Great Eagles

The eagles. I have not painted Gwaihir as of yet, but I did paint the two from the Hobbit release. I liked these models alot, although the wings could have fit to the body a bit better. I probably should have used some green stuff, but I am too much of a novice to make that look any good with feathers.

 
I painted this eagle darker than the other. I wanted there to be some contrast between the two apart from just the poses. The body, legs and feet are done with a 2:1 mix of burnt umber and black, and then added progressively larger amounts of vanilla to the mix to for the highlights. The primaries are a 50/50 mix of black and dolphin grey, with a highlight of 2:1 dolphin grey and black, and a finish of just dolphin grey.

The other eagle is painted with brown (Craftsmart paint). The highlight is a 50/50 mix of brown and a reddish brown paint that a wore the label off since I use it so much. The final highlight is the reddish brown paint. Primaries were done using the same process as the other eagle.

With both eagles the heads were painted with a basecoat of  Craftsmart "Golden Brown", with a bit of brown around the eyes. Golden brown was drybrushed over the neck plumage in an attempt ot blend the head into the body. I then mixed in progressively larger quantities of vanilla to the golden brown for the highlights of the head.

The beak is a mix of golden brown and dark yellow at about 50/50, with highlights of 2:1 dark yellow and golden brown. I mixed up some grey to drybrush over the end of the beak.

I basecoated the entire model with black. The orange feet didn't look good over the black so I painted white over them, and then went with the Folkart's orange, with a highlight of 50/50 orange and vanilla. Claws are black, with a grey highlight.