You need to just start painting stuff. Work on your crate. Gather a bunch of images of other people's work and study them to see what they're doing and start posting your progress. Study where people put in their highlights and shadows. What do they do when dealing with metal vs wood? Even better, watch time lapses of…
Hi Demonith, give a read to the polycount wiki and watch this very useful tutorial (and it channel as well): [ame] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L7ALfRw6I5I[/ame] Enjoy! :)