A little while ago, I got a full set of metallic paints in vibrant primary colors. I immediately felt like there was huge potential to this- you could use them to add all sorts of extra depth and interest to True Metallic techniques.

And one of the things that struck me was the idea that you could use them for feathers. With many birds, feathers already have a sort of metallic shine to them, so it isn’t too crazy to consider using true metallic techniques to express this.

While I initial was afraid that it would be hard to keep the phoenix from looking inanimate -like a bronze statue of a bird, rather than a bird. To my surprise, I didn’t have to do a lot of corrections for this, since the mini really never was in much danger of looking too inorganic.