Painting space ships

OK, way back when, I used to paint miniatures from games workshop. And recently I purchased a copy of Battlestar Galactica the board game that happened to come with a load of plastic spaceships (Vipers, Raptors etc). Foolishly, I decided to paint them!

Without any supplies, I stopped by my local "knowledgeable" hobby shop and bought some paints. Gave the ships a black undercoat and let them dry.

Well the first problem was that the paints were not water based. Without any sort of turpentine, my brushes are quickly buggering up. Second problem was that the paints don't seem to dry nicely. They end up sticky! So much for the excellent advice I received at the Hobby shop (names withheld to protect the guilty).

So then I drybrushed (little technique I learnt in my Warhammer days) a gun metal silver over the top of the black undercoat which ended up with this effect. Not too bad, but still a bit sticky.
Click for a bigger picture.

Not sure where to go from here. I did send the crappy paints back. I'll wait to buy some more until I go to the gaming shop next time to buy something that I actually know how to use properly.