Yes the base looks good so far. I'm in the same quandry, what to use, and I'm gradually improving having had years of modelmaking when the paint had to be perfect and shiny to rough and rusty, a bit of a culture shock!
I just finished and posted a 'Rusty Rat Rod' on here so have a look and see what you think. One thing I have learnt is to use a paintbrush again after years of spraying, putting on various colours of red/brown and silver and after drying rub it back carefully to get that worn off look. On the rat rod, having cut the roof off to give a different look I added a very thin Evergreen plastic strip, used a triangular blade file and scored lines in it to give a welded look and painted it silver. Something again I'd never done but tried it to cover the saw cut to drop the roof.
Anyway, look at tips and tech on various model websites to see how other modellers have done theirs, whatever you want to achieve.