Just a quick update showing one of the (partially) painted great eagles. I managed to bust out the airbrush and have a go with that and managed to get a pretty decent graduation on the feathers. One thing I need to improve on is reducing over-spray and splatter (from bad paint mixes). Part of this was due to my painting set-up  which due to living circumstances has to be set-up and taken down every time I use it. 

I've gone with a black head and graduated it back to an almost white on the ends of the feathers. This way I can brush in the tips of the feathers with black and it should look a lot more realistic that most eagle colour schemes that I've seen. Part of the problem with painting a realistic eagle colour scheme is that they've got so many speckles of different colour. 

Shown below are some reference images that I took inspiration from. There's a mix of eagles, hawks and falcons.