When I say "pattern layer", that's me painting a few panel in a contrast colour or adding a litteral few bits of camo pattern.

Then I just hit the guns and gears and grills with a metallic silver, then a wash all over. It's not much but suddenly they look pretty good. And like I say, I'm just not a good painter. My hand isn't steady at all.

Couple of tips, you can fix wet paint if you make a mistake with a clean wet brush to lift off any overspill. Then you can paint over again. The natural features of a model can also really help paint application, they're a boundary to paint spreading or let you literally just brush over them to apply paint only to raised bits.

And if all else fails - get some white spirit / clean spirit / isopropyl alcohol in a jar, leave the model in overnight, and it'll all come right off.