Last week I was with some friends and we had been talking about painting models. I was giving some advice on how you can actually paint a model quickly and make it look great with a few techniques and a bit of patience. I prime my models black to begin with, the prime coat does not have to be heavy and just needs to barely cover the mode, even if some of the plastic is showing threw that will be fine.
The first step to quickly painting some models is base coats. I highly recommend watering down your paints while painting with acrylics. A drop of water with a few parts of paint will really help to smooth out the paint and avoid those brush strokes, and globs of paints. You may need to go over some spots twice, however the paint spreads better and probably takes about as much time as a heavy first coat. On my model you will see some of the base coat still coming threw, I am not too worried about this because there will be a highlighting stage yet and as I mentioned this is the technique I use to speed threw models.
After getting down the base coat I go ahead to the ink wash. Nunl Oil from Games workshop is great for models that you want to give a gritty look to (like this troll for instance, I also used this was on my orks and goblins). You can be generous with the wash and you want to cover most of the model and let it seep into the lines that are providing definition (like the arms, fingers, teeth, etc..). However after the ink you will want to give the model some time to dry. If you are doing a group of five or ten models you can probably get started on the next step on the first model after you finish the ink on the last model. I usually take a clean paper towel and dab the model to make sure that no ink is wet if I have not given the model a lot of time to dry.
Next will bring up the colors with a drybrush (for details on dryburshing there are a ton of great videos on youtube for free). The paint color that I use is typically brighter then the base coat, but sometimes the base coat color will give it enough of a highlight. In this instance, I brought up the red on the skin, brown on the leather, and wood. I also used some brighter white on the teeth, and the bones in the bag (never did any side shots, but will probably add some at a later date if people want). You may notice that the straps are a bit brighter then leather over the body. This was done by simply completing a second quick coat afterwards. I also added some yellow for the base of the eyes, and drybrush grey on the hair.
Last step is just some finishing details. For this model, I did another drybrush of pink on the warts , silver on the nails of the bat and on the hair, and a dark white on some of the pieces that I want to bring up to a brighter color (arm straps, some of leather bits, pink warts, etc..). I also drybrushed the nails with the same white and got out the really fine details brush for the eyes.
If I had the time, I perhaps could have done a bit better detailing (and I probably would not have missed the tongue :p ). Also I did not do the base of the model yet, but I would say that other then waiting on the ink to dry this model took < 2 hours, maybe even close to an hour, but I was watching football at the time.
Life After Rake 