Hi Marco,
Beautiful work my friend, would love to see some back and side shots of this creation.
With regards the feathers, Mark, Stephen and Jay are all on target, as sorry New Zealand birds are generally not that attractive ;-) Certainly we don't have any species that are as colourful in appearance as South American or African birds that would have this type of plumage. I would therefore strongly recommend you repaint the yellow & blue tipped feathers.
Their were also not many local birds with feathers this size, you do have some options which would be interesting such as speckled brown, black and white from our eagles (maybe not the Great Eagle which was thought to be the largest eagle to ever live:
http://www.newzealandeagle.com/). These could also come from sea birds such as albatross (mollymawks), sea gulls or gannets.
For colour maybe only the Kakapo, our large "parrot owl" has bright green, speckled feathers:
http://www.nzbirds.com/birds/kakapo.html
Then of course given this subject is based on a more modern maori leader (see next post) you could choose some domestic bird or fowl for the source of the feathers such as a black swan, goose, hen or duck maybe. For full details of the range of NZ birds there is a very good gallery here:
http://www.nzbirds.com/birds/gallery.html - note lots of the more interesting ones are only small birds about the size of sparrows or large pigeons so would not have feathers this size, if any take your interest just give me a yell and I'll see if I can help.
Sorry none of these may seem as bright as your choice for the spotted feathers, given the effort you have put into this it would be a shame not to get the final touches right.
Hope this is helpful.
Mike
Michael J Butler
Host MedRom Forum
http://forums.delphiforums.com/medrenfig
NEW ZEALAND
