Rik,
Bill Horan's book, Military Modeling Masterclass has some great info if you're book shopping.
How To Make Model Soldiers by Philip O. Stearns great old school book.
Making Model Soldiers of the World by Jack Cassin Scott is another good book.
Shep Paine's book on dioramas has some great information on figure painting.
The magazines Historical Miniature and Figure International also routinely produce very helpful articles.
The vallejo acrylics website has some very helpful info on using their paints, but will work for most acrylics.
Then theres that most important technique.....experiment, practice, fail and try again. The more you do and try the better you will become.
Good luck and lets see some results.
Mike
"Imagination is the dye that colors our lives"
Marcus Aurellius
A good friend will come and bail you out of jail...but, a true friend will be sitting next to you saying, "Damn...that was fun!"