see, everyone has their own way. you have to discover through doing, what makes a good figure for you. find a system that works whether your using acrylics, enamels, oil or a combination. (dont be affraid to use all 3 mediums). i assure you (from a mediocre guy ) you'll get really great results your second or third time. so dont get discouraged and no matter what...listen to these guys, they are masters of their crafts!!
btw, if you use enamels as i do (not sure about the acrylics myself), i usually take a spare sprue from one of my kits dip it into the paint, get a small blob on it and then put it on a cheap $1 plastic painters pallet (although spare styrene or just about anything will work) then use an eye dropper and drop one drop of paint thinner and mix it around. reason being is that thin paint applies better (no clumps), dries faster and looks more realistic. i'm sure that same "basic" idea applies to acrylics as well.
as you can see, i wouldnt write home about any of these figures but they were done with the techniques i told you about (enamel and oil). you can see what "hans" means about the eyes...the oif guy is one of my latest and i left the eyes out...the oil color "filled" it in and considering the scale...its ok as is! most of the other figs were done through variouos stages of practice. just take your time and remember...its paint....you make a mistake...you can always "give it another coat".