Hi Shaky, Having painted a guzillion warhammer miniatures of the past 20 years or so my first option would be to use either black key lines (paint with a very fine brush (sometimes with only one hair) or use 'inks' over a base coat and then apply top coats using dry brushing, sometimes layering the paint in lighter shades to create more depth. If you were to 'sand back the flat surfaces as you suggest then you could use the above method to achieve some good effects. I will do some samples and add them to your screen to illustrate this. These techniques will come into their own when you start painting crew members and there are some tips that will really add realism such as using light traces of dilute turquoise under the eyes lids.