First, I really like this mini. Good colors and nice details. Second, thanks to Rachel for her wonderful comments. I think they will help me to improve my mini painting, too.
I agree about the blacklining, but it's great to see it being done as once you get the hang of it, it really adds a lot to the mini. It looks like you may have done the blacklining last? I find that doesn't work for me (I'm too messy!) so I would have done, say, the cream part of the shield first, then carefully blacklined the border and the lion head (?), trying to get very little on the painted cream part, but not worrying about the unpainted bits yet, and then painted those areas - that allows you to get paint all over the unpainted parts, and then cover up all but the thinnest line when you do paint them. I think perhaps the paint-mix you used to blackline was a little thick - try perhaps thinning black paint 1:4 or even more with water. I generally avoid inks because I don't like the shine. Make sure almost all the paint is gone from your brush before you start - thin paint and a loaded brush= horrible mess (believe me, I've ruined countless bits of minis that way!). So touch it on a damp bit of paper towel first as that'll wick out the excess. Sorry if that's all a bit basic, perhaps you already know all that (as I see the figure was posted some months ago) but hey, maybe it'll be useful to someone else too :). One other thing is that the drybrushed sword looks a little rough next to the smooth armour - I would have painted it in layers rather than a drybrush to get a nice smooth effect. But the overall look is nice, I bet he looks good in a little unit!
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