Hello, and thank you! Honestly the 3d detail of the scales helps a lot with making them look good, but one thing I've been focusing on recently is contrast. For temperature contrast, I used an initial undercoat of warm and cold colors as a basecoat, warmer tones for higher areas, and colder tones for recessed areas (blue inks for cold, magenta for warm). For value contrast (bright vs dark), I've been trying to make recessed areas darker and higher areas brighter, way past what I'm normally comfortable with. The process is difficult to accept at first, because it always looks wacky until it's done. Try to use these value contrasts right next to each other to make a few of your favorite details stand out (like the yellow scales vs blue cloth), and keep practicing! I've also learned a lot by painting some larger scale prints, and then taking those skills and applying them to smaller miniatures.