Hello!
Just some thoughts on painting from someone who is a bad painter, but can achieve not bad results through cheating.
Faces can be tricky, so here's a cheat - paint the face white, a nice thin coat of paint so as not to obscure any detail - and hit it with the new GW Reikland Fleshshade paint. It pools in the recesses, and so does highlighting for you. It may need more than one wash, depending on how heavy you apply it, but I use it for most of my faces and skin to add some detail and definition with zero effort. I only really get stuck in with highlights and such if the mini is a major hero I want to spend more time on.
I'm an awful painter. My hand shakes, my back hurts, I get headaches and am awfully impatient. I'd probably have given up by now if I hadn't learned to be happy with what I can do (and figured out that cheating is entirely worthwhile). Don't try to produce masterpieces like some of the super talented guys here can do. Just try to do a bit better than last time. Ten models later, compare mini number 1 with mini number 10. You'll be pleased.
Don't be afraid to try different techniques - washes are a godsend, coloured spray primers like those sold by Army Painter are also helpful when painting models with a lot of one colour. Uruk hai are very brown, so I used a brown spray and painted on thinned down metal for the armour - the edges show some of the brown basecoat, so it gives a rust effect. I then hit the skin and armour with brown and black shades, and called it a day. I could have spent more time on them, but I just needed them done. You can ALWAYS go back and improve something after the fact - I could return to the uruk hai and highlight them, for instance.
Don't get hung up on colour matching, either. Just go by eye and you'll be grand. The new paints have a system where the "base" paints are thick with pigment, so should go on easily over an undercoat. But the "layer" paints have less pigment, and let the colour beneath bleed through more, so be careful if you try to use a layer paint over a black undercoat. It's wiser to start with a base paint of an appropriate colour, and then do the layer over that. At that stage your basically highlighting anyway - which I think was the point of the new paints, to make it a natural progression for new or unsure painters.
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