Damn, my last post got lost. Now I have to type everything again... ARGGG
SO, you could try to shade the mini down with the complementary color - red. By this you desaturate the shadow and as we learned: Highlight colors are more saturated than shadow colors.
As for the pinning: I would suggest to ALWAYS pin a big miniature at least on two spots. If the miniature only touches the ground on one spot you could also pin it somewhere you will later not notice, like under the crotch. When you are ready with painting, you just clip this pin as short as possible and paint the remainder black. Quick and dirty, but none will notice.
SO, you could try to shade the mini down with the complementary color - red. By this you desaturate the shadow and as we learned: Highlight colors are more saturated than shadow colors.
As for the pinning: I would suggest to ALWAYS pin a big miniature at least on two spots. If the miniature only touches the ground on one spot you could also pin it somewhere you will later not notice, like under the crotch. When you are ready with painting, you just clip this pin as short as possible and paint the remainder black. Quick and dirty, but none will notice.