obscure the details like a thick coat of regular paint will. It also needs a very complete and relatively thick coat for strength.

More like this?

I believe that the general consensus is that white gesso doesn't really work for miniatures. I don't know what it is about the black gesso that makes it so superior but I have never seen white used successfully. You want an even color over the entire thing.