One way to improve your painting is to try painting minis that allow you to concentrate on painting one particular thing. I picked up this Reaper figure some years ago to practise painting skin tones. As you can see I didn't really bother with highlighting or shading anything else but Brand the Barbarian has served me well in my collection of RPG baddies nonetheless.Whilst I don't remember the details of how I painted the figure I do recall that it was one of my early forays into using inks and washes for shading. Washes and inks can be bought commercially and are designed to get in the recesses and provide shading. "What's the difference between them?" I hear you ask. Well, at this level of painting the main one is that inks dry with a glossy finish and can't be made at home. A wash on the other hand can be made by simply diluting paint with water. If you experiment with them you'll find that they give different effects but that goes way beyond the scope of this post and there are plenty of better painters to tell you about that. :)
The wash on this figure is very obvious around his abdomen and perhaps a bit too heavily applied but it does show nicely how shading should sit in the recesses to add depth to the model. To get it there you simply basecoat the model and then paint the wash or ink into the recesses. A decent brush, a steady hand and a little practice are all that you need. Some pre mixed washes are great and flow naturally into the recesses others need a bit more care. Keep in mind that if you apply it too thin you can always add another coat to darken it further. If you start with it too dark you need to redo the base coat over that area and start again.
If you want to try the technique out I personally find brown washes can be used on lots of thing: skin, wood, leather, fur. Black washes over metal is also a standard technique that many people use. You can of course use any colours and there are all sorts of easy and neat effects you can get. Give it a try sometime!
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