iain_benson wrote:
I could try spraying the base with matt varnish, though I'll need to protect the rest of the figure so I can still paint it after.
Don't quote me on this, but I'm pretty sure that you can paint over matt varnish quite easily. Don't some people prime their figs with a mix of matt sealer and black paint to get a first pass on shadowing so that they can SEE all the details in the fig?