My Camera work is horrible

Ok, I don't know why I can't take a decent photo to save my life. Yes I have Macro turned on, it doesn't matter, I suck and I can't get the lighting right.

Anyway, tonight I thought I would do some test painting for my 1ksons.
Here is my test bit. I thought I could use this helmet to practice some yellow, and would have enough blue area and gold trim.
Here he is with the basics done. The picture is horrible. There is actually highlighting going on here though it is near impossible to tell.

Anyway since it was a test I thought I would go all out.
So I did some practicing with the glowing eyes. This is actually the result of too much. I actually had something I was really happy with but then pushed it too far, and this was as good as I could go back. So I'm going to have to go really slow on this step. I also used some wash with the yellow, I think I'm going to use that for the loin cloths but we'll see.

A quick hit with the dullcoat helped smooth it out, though it is hard to tell.
I am looking forward to actually trying out a 1kson now. I think I need some help with my paints though. My Enchanted blue and Ice blue are too dried out so I'll try watering them down. My two golds are also dry but water doesn't seem to help as much, so either I'll need to get new ones or maybe one of the special dilluter thingies they have at the store.