Thoughts on how to improve?

[lucid plaza]

This is a completed (minus the base) mini and am wondering how I could improve. I've been painting for a while but I feel I've been in a bit of a rut lately and want to know how to take this to the next step up or if I'm just missing something basic, thanks!

[steel jolt]

Hello Franc!
Nice lonely cowboy out there.
The first thing I have to ask about is: how come the surface is so grainy? Is he a print? Was the surface like that before priming?

My other questions / suggestions as an image:

in blue, places where the color isn't where I would expect it - mostly I suppose spill overs from when you painted another part. It's ok for them to happen, but you will need (for the next mini?) to go back and fix them, re-applying the color of the fabric (ex: the off-white of the shirt near the belt where the wash spilled a bit towards the top).

I've also circled blue his left hand holding the rifle because it's not the same skin color as the one of his other hand or face. Not sure if it's intentional?

In green the elements I would recommend working on for the next mini (though choice is yours!)

• have you drilled the gun? 😁 It's a common recommended thing to do. It's easier than you think at first.
• Gap filling at the shoulder would have been great (with green stuff or milliput or whatever, before priming)
• I think the had has a band that would be nice to pick up, and the (whatever they're called) discs could be metal or any color you like, too, to add to the character here.
• Also overall the hat seems less convincing (in texture) than the rest.

I appreciate your painting some areas of the leather with a color that shows the "fatigue". Also overall I like how the colors have been chosen to be realistic and all

I think it's a 50-50 for me to recommend for the next mini to be cleaner and start to apply more highlights/shadows to start having more volumes (in which case thinning paints more and mixing would be on the menu)? (Or also you could go ahead and go further with textures since you seem to like them.)

Ah, forgot to say it would be great to clean his left eye up. It's small and under the hat, but again you can "go over" the area of black that may go over the skin, with skin color again. (It's the reason I prefer to paint eyes just after painting the base skin color, on my side. I know a lot of painters like to paint them at the end. 🤷‍♂️ Choice is yours!)

I hope this helps. Don't take everything I've written as mandatory, or coming from an expert painter (I'm not, check my pics on this server if in doubt), or as necessarily good for you - we each have to find our path and rhythm in this hobby. What matters though is that he's a cool little dude and you keep on painting, and having fun in the process!