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I always used to paint the eyes of my miniatures right at the end. It felt like the ultimate finishing touch - almost something magical like they do with Buddhist statues - but it put a lot of pressure on and was really frustrating when it went wrong and I messed up a miniature I was really proud of. I usually managed to save it but still it was a frustrating experience. Now I often do them first - well as soon in the process as I can - once the base layer for the face is down. It takes off the pressure and I find it so much easier to get it right (still really difficult but easier) and then knowing the eyes are looking good I can sit back and enjoy the ride of painting the rest a lot more. So how do you do it - eyes first or eyes last?

It's difficult to do the eyes first (or that early) in my painting process, as I'm usually putting multiple washes/glazes in the eyesockets and that would just mean the whites disappearing. That said, I sometimes do the eyes by painting white dots left and right, rather than paint the whole eyeball white and then dot the black pupil, and that often feels less stressful to me. That would still be at the end, though (barring touch ups).

If I'm doing black-dot-in-white eyes, I generally try to get them (and mouths/teeth, similar kind of process) done as soon as the face surface is ready, and I'm feeling good about how my fine detail brush is behaving - it can be a bit random (Brother Quiff for this month's contest took three attempts, whiting out the eye and trying again to get the black dot reasonably right) but once it's done it's a weight off. My usual chaos fare is much easier - they all have Syl's glowing green eyes, so it's just green contrast in the socket for shading and then pale green on the eyeball, no dot to worry about - so it's really no more taxing than any other fine detail, I just do them at whatever point I remember to.

When I paint eyes, I prefer to do them last of all. Recently, though, I've been skipping the eyes unless they are very, very distinctly sculpted. If the detail is too shallow, I find that they just look weird.

I paint eyes first. My hands shake way too much to do it any other way. Once I'm past the point where the face doesn't need another wash, I put the white of the eyes in place and let the paint dry for a day so it properly hardens. Then the black dot, which is rarely ever that but a blotch two or three times the intended size. I usually have to take paint away again with a knife, which drags some of the paint onto the surrounding area. Next step, the whole eye gets pared down by painting that area with a darker skin color. After that I can proceed to paint the rest of the face and fix what painting the eyes left messy.

Last. Because scared that washes might pool and ruin the eye job.
Now that you mentioned it, I will try eyes first.

On human/ish figures, eyes first. That way if I screw them up I can strip it back out simply and easily, and re-prime.

As far as wash pooling goes, use a (mostly) dry brush to wick away the excess in the eyes. What remains will tint the bright white of white paint back down to something more in line with the actual color of the 'whites' of human eyes.

For my skaven and lizardmen, eyes are last. This might just be because it's easier to clean up around the eyes without messing up the rest of the face.