Layer Workflow & Order
📋 What it is
Painting in the right order — prime, basecoat, shade, highlight — builds up depth; skip the order and you fight yourself.
🗣️ Coach says
Painting is like building — you work from the ground up. Prime, then basecoat, then shade the low spots, then highlight the high spots. Do it in order and each layer helps the next. Do it backwards and you’re constantly fixing.
🧠 Memory hook
Prime → basecoat → shade → highlight. Ground up, every time.
😂 Giggle
Why was the drybrush so popular at the dance?
Because it had all the right moves — light and fast!
😲 Whoa!
Professional painters almost always work dark-to-light, building highlights up in careful stages rather than all at once.
✅ Quick check: Why does painting in a set order (basecoat, then shade, then highlight) work better?
Say your answer out loud first — then reveal.
Each layer builds on the one before — shading and highlighting on top of a good basecoat creates depth; out of order you fight and repaint.
Workflow order is what makes a paint job look deliberate, not muddy.
🧪 Try it! (2 minutes)
List the four main steps of painting a model in the correct order.