Painting shadows

[Arkham]

Has anyone ever done this?

I'm looking to paint the shadow of a figure model I am doing. My goal is to have the shadow be different than the actual shadow of the figure would be. I was considering airbrushing a clear smoke color to create the shadow, and then flat coating over it.

Is there a better way, or a different technique that works well for this kind of thing?

[TER-OR]

blending the colors is probably the best way. In my experience, on smaller figures, hard shadows don't look right. General brightening on the upper surfaces looks better.

Smoke works OK, but it's better to blend inks if you want to go that route.

[Mr. Badwrench]

I saw something like this at Cool Mini Or Not. (Sorry I can't provide the link to the actual image, I still haven't got the hang of navigating that site). It was a dio with several minis doing combat inside a castle. Everything was painted as though the light source was coming from a fireball in the middle of the scene. Cool secondary lighting came from the moon, shining through a high window. The primary, bright warm light source cast shadows of the minis and furniture upon the surrounding walls.

While it looked great in pictures, I'm not so sure how it would look outside the photographic studio. Real shadows cast by lights around the house or sunlight would conflict with the painted shadows in the dio, spoiling the effect.