Nope, true story. The sand colour of the plastic kept shining through. Once I had glued pieces together I gave another coat of NATO green to cover up any tell tale traces of the gluing process. The Academy M998 Gun Truck also has quite a few more pieces than the M1025 of the same make. Although, I won't dispute the fact that it does sound a bit odd to use so many cans. I built Tamiya's M48A3 recently, using only one and a half cans of Tamiya Olive Drab.

Bob, the problem may very well be that I spray the pieces while they're still on the sprues, then again once they have been put together. The spraying the sprues is what uses a large amount of paint. So if I assemble the model (after it has been primed) and spray it the base colour, I will get that uniformed look?

Actually I think you were experiencing pigment bleed through from the plastic itself.

The Tamiya paint is a lacquer based product and the solvents may have caused the pigments to "float" to the top, thus giving the appearance of poor coverage. Red and yellow pigments are most prone to this.

Also putting on additional coats to quickly makes this worse. As a general rule of thumb, wait two or more days between coats if this happens again.

As many have suggested, use a primer of some sort. You may be able to find a quality automotive "sandable" primer in your area if hobby type primers aren't available.