I love your gold (I love your red too but that being said before). Could you write up how you do gold?
Chestnut ink + Orgryn Flesh wash is my secret ingredient. I bought plenty before and only needed a 1:5 ratio of mixing. I tried all other inks from other product lines, but the highly watered consistency of GW's discontinued Chestnut Ink really meshes naturally well with the new wash.
The only thing that comes close is Adikolor Brown Ink, but the consistency is too thick and the pigment too thinned out in comparison to Chestnut ink.
Why does it suck now? The head looks real sick. The flamer bottle is a great touch. Before I forget, what kind of paint brush did you use for the trim? For the dull coat, you brushed it on, not airbrushed it on?
What flamer bottle?
I tried Testor's Dullcote "can" spray like I usually do and it leaves off a sheen of shine. Normally, I love Testor's Dullcote because it's so flat that it would not leave any sort of shine or bright spots onto the model. However, they seemed to changed to formula to follow EU regulations and decided to sell that version here in the Americas as well. This totally bites and pretty much lost another customer out of me. I tried their brush-on version and applied both by brush and by air spray with spirits to dilute, but result are identically bad as the canned version.
As for the trim, which model are you talking about. For Huron's gold trime, I actually had to use a 000 windsor newton brush. I normally do not care for brands for size 0 and higher as long as the brush consistency feels right in my hand. (My size 00 brush is a no name brand originally used for fine chinese caligraphy and found in certain stores for $1.99 and size 0 is Robert Simmons discontinued Crafter Painter brush for $3.99). I stand by my belief that you have to feel total confidence and comfort in the brush that best matches how you paint.