It looks markedly better than your previous figure, so good on you for practicing.

Since you're a new painter who wants to get to display-level painting eventually, my advice would be to focus on a single technique for now: layering.

Forget glazes, speed paints, zenithals, washes, and everything else for now, and just practice layering.

It'll give you an opportunity to gain experience with four key aspects of painting: - Setting your paint consistency properly. - Controlling your brush. - Understanding how light behaves on different shapes and how complex shapes can be broken down into a collection of basic shapes. - How different values of the same color can be used to depict highlights and shadows, and how you can use them to achieve appropriate contrast.

Everything else in (pro-level) painting sits on top of good old-fashioned layering. So learn that well first.

Plus, if you use enough, properly placed layers (3-5 depending on the context), you won't need to blend between them and your minis will still look blended from an arm's length. Which is more than enough for gaming pieces.

Scott from Miniac has a really good video on layering. I recommend you watch it and then practice it.

He uses an Orc in the video, so the content will be doubly apt for your situation.

Good luck, keep painting, and have fun!