Self-made griffins… with FEATHERS!!!

Hi!
As you all know, I love working with my hands. Lately, I’ve been doing a lot of papier mâché. Using such materials as metal wire, empty toilet paper rolls, styrophoam balls, plasic bags, masking tape and glued pieces of newspaper, I can manage to create structures of any fantasy animal I want, which I paint and decorate myself. Lately, I have been making a troup of griffins. Yes, griffins! With real feathers!!! All feathers I use are naturally moulted, as I pick them up on the ground. I disinfect them with boiling hot water and Lysol. Here are my self-made griffins:

Orange male griffin

Grey female griffin

Male white griffin

Male blue griffin

Thanks for your compliments, both of you!
To answer your question, it can take from four to seven days to make one, depending on how intensively I concentrate my steps; it takes five steps to make one.

1- I build a structure with wire, an empty toilet paper roll, pieces of plastic bags and styrophaom balls. I put everything together with masking tape.

2- I cover the whole structure with pieces of newspaper I glue on it. When it dries, the griffin is solid and ready to be painted.

3- I paint the griffin with acrylic paint and acrylic varnish, then I sign it discretely. I let it dry.

4- I put the feathers on it. I make small holes in the griffin with a nail, put some glue on the tip of stem of each feather and put them into the holes. The feathers are always put on following a plan, an order; not any feather must be put anywhere. For example, the “male grey griffin” has rock pigeon wing feathers on its wings and its front body has male mallard body feathers; the right wing has right wing feathers, the left wing has left wing feathers, just like a real bird; none of my griffins have “left feathers” on the “right side”, if you follow me well.

5- I make it a necklace. All my griffins have a necklace. It can be made of seashells, cheap jewlery, string…

The blue one has blue-gold macaw feathers (for wings), plus many, many dued goose feathers on the body. This is the griffin with the biggest quatity of dyed feathers. The orange one has only one row of dyed feathers per wing; all other feathers of all other griffins are natural-color.