Hunter,
OMG man your building and painting skills are really up there.
To answer for Bish since he is probably in the rack right now, a wash is a thinned paint, usually black or some other darker color that will seep into the crevasses and add shadows and depth. This can be achieved by using acrylics, enamels or oils. I prefer oils as they seem to spread better and the Turpenoid (oil thinner) doesn’t seem to remove the base coat a readily as enamel thinner. For me, acrylics will tend to add bubbles which will dry in a strange looking pattern.
After a wash, most builders will go over that with a dry brush, where a lighter paint is applied just to the raised surfaces using a brush which has paint that is almost dry but will still transfer just the slightest amount of paint to the raised areas.
You can also do the same type of thing with pastels, which will really make your work pop. The pastels are ground to a powder, usually by rubbing them on sandpaper to file off the pastel, and brushed on. You can also buy already ground pastels.
Doing all three methods really brings out the realism of the build.
Hunter, sorry, its easy to forget not everone knows all these terms, especially when they are new to the hobby. But Steve has got you pretty covered there. Though i do the dry brushing before the wash, just my preferance. With washes you do have to be careful at times as to what type of wash you are useing on which surface. Like Steve, i use oils, but these can't be used on enamel paint. I also used a ready made wash by a company called Flory in the UK which are a water based chalk wash.
These are definatly things to consider for future builds and there tons of onfo on line out there. And keep an eye on the WiP threads on here as you will see many methods