Cartooning Highlighting

Is ther a better way to highlight a cartoon without modifying the highlight using the node tool?  It seems when I wish to highlight a piece of art I must first create a copy of the area I am going to highlight, then I move it a bit to allow for me to use the paint fill tool to color the area to create the highlight.  Then I delete the copy and keep the painted area.  I copy the outline and change the fill to the highlight color.  When I remove the outline it then becomes complicated since I now must use the node tool to correct any overlaps of the highlight and the art.  The transparency tool will allow you to make just line transparent but it too needs some modifaction.  In the art here I just use the nodes and moved them around to somewhat my desired locations.