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I worked on my obliterators tonight, fingers crossed that the new bits stay on. In the meantime, I'm looking for tips to make them look better. I'd like to make them lighter without losing the bloody flesh look. I'm open to general painting tips as well.

What I do is do a base coat of mechite red on the flesh bits areas around the fleshy bits after I do a base coat of black. Then I drybrush red gore, 50pink/50white and detail over it with blood red. I'm sure one of the washes between the drybrushing and detailing would do wonders as well. After all that do the armor parts black and do the rims of them a metallic color like boltgun metal. It's been working for me for awhile. And I find that posing them as if they are taking a step forward with one are forward and the other back looks good aswell.

The bloody flesh look you've got going is sweet. I agree that it needs to lighten up a bit, so here are some suggestions:

More pink. Rarely will you ever hear me say that on these boards, but I think it's true here. Bring up the pink on the highlight edges, maybe follow over it with a nice red wash like it's raw meat with blood on it, then touch it again with another lighter coat of pink. Aim to increase the overall contrast of the meat areas with the deep crimson left for the deepest recesses. Maybe try adding some veins too.

Also, could you shoot another couple of photos with more even lighting? The spotlight you've got is great, but the heavy shadows make it hard to truly see the paint job.

Great work and good luck!