Wire won't do it. You meed something flat. If you have access to wine bottle foil, that's perfect. Other wise, try the foil that tops yogurt cups. Cut them into thin strips, fold over about 1/8 inch at each end and attache them with super glue.
What are you using for paints and brushes? If you can get Vallejo or Andrea acrylics, they are the best there is for figure painting. Don't even try using Tamiya paints. It's not worth the effort. Also, make sure you have good brushes. You'll need to spend a few dollars on each but with good care on your part they'll last a good, long time. .
The better the figure, the better your final product is gooing to be. Most Tamiya figures have very soft detail. Dragon are much better in the plastic realm.
What I, and many figure painters do, is paint from the skin outward. Face, shirt, coat, web gear.
What makes a figure pop is highlighting and shading. Folds should have a darker value of the base color and ridges a lighter value. Again, you should do some research onthe proper colors to use to do this. It's not as simple as adding black or white. In fact, you should almost never add black or white to get shadows and highlights.
Here are a few figure oriented sights that might be of help. Most have articles specific to painting figures that will be quite helpful.
http://www.hfmodeling.com/
http://www.planetfigure.com/
http://www.mb-miniatures.com/index.htm
http://www.metalsofhonour.com/
And finally, http://www.acrylicosvallejo.com/. Here you need to go to Model color in the drop down menu and choose model color. At the bottom of the page, there's a tutorial on figure painting.
Good luck.