Also, depending on how well sculpted they are and how much patience you have, I have a couple standard techniques I use (both techniques presume white primed figs):
1). Wet blend - Take two complimentary colors and create thinned versions of the paints ... with a clean brush for each end, put a bit of one color at one end of the feather ... put a bit of the other color at the other end and finally with a clean brush dab between the two colors to blend them a bit. Sort of a watercolor technique as applied to minis. This works well on feathered creatures but is especially nice on \"decorative\" feathers that a character may have.
2). Graded Washes - With very thin paint and very careful control about how much paint you apply, pick 3 colors for your feathers ... light, medium, dark. Do a wash of the light color over the entire feathered area. When this is dry, do a wash of the medium color over \"bottom\" 2/3 of the feather. When this is dry, do a wash of the dark color of the \"bottom\" 1/3 of the feather.
(\"bottom\" is correct is you are shading top lightest to bottom darkest). Now it\'s time to pick out some highlights ... use the light color w/ white 50/50 and carefully pick out the details in the top 1/3 of the feathers (if you drybrush be very careful or you\'ll get clunky, chunky paint and ruin the fine finish the washes have left) ... now use the light color as the higlight for the mid 1/3 and finally use the mid color and the light color 50/50 to highlight the bottom 1/3. This technique is time consuming as you can see, but creates a very soft, full bodied feathery surface. I used this technique on my most recent submission ...
http://www.coolminiornot.com/index.php?id=38090&c=All&m=All&nm=none
http://www.coolminiornot.com/index.php?id=38091&c=All&m=All&nm=none
I hope this helps.
jim