Paint Touch-Up, Rust

[TLMichelle]

My 1994 SC300 has a few minor rust spots, like, the rust is starting in small flaws in the paint. I know that in a couple years (or perhaps sooner) they will be serious problems because rust is like cancer to cars. I want to fix them this spring and I'm shopping for paint now.

I know it's going to need Toyota 202 black paint and I think primer, too, but I don't really know if you're supposed to use primer on very small areas. My plan is to sand away the rust and if the sanding makes a hole, then I have some putty that I can fill it with that can be sanded flush with the body. Then I'm going to paint it and try to do it "right" so that it will look decent and not be prone to rusting again. Last fall on my Acura, I sanded the rust spots, which became holes that I patched with putty, then sanded flush with the body, then painted over with one coat of generic touch-up paint from Wal-mart. After a couple weeks, there was new rust under the touch-up paint. I don't want that happening on my SC.

Looking online, there seem to be a variety of ways to touch-up car paint - spray cans, touch-up pens, jars with paint brushes, etc. I don't know what I should buy for this particular project. If I was just touching up scratches and chips, I think the touch-up pen would be the best option, but with my rust situation, I'm probably going to make the area needing paint larger and messier when I sand it, so I think the paint brushes or spray cans might be better for that?

Has anyone here had to do a project like this, and if so, what did you use?