I'm getting frustrated painting Ferrus Manus

Nothing is working how I want it to, and the mechanical arms on his back are frustrating to work around so I'm going to start again. The mechanical arms and his actual arms will be coming off and will be painted separately so I can get to all the detail they're covering over.

The fact that the scuplted details of his armour aren't raised but are scuplted INTO his armour are also deeply frustrating to have to paint.

Maybe I'm just losing my touch with my painting :/