This website uses cookies. 
A Brush With Greatness, Part 2: Casca's Face
Welcome back to my “trying to become a competitive painter” series. As promised, I’m starting with this lovely figure of one of the most beloved and tragic figures in anime: Casca from Berserk, depicted here in her Golden Age pre-Eclipse attire. With skin, hair, leather, cloth, and metal, there are lots of different textures to tackle here, which makes it perfect as a practise piece. I was very eager to get started, but even so, it’s important to examine the model very carefully to see whether there are areas that need cleaning up. This model certainly wasn’t bereft of flaws; the undersides of areas were a bit plagued by the common “goosebumps” 3d printing artefact - where the supports that hold the model up during printing were previously attached. So, with a respirator mask and some 1000 grit sandpaper I went to work smoothing these out (note, when working with resin it is vital to wear some kind of respiratory protection, I know I say this relatively often but dust from resin will get into your lungs and can cause permanent scarring (silicosis and pulmonary fibrosis) that will damage your ability to breathe for the rest of your life, don’t take the chance, mask up!
Once the goosebumps were taken care of, I went around the model and noted places where some kind of intervention was needed, often in the form of clearing away flash, easy enough with a hobby scalpel and some sandpaper. Less straightforward were the “pits” in places where resin had bubbled or otherwise left a small hole in the surface of the miniature. To repair these, I used Milliput “thinned” with a little water and brushed it onto the surface and allowed it to fill those gaps for me. Once Milliput is completely dry, it becomes rock hard, so you can sand it, which is a significant benefit over greenstuff, which retains its default flexibility and propensity to tearing when treated with friction.
With everything squared away, I proceeded to prime, starting with black primer through the airbrush, as usual, followed by some Molotow White from above to really define the forms and make it easier to visualise the shadows. I’ve never painted anything at such a large scale (1/6th) before, so it’s actually quite daunting.
Perhaps the most defining feature of Casca’s character design is that, although her in-universe racial origin is not clear, she is dark-skinned. Although various adaptations vary her skin tone quite dramatically, I decided to go with her skin tone from the iconic 1997 Nippon TV anime, which was probably most people’s first exposure to Berserk and Casca. I started by laying down a base layer of Scalecolor Artist Dark Brown Ochre (a mixture of Mars Black and Quinacridone Red) through the airbrush, thinned quite heavily with Golden Airbrush Medium and built up gradually rather than blitzing the whole thing at once. This provided a nice dark foundation upon which to build the rest of the skin tone.
When I’m airbrushing, I like to alternate between putting down a very thin amount of paint and blowing clean, cold air onto the surface, so that each layer dries almost instantly, ready for the next layer. You have to be a little bit careful with this approach, though; if you accidentally apply too much paint and then blow air, it might begin to ripple and make a bit of a mess. Always apply paint slowly and in a controlled manner to avoid any mishaps.
The next paint I used is the appropriately named Dark Flesh from ProAcryl, again thinned down with the Golden Airbrush Medium and applied pretty much everywhere except the deepest shadows under the chin, behind the ears, at the hairline, places like that. ProAcryl Dark Flesh is a beautifully deep, rich, warm brown that really shines here. The lips were basecoated with ProAcryl Shadow Flesh. This looks rather extreme at the moment, but it’ll be toned down and made to fit later. At the same time, I painted the hair with ProAcryl Black Brown. The cloak I painted with Mindwork Pyrrole Red on the outside and Mindwork Alizarin Crimson on the inside, with the buttons and brooch basecoated with ProAcryl Dark Green Brown (I’ll be painting the gold NMM with the ProAcryl Flameon signature set!). Finally, I basecoated the tunic under the armour with ProAcryl Burnt Sienna (a beautiful warm orange brown colour).
Let’s take a moment to talk about eyes. They’re often referred to euphemistically as a “window on the soul”, our own eyes naturally seek out other eyes in whatever we come aross, so therefore on any image of a human being or animal the eyes tend to be the first thing that our gaze catches on, and thus they’re probably the most important aspect of any representation, if we stuff up the eyes then the illusion will fall apart like wet cake. Any effort we put into the rest of the model is essentially wasted unless the face and eyes are locked in. Some advice from master painter Kirill Kanaev stuck in my mind while painting the eyes:
- Remember that eyes have structure and volume, and are not just stickers stuck onto the face.
- The “whites” of the eyes are not white!
Following on from that, I painted the irises with ProAcryl Black Brown. Since the eyeballs on the sculpt are plain and without any detail (which is good, imo), I needed to make sure that both irises lined up properly, otherwise she’d have a lazy-eyed appearance, which would not be ideal. The next part involved highlighting the iris with PA Warm Brown, and then with successive mixes of Warm Brown and Ivory, on the opposite side to where the main light would enter the eye. In a funny way, the method for painting bright eyes and the method for painting gemstones are very similar. The light “gathers” toward the bottom, and there’s a bright, shiny reflection (catchlight) at the top.
Before the white catchlight, however, I needed to paint the pupils with some ProAcryl Coal Black, because the eyes are dark to begin with, the black pupil doesn’t stand out much at all, but it’s still very important to have it in order to really sell the illusion. I think you’d be able to tell if it wasn’t there. To finish the eyes, I put on a coat of gloss varnish all over the eyeball itself. This isn’t strictly necessary, I just think it makes the eyes look more… eye-like.
Next up are the lips. I highlighted them by mixing white into the Shadow Flesh. Note: Only highlight the bottom lip; the upper lip is going to be darker and almost always in shadow. I highlight a broad section of the bottom lip where light is likely to hit it, then paint the tubercles of the lip with even more white to create a semi-gloss lip.
With the eyes and lips painted, she’s already looking more realistic, but the skin is far too flat and shapeless, in an almost Barbie sort of way, so I move on to highlighting the skin, particularly the cheeks, bridge of the nose, and the chin. For this, I used ProAcryl Dark Warm Skin and Shadow Flesh alongside the Dark Flesh I’d already used. A quick sketch set the values I wanted - Dark Warm Skin as the highlight, fading into Shadow Flesh, then into Dark Flesh. By painting these zones as a sketch first, I can see what they’ll look like holistically before I do any blending or finishing. In this case, I blended the steps together with a very careful use of intermediate tones applied via the airbrush.
The face isn't finished just yet, but next, I took a detour into a different element that needs an article of its own. I hope you'll join me there!
Next time: The Armour
Have any questions or feedback? Drop us a note in the comments below or email us at contact@goonhammer.com. Want articles like this linked in your inbox every Monday morning? Sign up for our newsletter. And don't forget that you can support us on Patreon for backer rewards like early video content, Administratum access, an ad-free experience on our website, and subscriber-only content covering competitive Warhammer 40K!
