Darkness effect without ruining my work

[wide orchid]

I'd love some advice or tips on how you'd recommend to darken the half of the model opposite the torch so it can look like its coming out of darkness.
I'm scared to do it and ruin all my work by just spraying purple contrast from the air brush.
Any advice?

[brazen patio]

Yeah, you have to darken the rest a lot to make this work.

Think about how dark it would have to be for a torch to throw that much orange light.

The rest of the mini will basically be black, unless you bring in a secondary light source from the opposite direction. In this case you have to clearly define the lighting direction through volumetric highlighting and create a terminator between the two light sources.

You also need to bring up the value of the torch itself and make sure your light has a consistent fall off.

[wide orchid]

Yeah the torch was brighter than expected and I'd want it to be the only light source

How would you darken the rest without covering all the other work?

And as far as bringing up the torch value, I could glaze more yellow?

[mossy jewel]

You can go back to your original colors and mix in the complimentary color. This will create different shades of grey, since the light is warm you want a cool shadow. Then you can come back with a deep purple or blue like Payne's grey to unify it all. I don't think contrast would work well, since it increases contrast, where you want to decrease contrast on the darker side. The contrast paint will react diffirently to different surfaces, and you want a more uniform filter. Unless you do another light source on the other side.

[wide orchid]

So uniform filter can I just take a deep purple or blue and dilute the crap out of it before spraying it on the shadow bits? Or Id have to add them one at a time to each colored section as a purple or blue mixed in with the mid tone as like a glaze?

[brazen patio]

I don’t know what the “contrast paint increases contrast” thing is about, but that’s not true at all.

Contrast paint just darkens, that’s it. It’ll darken recesses more since it pools there, but it’ll darken everything.

[brazen patio]

If you want the torch as the only light source that will make the opposite side of the mini entirely black as it’s completely unlit.

Is that really the effect you are after?

These types of paint job can look great in photo, but the same way any black object doesn’t look like a dark void, in real life the figure will just look painted black and as a result kinda strange.

But if this is the case then to your question about avoiding covering the paint. Not going to happen. You will have to paint over the whole thing.

I think at this stage you will have to look up references for the type of effect you’re after and plot your course based on that.

Find artwork, movie stills or other paint jobs that depict the look you want. You can post them here if you want more concrete advice on how to get there.