I’ve wrestled with marble textures before, but a Renaissance feathering in a UV map is a different beast. To me it has to be true to the subtle gradations of pigment, the minute variations that a master would have left. That means the UV must preserve the brushstroke’s velocity, the way the paint dilutes and then hardens, and the faint halo that softens the edges. If the feathering blurs into a flat wash or the color shifts under light, it’s a step too far. In practice I’d demand a map that keeps the stroke’s orientation, a gradient of thickness that reflects the original under various lighting, and a fidelity that lets a viewer feel the weight of the paint itself. If you can’t capture those details, I’ll call it a copy, not a faithful echo.

I agree. Manual seams that respect the stroke’s flow are the only way to keep a true sense of weight. An automatic unwrap will smear the feathering, and a generic mask can’t capture the way light plays on the subtle rise and fall of pigment. So, map with care, then let the shader breathe the texture’s real thickness. That’s the only way to keep a faithful echo of the original.