The early steps

Except for the 40mm samurai I get from Steve Barber Models, I've only been painting plastic figures these days, and mostly those from board games; it's nice to actually get to use your creations sometimes rather than letting them get dusty on display (my 40mm metal samurai are in a closed case; no dust for them!) 

A lot of these boardgames I've been painting or painted (Conan, Zombicide, Mice and Mystics, Space Cadets Away Missions) have a nice group of heroes and usually a ton of enemy minions to paint. It's the minions that are usually the daunting part to paint.

The enemy minions in Conan have colored bases to differentiate the units.
I'm taking this color and applying it to the clothing to emphasize the units on
the board. This is what my first step looks like when drybrushing the first
couple of layers onto my figures. Later, I will use black to clean up the areas
where there should be no drybrushed color and paint the figures as usual.
The pirate to the left will be blue, and the one to the right will be orange.

Zombicide was easy -- It was just a lot of drybrushing a few layers of gray; 300 figures finished in about 4 hours (over a couple sittings.) With Space Cadets, I went a little more hybrid, painting a monochromatic hue, but painting heads and hands green to add a splash of color to the aliens. Mice and Mystics had fewer minions, so I actually took a little extra time with them (and that collection looks great for the patience.) 

With Conan, I'm using the same drybrushing technique as with Zombicide, but that is simply to lay down the basic/dominant colors. Next, I will use black paint to clean up the edges, and then I'll paint the skin in three or four layers (as per my usual basic technique), and details such as belts, bags, weapons, and such. It will take a little longer than usual, but that first two or three layers of drybrushing the dominant color certainly jumpstarts the process.

And what I'm finding out about myself is that I'm more willing to paint a figure that already has color on it than one that is sitting, covered with nothing but primer.