Blending layers, overlays, colour burn, colour dodge,

Hi all, after watching heaps of Ps tutorials, I tried to do a specific illustration using grey scale with the intention of overlaying the colour(chroma...). Keeping the all important 'value' that  the artists seem to care so much about.

Only overlay and colourburn seemed to work with success. I have never been a fan of under painting and prefer the alla prima technique. Acrylics are so good now, that you can literally slap on the colour, fast and fun.PP, can paint in the object layer in one blending style AND paint in another, say multiply. Some paintings I do a tint (Using the magic wand).

So trendsetters, How do you guys paint in PP? Do you use these overlay tools copied from Ps or can you control your colour hue, saturation,brightness using opacity of the object/layers. Do we need these overlays? I have tried painter essentials, but I think Corel could really put resources into PP rather than Painter, then it would give Adobe/Avis a run for its money. I am finishing 20 characters for a game, didnt use overlays, the colours are vibrant no problems, (gotta stop watching Ps vids! Thoughts?