Got into painting miniatures after a friend asked me if I wanted to try it. So we started on some little fighters and I found out that I enjoy doing it and the results dont look too bad. Then I discovered the pewter dragons and was hooked.

Some painting tricks

Actually I don't think I am THAT specialist, but I will write down some things I usually prefer or do when I paint my dragons. There are many different was to do that, so you will just have to find the one that you like best :)

Assembling and basic coloring

For gluing the pieces together I use ordinary superglue. I don't fill up the little spaces and holes that result from slight diversities of the pieces until after I painted it with the base color (white), just because they much easier to find after painting the whole thing white.
Also I use shelly primer and brushes, never color sprays. The paint in the color sprays is to thick and ruining all the details.
If you find something not fitting together, because it was bend, etc. just warm the piece up and bend it the right way.

Deciding for colors

Deciding the color you want to paint is tricky, because you don't need only the right paint, but also a shadow ink to match that color. Best is to try around on a piece of glass (there is a kind of bumpy glass out there that's perfect for it). You can wash the color from the glass with water easily.
Instead of shadow inks I also use air brush paints (they can be shiny sometimes) or aquarell colors (those are perfect for small pieces).
Another possibility is to paint the dragon in a dark color and then highlight it with a much lighter color, like I did on my treasure dragon and the black dragon in conflict. I prefer the shadowing though.
Don't be shy in trying out combinations that you think might look weird. They can turn out to be very nice.

Painting

Sometimes you will have to paint single pieces before you glue them together, just because they will not be reachable otherwise.
Don't use to much color, you will loose the details. I usually paint the bigger areas first, then the smaller ones. (body before bracelet) Leave the tricky things like eyes and teeth to the end, or you will end up correcting them all the time, because you touched them with a brush.
After painting the whole miniature shadow it. Do not be shy with the ink, you need the deeper part to be dark. You can mix the inks with water, to make effect of the ink less dark.
For doing highlighting either use a bigger brush, put a bit of color on it and carefully touch the higher parts. On miniatures with flat parts (like the amethyst dragon) you can also just rub some of the ink off again. I just use my fingers for that. That way I did the green and amethyst dragon. It is a time consuming way, but it works great.
If you decided not to shadow and only use lighter color for highlights you save some time.
You can also paint layer over layer, slowly using lighter shades of colors. Just use a thin color, or you will have no detail on the miniature after a couple of layers.

Tricks for mouth

I usually paint the tongue in red and the rest of the inside of the mouth in dark flesh, then I shadow all of it with brown ink. Then use red again to highlight the tongue a bit. The teeth do at the very end, with a small brush and skull white.
For eyes fill out the eyeball with white, then use black ink mixed with a bit of water. Right after you put the black ink on press a piece of cloth on the spot. So the middle of the eyeball will stay bright white. Then paint the iris.

Tricky colors

Black: How to highlight black? Tricky thing, if you don't want the dragon to look more gray than black. I tried dark gray highlighting on Thakisis and silver highlighting on the black dragon in conflict (very few paint). The silver highlighting worked great, it is just a bit shiny and might not fit on every piece.

Blue: Blue ink ALWAYS looked a bit purple. Or it had this shining of dried blue ink. I bought 3 purple shining blue inks until I discovered a very nice airbrush paint in dark blue. I used this on the coldwind.

White: For white dragons I use a gray airbrush paint for shadowing, then I highlight with white again. On the white dragon in the conflict I used and additional pearl polish paint, that has a blue shiny finish. That makes the white less boring.

Some paints tend to change color after a while. Try to buy quality paints. RalPartha and citadel are those I use the most.

Removing paint

If you want to remove the paint of a piece use pine sol. I heared that break fluid works to. After puting the piece into the pine soil you can rub the paint off.