Hi, I'm Kevin Hays and I've been using Blender since 2006. I started with a strong interest in modeling and practiced by participating in weekend challenges and speed modeling contests on the blenderartists forums. In 2009 I began to develop an interest in sculpting. I participated in a community modeling sprint for the animated short Sintel, and the team liked my models and sculpts so much, they asked me to do the sculpting for the dragons. Sculpting has been my favorite thing to do in Blender ever since.

After completing my crystal turtle project, I wanted to make another glowing animal. I picked the scarlet macaw because I really liked the long tail feathers and vibrant colors. The idea was to make the feathers glow like fiber optic strands. Unfortunately, I found that it's very hard to convey that something is glowing with a daytime or evening lighting setup, even in shadow. You really need a nighttime environment to make it obvious that something is glowing. The problem with nighttime lighting is that it drains the saturation out of all of the colors, making everything look duller than I had envisioned when I began the project. In the end, the vibrant colors were more important to me than the glowing feather idea, so I decided to aim for realism instead.