Can anyone help me base coat faster?

[GuyWithCoolBackpack]

James Wappel paints armies quickly and has allot of great tips on how to economize your painting sessions.  A big factor is speeding up the base coat process can be as easy as using a larger brush. Believe it or not, he uses a #8 round pointed synthetic brush and mixes colors directly on the mini  for base coating. He even includes the first blocking of highlights and shadows on his very first application of paint, while it's all still wet. It's pretty amazing to watch. Painting your figure this way is very "gut feeling" and can be really liberating. It'can help get you through that first base coat much quicker. In his shaded base-coats class I got all my base colors on a 60mm figure in less than 5 mins.  It was eye opening. 

Are there any examples of this I can look up online, or is this strictly stuff that he has shown off in his (presumably) ReaperCon classes?

[Kormydigar]

When it comes to initial base coating, you don't have to sweat the small details. For the base coat, treat the mini like Ed Wood treats a movie- focus on the BIG picture. 

 

Look over the primed mini and take in the detail. At this point rough ideas are enough. For example when looking over a mini and making decisions I take notice of all the little leather and metal bits and only make the most basic of decisions about them. I look at all the metal parts of the mini and the only thing I worry about at the base coat stage is whether the metal will be warm or cool. If it is going to be steel/silver then it gets based in blue liner. If it is going to be gold, copper, bronze, etc. then it gets based in brown liner. 

 

Same thing for leather do-dads and straps. The base coat for these is going to be either a medium or dark brown depending on if I want the object to be lighter or darker. 

 

The actual final color of things I can leave until the later stages. With the base coat, all I want to do is get basic coverage and cover up that primer. With these basic colors in place as a base there is still time to decide what the final colors will be. The brown metal bits can become bronze or gold as needed. The leather parts will either be a rather light or dark shade depending on how dark the base coat was. 

[aromaticpose]

 

James Wappel

Are there any examples of this I can look up online, or is this strictly stuff that he has shown off in his (presumably) ReaperCon classes?

 

He has an entire video tutorial series for sale.  However, if you want to see a partial example for free, search for "Wappel" on Youtube and you'll find his channel.  He has some samples up which show of pieces of his process.  The Painting Your Skeletons samples shows the tools that he starts with and the process for laying down the basecoat.

 

I picked up the Shaded Basecoat video and Glazing Away video last year, and they're completely worth it.  They lay out the basic process he uses for a figure.