Eagles and Warhawks

For starters, look at the wings of your eagle. They have three rows of feathers. On my griffon, I started out with a medium color on the leading edges of the wing and the main body, white in the middle, and a very dark color on the trailing edge of the wing. The white shows up very nicely and creates a nice separation of color between front and back. The beak is done in the same way as painting bone to make it really stand out. If you look at a bird, they have black eyes. I painted my completely black, they used a Gunze Sangyo Clear Blue to give it a really glossy look.

Here is the step by step:

1. Prime black
2. Drybrush entire body and leading layer of feathers a Polly S Field Drab. This should be a very heavy drybrush that only leaves the very deepest recesses black.
3. Mixing in a little Polly S Grffon Hide, start to highlight the body and feathers until you're just using Griffon Hide.
4. Basecoat the second layer of feathers with Polly S Gargoyle Grey.
5. Now drybrush that layer of feathers with white. The white should catch all the details and edges of the feathers. Don't worry too much about getting paint on the third layer of feathers.
6. Touch up the third layer of feathers with black to cover any paint that might have spilled over. Use black to paint the entire eyes entirely.
7. Drybrush the last layer of feathers with a dark brown, and highlight the very edges with Polly S Field Drab.
8. Paint the beak and claws as you would paint bone.
9. Base
10. Seal

These colors can be changed and since the actual hawk have four layers of feathers, you can add another color. If you don't want to stick with neutral colors, add a blue band in the middle or at the tips.

Written by: Mike Kan