It's all about technics and tips. You can read my tutorials on mfca.org, you'll see that special effects are simple most of the time. The secret is just to find the secret for each job part.
If you're patient and practice, you'll obtain results. If you learned arts at school (light, colors interaction, washes, translucent effects, glazes, mediums, etc... etc...) you just have all the tools to become one of the best painters around.
It reminds me one other french guy, well known in miniature figures painting contests : the guy started to paint figures to quit smoking, he was about 40 or 50years old. He practiced just a few years, and now, he's one of the best miniature painters in the world, far (I mean, far far far
) better than me.