Unloader here
I tend to mix for colour / consistency every time I return to the pallette, so getting a line on a piece of kitchen roll before going near the figure is a must. It is something I've read about other people doing but my main reason goes back to Dave Sim's (Cerebus) How To be a comic-book self publisher booklet where he's describing his inking process: dip pen, get line going on scrap, apply single stroke to page, clean nib, start again. I don't rinse my brush every time but ought to, most of the recent ones I've ruined are because the paint on the tip is wet but in the body is drying! Too focussed on the mini & not enough on the process!
Many moons ago there was a White Dwarf article involving using your thumbnail as a pallette, it keeps the paint really close to the mini for working with swiftly drying blends!
Is this issue going to turn out to be as divisive as brushlicking I wonder?
Cheers, B.