I have been talking to Mig. He is experimenting with the drybrush technique for doing uniforms. There are some figure heads in my photo gallery showing the results of using pastels on heads.

Thanks, guys.

I'm terrible at painting faces, so I might try that.

It's harder to do a wash with acrylics. Some people use what's called a "filter" in that it's more water with just a hint of color. The problem with washing with acrylics is that once dry, there's almost no trace of color. One has to keep on layering washes to achieve the desired effect.

I'm definitely not a painting expert, and I'm not sure what kind of paint you use, but here are some simple tips:

* If it doesn't work in acrylic, try enamels
* Paint the details: bootlaces, boot soles, buttons, hooks, clasps, headbands, chinstraps, lines between the fingers, etc. You'd be surprised how painting in the details a different color, or a glossy color can really make a difference in your figures. For instance, painting the holster black but the pistol's butt semi-gloss black makes the entire piece look better than just one color. Use your references.
* Drybrushing only works if the color is lighter than the base color. Sometimes one has to use an opposite color to look good. For instance, drybrushing black with flesh or a shade of pink looks better than using white.
* Mixing and shaking paints for a long time will make the paint flat. Semi-glossy figures is often the result of not mixing the flat paint long enough.
* Some of the older plastic figures don't have good details anyway so don't blame yourself if it looks bad. A lot of expert figure modelers avoid the older plastic figures too.

Hope this helps.