Dropped the tripod for this shot and took it from workbench level against the black backdrop or it's hard to get the sinister browline. Opted not to paint black into the recesses, but leave those in blue and highlight up instead.
More fiddling with techniques on the highlighting and almost got to a happy place with the layering, so hopefully a bit of progress on the next one to improve further. His mini-me was a cheeky drybrush with the highlight colour and shade with Leviathan Purple on the skin.
Think the wet palette is starting to make sense too. I've got to learn to be less prissy about letting paints mix into each other and loosen up on control, it sort of naturally yields the colour mixes I want for the highlights - but it pains my orderly soul to watch all the colours just muddle into each other. Quite good fun to play with, mind.