Help with Textures and Brushes

I have been through almost all of the memories and I am having problems with being able to use the brushes in a way that looks good. I guess you can do something with a blending mode or whatever, but I just can't seem to get them to look good. So I was wondering how to use textures in a way that looks good and the same for brushes. What are some good blending modes? What are the proper colors to use? What looks good and what doesn't? Just that kind of stuff.

Thank you (because I love the tutorials but I can't seem to come up with something good without duplicating something and I don't want to copy someone)