SANJIESAN CREATOR / Layer structure
Keep a painted shadow inside the intended colour group
A shading stroke can stay neatly inside a group and still cover the wrong object. The important question is which shapes contribute to that group’s transparency. Krita documents alpha inheritance using the composited transparency of layers below, and notes an exception for pass-through groups. Build a small example before applying it to a crowded character file.
Choose the object boundary deliberately
Draw a sleeve and a hand on separate flat-colour layers. Decide whether one shadow stroke should affect both or only the sleeve. Put only the intended base shapes into the test group, then add the shading layer in the documented arrangement. A group called Character is not a precise boundary if it also contains hair, background marks and temporary reference shapes. Inspect what is inside it before treating the name as evidence.
Use an obvious stroke to expose the structure
Temporarily make the test stroke conspicuous and let it cross the sleeve edge. Toggle the relevant base layers individually. Observe which visible regions change the inherited area; this is more informative than painting a subtle finished shadow immediately. If the group is using pass-through, check the documented limitation instead of adding unrelated masks until the stroke happens to disappear. Keep the experiment separate from the finished colour choices.
Return to the artistic decision
Once the boundary behaves as intended, replace the test stroke with the actual shadow. Check the wrist transition and the overlap between hand and cuff: clipping cannot decide where the light should change. Preserve separate control where the hand needs a different treatment. A useful group structure makes the next local revision understandable; it does not remove the need to judge the form or lighting.