[Designer] Avoid overlap of blending modes?

[creatinglightly]

Hello everyone! I'm having a hard time with something I'd like to do in Affinity Designer and don't know if it's because I don't know how to do it, or because I'm understanding things the wrong way.

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Tl;dr: The general idea is having a base colour layer with a flat colour, then add highlight and shadows with dark/light flat colours on top, with them not affecting each other. Is there a way with masking/clipping/other tool that I can do this without having to be precise with the blending modes layers?

Is there a way to use multiple blending modes but that between them they don't affect each other? I have a base layer (flat colour). On top, I have a shadow layer and a highlight layer with multiply and overlay blending modes respectively, but because of how I stack my layers, it's easier for me to do one layer and the other below it, instead of making them precise. In 100% opacity normal layers, this works because the top one hides the one below, but with blending modes they, well, blend.

Is there a way for me to make them not apply to anything but the "base layer"? I tried masking a copy of the base layer but the blending mode wouldn't apply, and in any other way, undesired interaction between layers was happening.

I'm adding an image to make myself more clear

The layer panel at this time looks like this:

- (Stuff)
- Shadow group (with multiply)
- Highlight group (with overlay)
- Base colour layer

Thanks a lot for your time!

[v_kyr]

See some related infos about blending modes:

• Blend modes explained (...Remember that blending affects all underlying layers not just the layer immediately below the blend layer)
• Your Big Friendly Guide to Layer Blend Modes
• Layer blending (help)
• Layer blend ranges *** (help)