This weekend, I bought a pound of Aves Studio Apoxie Sculpt, which was recommended on DOA as the best sculpting medium for adding permanent, durable, modifiable mods to BJDs. Tragically, there are no stores in Vermont, New Hampshire or northern New York that sell Aves stuff, so I had to spend $10.20 on shipping for $15.00 worth of Apoxie Sculpt. This is my despicious face: >_>

I also collected reference pictures of possible shapes for wingy ears. I got some owner pics of Soom Clozel's wingy ears, which are long and rectangular. I'd love to get some owner pics of Soom Amphibel's, which are high and rounded. I wouldn't copy either type of ears; I'm mostly curious to see how much detail is sculpted in for them to be recognizable as feathery.

Today I searched online for information on how to sculpt wings. eHow has a whole series of videos on a guy sculpting an angel, and the 2 vids about sculpting wings are somewhat helpful, though the incised detail on every single feather seems like overkill. I think that demarcating the boundaries between feathers is more important when sculpting than trying to engrave all the details of the barbs [the little hair-like things that protrude from the rachis, or "stem," of each feather]. Making the wing forms. Sculpting details in the wings part 1. Sculpting details in the wings part 2.

Anyway…I really love how the woman in this YouTube tutorial shapes each feather. Too bad the light and sound are so poor.

And here's a tutorial [still photos] on sculpting wings for Warhammer 40K miniatures with alternative techniques for detailing feathers.

Hmmm, I should probably post this in the customization section on DOA. You know, for science!