Yeah I think that’s what would be most practical, if I layered them like that it would stop me from using any layer effects (you can do that with some engines, overlay or additive layer to make stuff shiny underneath) because the pole would also look shiny 🤔

in fact it would be best to separate the circle on the floor as well as that would probably be walked on. so you’d have from top to bottom

pole

light above (additive)

character 

light below 

since you should also have access to layer effects on your art program you can look at how it’d end up— they’ll work the same way coz it’s just math. Grab a sprite you have and slide it under, see how it ends up looking with no effort~!

(fun fact. it’s called additive because all it does is add up the numerical values of the colors, which are all between [0,1]. closer to 1 means more white. multiply is also a literal multiplication, with any number smaller than 1, aka darker than white, you’ll get a smaller number than what you started with, so a darker color. That’s why multiply makes your color darker. Blend modes are neat.)