Hi agellatley,

I've searched a lot of sites for things in the past few months and never come across a maya bird modeling tutorial so I don't think there actually is one out there.
We have a tutorial on this site on dragon modeling (I seem to remember from biology studies that reptiles and birds were closely linked in early stages of development), I watched it the other day because I'm going through all the content and it's a good tutorial even though it has a few years on the neck. The only thing that would be different is that the modeling menu set was split into polygons and surfaces in later maya versions, so following along with it wouldn't be a problem. It goes over things you'd need for a phoenix like bird style claws, wing structure and the head is very similar to a phoenix head throughout the tut, and using some different modeling techniques the instructor arrives at a clean smooth polygon dragon model in the final part.

You can check it out here, it's not well described at the moment https://www.simply3dworld.com/movie_p...tml?tut_id=144 and the renders on the page doesn't do the model much justice because it looks much better in the video. Also you can't really see the clawed feet. But if you followed that tutorial first you could just use these same techniques with your own refs afterwards and model a great phoenix. Part 1 where he sets up the image planes is free so download it to see if you like the instruction.

If you want to buy this tutorial let me know because it's really expensive at the moment and not in line with the prices for the new simply maya site we're launching soon, so if you want it I'll put it on Instant Checkout for $25 right away for you.

Nilla