Thanks for the helpful suggesions, Peter and Angela. I have actually cleaned it up a bit since this picture, and sent it off to the regional LOTR competition in Chicago. When I get it back I'll incorporate your suggestions and post a before and after.
Good clean paintwork. The base is nicely understated and natural. Your flesh tones are accurate and bring out expression nicely. Straighten out that sword, highlight the black of his armor and he's an 8.
You have a great ground technique, especially for someone who hasn't been painting that long. You might want to consider spending more time when cleaning up the miniature; for instance, it looks like you can see a blemish on the base where it came off the molding sprue, and the sword doesn't look straight. Some of the gold highlights don't quite look right; you might consider mixing a little bit of dark brown in with the gold for a fuller coverage, and then gold highlights and perhaps white/yellow/gold final highlights. I also thing some blacklining is needed between the sword blade and the hilt. Finally, careful with drybrushed silver! In small areas, it's a good technique, like the scales, but it doesn't work as well on the sword blade.
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