Here's exactly how I do mine - doesn't take as long as it might sound :-)

base of gore red
drybrush liberally with blood red
ink thoroughly with red ink
then a wash of fleshwash to put the dark into the details - the more aged you want your mini to appear the more ink you use, for a more "new" recruit you might thin the fleshwash some

that's it! :-)
the trick is that the ink dries shiny, the armor surfaces (having many raised highlights) tend to shine and sparkle more than the darker recesses, so even though they too are "shiny" the armor plates keep one's attention :-)

the black is something I'm glad you asked about... look here
top row of pics, second from left you'll see one of my guys with an old style black knee pad - this is how that goes...
paint chaos black
then with a small/thin brushgo over it lightly with black ink and suddenly you have a very glossy black kneepad :-)
the next step is easy too
for the red tear you just paint a tiny red tear with blood red
then you (again with a small brush) lightly go over just the red tear with red ink - and suddenly your tear is very shiny red :-)

if you have any difficulties with the repainting with ink there is also another way - just get a bottle of GW's varnish, and put a little thinned varnish right onto the area you want to be glossy - it dries nice and glossy :-) careful not to use too much though - it can be a little cloudy!

I never know how others do their painting, but I have a little flat plastic dish/tray that has several small dimples into which one can put/mix their paint. So I'll open my paint bottle, dip my brush in a few times, and transfer some paint over into one of the dimples - then if I want to thin the paint (as I often do) I touch my brush to water then back to the paint in my tray until it has the right consistency - then I can do my painting. I seem to clean my brushes constantly as I go along, probably I'll clean my brush every five minutes or so (not like it's hard to do - swish in water and dry off with a tissue!) but I just find a clean brush holds paint so much better! Not at first of course, there's a term called paintbrush "loading" which is when you have a totally clean brush, then you "load" it with paint (getting your paint thoroughly into the bristles of the tip of your brush)  then the paint seemingly adheres magically wherever you touch your brush for the next few seconds (if only it would stay like that longer! DOH!) but seems to me my brush runs out of paint all too soon, so back to the painting tray for another "load" it goes, just a few loads and I find my brush is starting to get a little stiff so I swish it through water and begin it all again :-)

Well I see I'm rambling now, but I hope some of this has made sense! :-)  Wow - I wrote a lot here - I might just have to put a copy of this on my site somewhere, maybe it'll help someone else another day :-)

thanks for visiting my site!
if only we were all close enough to play together :-)
Glory to the Emperor and Sanguinius ~ Brother Edward
 
 

PS. "weathered" Blood Angels...

I almost forgot to mention, for an even more "weathered" effect try this.. much the same as before except see the parenthesis..

base of gore red
drybrush liberally with blood red (BEFORE THE GORE RED IS DRY)
ink thoroughly with red ink
then a wash of fleshwash to put the dark into the details - the more aged you want your mini to appear the more ink you use, for a more "new" recruit you might thin the fleshwash some
 

I know it sounds crazy - but it makes an interesting "streaky" look to your BA which (after covered by your many ink washes) is actually a fairly subtle effect :-)

Whenever I want to make a guy who I want to look like he's been around for a good long while - this is the technique I use :-)

hope this helps!
Glory to the Emperor and Sanguinius ~ Brother Edward

This is so easy, and looks really sharp too! Let's start with the chest eagles. Personally I loke to go with a kind of "weathered bone" look so I paint the eagle bleached bone - then I just paint it again with straight fleshwash ink and whammo the ink goes into the details and I'm done! :)

If you want a brighter look you can try painting the eagle whie and then use the fleshwash ink and it makes the highlights a littlebrighter (it's a very nice subtle effect!)

If you want to go with a more modern look (like steel), then use a bright silver (maybe mythril silver) and then paint over it with black ink and the black goes into the details - bringing the design to life! :)

All of these techniques can be used identically when detailing any of the skull details that you encounter :)

I hope this helps! ~ Brother Edward