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This is my first time painting using highlights, layers, as well as taking pictures...

So any advice would help load, either painting or taking pictures(especially regarding highlights and such)

anywho...my first space marine

Honestly you don't need much advice, that's a pretty solid paintjob, all you need is practice.

I like it.

All that's readily apparent is that you could thin your paints a tiny amount.

Other than that - what undercoat did you use? It looks very bright and could maybe use a bit of tone, but that's very minor.

Solid job!

Agree with Henner91.

A very solid piece of work except I can see the slightly "crinkly" surface texture which sometimes comes from using the paint straight out of the pot.

However the photo is shown three times the size of the real model and the surface texture may not show at all on the tabletop.

Yea....you can see it on the model, nothing is really smooth but I have 20 more to do before I am done, so i will get better.

The paint I was using was pretty old so I have to pick up some new ones.

First off, how do you mix GW paint and water it down? When i was doing my mixing i felt i was wasting ALOT of paint.

Also, when i tried thinning the paint I feel it was tooo thin...what ratio should i be going for, or what consistency

For thinning paints, try using some glaze medium/matte medium. Vallejo sells it in dropper bottles.

When thinning the paint down, just remember that you are going to do multiple coats. The first coat isn't going to completely "hide" the primer underneath. However by the second or third it should be a smooth color.

You'll want the paint in the pot to be smooth; so shake well. Then shake it some more. I use ox gall for thinning the paint, although water is generally fine. Beware Blending Medium; too much of that and the paint may take months to dry...

The main difference is in how well the pigment is distributed in the mixture. With water the pigment will pool a bit as it dries leaving a ring around the area, with a good medium it stays distributed. However, the rings generally don't show on the smaller surfaces of a marine model; it's just when you start painting tanks that it becomes apparent.

Either way, you shouldn't feel like you are wasting paint. That implies that you pulled too much out of the bottle to work with. You'll have to experiment some, but I'd say somewhere around 25% water/medium to paint is a good starting point. Adjust from there. You want it to flow easily off of the brush, but not so much that it's running all over the place.

I just use a wet pallette and dip my brush in water before sticking it in the paint.. then I apply it to the pallette and rub it around.

Just keep the brush wet(ish); you wipe away excessive moisture on the pallette.