Part of a recent sculpture, I made this feather in shibuichi (40%silver/60% copper) and shakudo (4% gold/ 96% copper). Both of these alloys were made for me by Phillip Baldwin of Shining Wave Metals. I chose this alloy of shibuichi for patina reasons that will be explained later. The inlaid shakudo quill makes a striking contrast.
I modeled the feather from one from Jean's collection. Sadly I don't know what it's from. I'm making up a tutorial with more photos but this should give the basic idea. The smaller photo should be close to life-size in a full browser(38mm or 1.5").