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.
