New Medium, New Memories [Blue: Carving]

[Blue]

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JUST LIL' OL' ME 306 ARTWORK LVL 1

and so it began... the grind back to the comfort zone. Not that working in new media was an issue for Blue, but honestly, a girl's gotta have her preferences. Carving was interesting at least, it provided her the means to to make ends-meet and it was fun when you got into the groove of things. For now, the young artisan would have to make due with what she had. Unfortunately all she had were some beginner chisels and a hunk of rock as big as her. This would take some time to figure out. First on Blue's poorly made agenda was deciding on a subject. What was there to chisel that would be worth chiseling? When she thought about it, rock carving was limited in that it lacked color. Blue was a painter and sketch artist as a hobby, rarely experimenting with stone and wood carving. It would be a trial to figure out just what she could get away with in her current state. "Mistakes in carving are hard to fix, it's really an unforgivable medium..." Blue mused to herself quietly, leaning against the heavy stone and humming softly, tapping out the beat with her index finger. "What do I see when I look at you..." Time passed by slowly, ever marching on to the end of the world. What could it be, what did she see? was it a bird, flying on high? a dream, where even men will cry? "Oh my... I'm thinking up tunes again.. I really must decide." Blue took her chisel in hand, searching for the key point of start for the subject she envisioned. It was there, taking shape slowly, and soon she found herself blissfully aware of what must be done and a gentle smile tugged at her face before she buried her chisel into the stone.

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[Blue]

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VERY STONE, WOW 250 ARTWORK LVL 2

Chip chip chip away, the stone crumbled under the pressure of Blue's starter chisel and hammer. The boulder in question was of a decent strength, weak enough to break though but not enough to crumble should she strike too hard. Stone was of many different compositions, and needed to be carefully examined before one worked on it. In the days of Gothic Cathedrals, using stone from the wrong quarry could prove disastrous to both the work and the lives of those around it. Not that it was the case for a small scale project such as this, but the rule of thumb still stood. The stone had still yet to take a definite shape by which a passerby could recognize, but Blue knew what she was building up to. The young artisan could see in her minds eye the beauty within the stone, and there was an ever driving need to reveal it. So Blue worked non-stop, tirelessly chipping away at the stone until pieces gave away and the shape became more defined. Hours passed, and eventually the stone held the basic shape which Blue had envisioned. But that wasn't enough. In fact, in her excitement, Blue had forgotten a very important detail. "Oh shoot...! I should have sketched it out beforehand!" An amateur mistake which reflected her inexperience with carving. Even stone sculptors sketched out their project before taking chisel to stone. The young artisan brought dusty palm to her forehead and sighed. "I suppose I should put thought to paper then... hopefully it will come out alright."

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[Blue]

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SEVEN MORE TO GOOOOOOO 304 ARTWORK LVL 3

The initial sketch was always the hardest to look at. Why? Well, any experienced artist would understand, the dissatisfaction with their work in the beginning, sometimes stretching onward for eternity. It's a certain nagging drive that pushes someone in there craft to keep going where others would say they have reached perfection. It can be found in anyone passionate for their work. Blue was no different than any other artist who took their work seriously. "That looks wrong... the proportions are all wrong, I won't be able to keep that stable... No, If I can transfer the weight... Got it!" A light gleamed in Blue's emerald green eyes, and a devilish smirk played across her features. Her drawing hand gripped tight the pencil she had used almost down to the nub and stroked across her remaining sheets of paper as if striking with a sword. The pinkette was excited now. Where there was darkness and misfortune, she found a shining solution. Sketch upon sketch upon sketch flew onto paper, and with such intensity that sheets found themselves falling off of Blue's rickety old drafting table. Not long now, not long at all and Blue would have the perfect image in her mind. The pencil was down to the very nub by the time Blue had finished the final draft. What came of the mad scribbling were the blueprints to a masterwork already in the making. "That's right... You'll be the first step in my ambition..." The devilish smile which persisted upon Blue's features crept ever wider as she looked down at her work. What would the people say when they saw this? Would there be shock? awe? Would the hope that was lost at the very beginning of their entrapment be rekindled in the fires of creativity. It made the artisan shake in anticipation.

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[Blue]

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SIX! SIX MORE LEVELS! 258 ARTWORK LVL 4

Now with a proper image in mind, the pinkette artisan was much closer to her initial goal, the creation of her first masterwork. Blue hurriedly posted all of her drafts onto a wall using make-shift thumb tacks before pivoting on her heel towards her canvas. The stone boulder was still in the middle of the roughing stage, the basic shaping of the stone into the desired form. Afterwards, Blue could move on to refinement. With chisel and mallet in hand, the roughing process continued. Blue dug the wedge into the stone and struck it precisely with her hammer, watching the excess stone crumble from it's place on the subject. It was tough work, and strong hands were needed to sustain the heavy strain on the flesh. For someone with such delicate looking hand, one would have thought Blue incapable of such feats, but to the contrary, she was quite adept at getting her hands dirty. "Just a little bit more chipping here aaaaand.... there we go!" Yet another piece to fall from Blue's stone canvas. Now it was as she wished it to be. Even unrefined, Blue could see the image she had created underneath the stone. Her heart skipped a beat, excitement tingling throughout her body. So close yet so far was she. Just a few more hours of labor and Blue could go home pleased with herself. Speaking of time, the sun had set hours ago hadn't it? Didn't she start in the morning? It didn't matter, there was more work to be done after all.

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[Blue]

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FIVE! FIVE MORE LEVELS! AH AH AH 268 ARTWORK LVL 5

Sketching? Done. Roughing out? Done. Now all that was needed was to refine her current work and add the finishing touches. Blue's well used chisel was no longer needed for this lofty endeavor, so she set it back gingerly on her work bench, trading it in for new tools. The refinement of a stone carving required a bit more delicate of a touch, and more careful planning. "To start... I need guidelines, yes." Taking a few pieces of chalk and some measuring tools, Blue began taking length into account, drawing lines in chalk where she would need to carve, designating where textures would be made, soon the stone was covered in areas where Blue would need to strike. any excess chalk could be easily removed, which was why the artisan preferred it over Charcoal or Pencil. With the planning stage now finally out off of her agenda, Blue could start to fully draw out the beauty hidden in the stone. Yet another glint of excitement shined brightly in her eye. This was the half-way mark for her. Clutching clawed chisel and dull calipers in hand, she began her secondary assault on the stone canvas, ready to run down the home stretch. "Let's see, we'll start by adding texture here..." Blue's touch was gently, as delicate as the stone surface she was working on. The clawed chisel helped to make parallel lines within the stone and also add a certain kind of texture based on the stroke used. Using this method, the stone would have more volume to it, rather than look flat like a digital drawing colored only by paint bucket.

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[Blue]

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FOUR MOOOOORE 272 ARTWORK LVL 6

A few hours passed by silently, with only the scraping of iron against stone to accompany the chill of the night air. Blue had visible bags under her eyes, the toll of working non-stop finally showing itself on her body, but she care not. So close was she to crossing the goal she had set for herself, and there was so much more to be done after. The grand stone carving was only the start to her arduous climb. It was all about placement, display, and marketing. If people were to receive the message Blue was sending, they needed to see it with both eyes, as lucid as she could make it. "Just a bit... more... texture..." the clawed chisel fell from Blue's hand. "Huh... oh..." Falling. That's what they called that sensation. She hadn't felt it involuntarily for a long while, and the vertigo was startling. Blue felt herself crash into the dust layered ground next to her statue. The fallen stone that littered the ground made an uncomfortable bed and the unsettled dust formed an inefficient blanket around her. "I... need to keep... ooh..." Her body had had enough, now taking the reigns from her mind and telling itself to shut down for the time being. Blue didn't expect to be stopped by real life fatigue, in fact she had hoped her crafting would work like it did pre-catastrophe. How sad, and unexpected... "Fine... I'll take a break for now but... tomorrow I finish this, got it body?" Blue spat out the words to herself, her vision slowly fading away as she fell into the land of dreams, creating her own personal world in the clouds of her mind.

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[Blue]

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THREE THREE THREE 263 ARTWORK LVL 7

Hours later, the sun rose once again upon the unfounded kingdom of London, and the sunlight shined lucidly into Blue's workshop. Rays of light fell upon the pinkettes face, revealing her in a way she had rarely been seen before, messy, groggy, unprepared for the morning. Being covered in the dust of last nights previous labors didn't help her appearance at all either, unless you were into that sort of thing of course. "My... is it morning already...?" The artisan rose from her rocky mattress, groaning in discomfort from the rocks which had buried themselves into her side throughout the night. This wasn't the first time she had found herself in such a situation. In the real world, Blue was often found asleep in her place of work, be it the studio back in university or her desk at home. It might have been possible that she was a workaholic, but she never thought to confirm. The Bard was merely passionate about her craft. "Well, I supposed I should wash up..." Blue ran a hand through her messy bed-head, looking up at the near-complete statue she had helped create throughout the night. So close to finished, and yet she was made to stop midway through. It irked her every time this happened. A waste of time if ever there was one. No, she needed to get this done, and get it done now. "I'm fully rested now, so let's get this done!" Blue picked herself back up, patting off as much dust as she could from her work clothes and picking up her chisel. Time to finish this off for good.

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[Blue]

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TWO MOOOORE 263 (AGAIN) ARTWORK LVL 8

The refining process was finished up without a hitch, at last bringing Blue into the  final stages of her craft. The statue stood before her, now a featureless shape of rough stone. She had given it the perfect amount of texture, and now all that was left was to add detail and smooth out the rest of the statue. "Now then.., the finishing touches." Blue walked over towards the table, setting down her refining tools and replacing them with her trusty rasp and riffer. These were meant to remove the remaining excess stone, little bits that got in the way of the eventual smoothing of the stone. She would go over the statue with sand paper later to perfect it, but using the rasp was much more efficient. The riffer was a smaller version of the rasp though, and helped create details like eyes, folds in clothes, and hair. With a spring in her step, the artisan moved to finish her work. She began to cut away at the stone with the rasp, humming a gentle tune as she rhythmically tapped away, filling her workshop with the sound of metal against rock. This was it, the home stretch. She wasn't going to stop here, not after all of that work. Today was the day she finished her first step in her goal. "Blue blue glass moon amongst the crimson air..." The bard began to sing gently a tune which she learned in her younger days. It was a favorite of hers, and the song for which she created her namesake. Funny how such little things influenced her life.

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[Blue]

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ONE MY GOD ONE 260 ARTWORK LVL 9

Tink tink tink, rhythmical tinks, that's all you could hear in the broken down studio Blue called her workshop. To the untrained ear, it was curious, a little grating on the ears, but for Blue it was a symphony of creation which she herself was conducting. The beauty of it all was that this song would last forever, etched into the stone as a memory of her past efforts. A gentle yet excited smile crept across her worn face, as the excitement of a finished project approached. The rasp was no longer a necessary tool in this stage of  the creation, so Blue had moved on to using the riffer completely in her work. She cut further into the stone, creating the details which would attract the eye of all who pass them by. The folds of long flowing robes, the facial features of the human subject which idealized the archetype from which it was born from. Everything had to be done with perfect precision and done in a rhythm which reflected the emotion of the piece. "Almost there... I can see it now, clear as the sun in the sky~" Blue sung in a merry tune, pleased with herself in more ways than one. This was after all the first time she had taken on a large-scale carving project in a long time. When was it last that she tore beauty out of a block of stone? Her freshman year? Sophomore year? The interesting thing about art universities was being aloud experiment in many different mediums and have the learning resources to apply them with.

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[Blue]

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DONE DONE DOOOOONE 320 ARTWORK LVL MAX

The final stage at last. Blue looked at her work with a blissful look of satisfaction on her face. It came out exactly as she had imagined it to be. Now for the final step, smoothing it out with the sand paper. The Artisan skipped to her work bench and set her tools down excitedly, rummaging around her supplies for a roll of sand paper. It took a moment, given the disarray of her workshop, but she eventually claimed victory over the mess and took the paper as her reward. "Off we go~" The pinkette pivoted on her heel and set off to the statue in a stride. The paper was more like a towel in it's looks, but one side held the rough material which earned it the name of sand paper. There wasn't much to say about the process; rub the paper on the statue in a desired fashion, and watch it become smooth to the touch. It would take a couple more hours to get a thorough sanding, but when she was done, the end result would be utterly fantastic. "Almost done~ Almost done~" The hours went by quick, as Blue took deep enjoyment in her labor. This was the finale after all, it needed to be savored. Blue smoothed away, watching with bright eyes as her statue finally took the shape she had envisioned it hours ago. Her strokes were delicate as always, a reflex developed from experience and care. A mistake now would be unforgivable by the canvas and Blue herself. "And... you... are.... finished!" The statue stood before her, a pure and glorious product of hard work and dedication. Blue coddled it like it was her child, smiling in a way so few people ever saw. It took a good while for her to release herself from her work, still euphoric as she put everything away and locked up her studio. Now it was time to find a buyer. Finished Product: link

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