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Should I use a wash right after applying my basecoat colours? Or should I apply it after I have applied all of my highlights?

And secondly, when it comes to highlighting, do people generally use dry brushing or manual highlighting? Can you use both on the same model? And most importantly, when do you know when to use each technique?

I'm currently painting the basecoats on my first batch of models (just recently got into this hobby), so any advice would be a huge help.

I'd go like:
Basecoat
Wash
Retouch basecoat
Highlights
Wash/Shading
Extreme highlights

You may use both blending/layering anddrybrush (even if indiscriminate drybrush is the dark side: faster, easier to learn).
Drybrysh gives a chalky 'dirty' effect, where blending can give real depth to the model.
As a rule of the thumb, the more detailed or 'rough' is an area, the better a drybrush will do. Just remember that drybrush has less control than blending (for me, at least )

This is a super hard question, as it's something that you just have to feel out. If you're painting armor plates on a marine, Kerrathyr has a great pattern. If you're doing fleshy things(Plaguebearers for example) it's going to be based entirely on what color you want the end result to be. I even use white basecoats and just taint them washes to get good results. There's a tutorial on that somewhere on this forum, and it's very easy to follow, if messy. I don't like extreme highlights as most of my armies are supposed to look dingy, so even after I do highlights I dirty them up with another wash as the final step.


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Also, if you're doing eldar, a lot of people start off with a white basecoat, use a wash in the recesses, and then paint up from there to get bright colors and good details.

The short answer is whenever you like!

Applying a wash after highlighting can help tie the colours together, applying before will generally give a brighter cleaner finish. One can also apply a wash of an alternate colour (brown or black typically) over the top as a quick and dirty, if slightly rough and ready, weathering technique.

As for drybrush vs painted highlights, drybrushing is probably considered more of a starter technique, as you can achieve pretty respectable results with only a little practice. Painting highlights allows for a lot more control, but smooth transitions require better brush control and paint manipulation.

Drybrushing is still the best technique for certain things ( fur, feathers and scales for instance) but still takes a lot of practice to avoid the chalky finish it can produce.

If you're only just starting, I'd stick with drybrushing initially, as you'll get good looking tabletop quality finishes quickly, which can help avoid the sense of being overwhelmed with how much work is involved that some people experience when starting, but definitely have one eye on developing painted highlighting as one of the first skills you look to add. At the end of the day, there's no right choice, it is whatever works for you, but at least if you can do both, you can make an informed choice case by case.

Thanks a lot for the feedback. It really helps out a new hobbyist like myself.

Everyone has their own process for base, wash, highlights. I suggest getting a test figure or two, priming it, and then experimenting with differnt combos to see what works best for your.

I tend to basecoat, wash, highlight. I only drybrush items that have a lot of details, like fur.