Sculpting 101 (Ciara)

[izludemagnus]

Owen yawned and looked at his watch, smiling when he noticed it was almost seven. He had plans to learn sculpting with Ciara at seven thirty. He would bring his hands she would bring the clay. She was the first and so far only friend he has made on the Venia since he arrived there. ‘I could probably knock off a few minutes early tonight,’ he thought as he put his supplies in a nearby closet, ‘I should probably bathe and change out of this nasty jumpsuit.’

Owen walked into his room and jumped in the shower. He quickly dried off and wrapped a towel around himself as he looked for some clothes. ‘Don’t want to wear anything too fancy because I’ll be working with clay and I don’t want to weird her out… so I guess a T-shirt and jeans will work,’ he thought as he dug around his dresser. He grabbed a black t-shirt and a pair of blue jeans then dressed himself. He looked at the clock and noticed he was running a little late. “Crap!”

Owen rushed to the mess hall hoping Ciara hadn’t left yet. He passed a few people in a walk-jog then sprinted for the mess hall doors. He barged in slipping on the floor and falling on his face in the process. ‘Nice faceplant,’ he thought as he looked up from the floor.

[Evangeline Irvine]

As Ciara hadn't been up to much throughout the course of the day--as per usual--she'd been able to wrangle up the necessary clay for her and Owen's sculpting experiment tonight. It had been surprisingly easy--as it would turn out, the chef, Alex, had some stored away in one of the kitchen's supply closet.

After thanking him profusely, she'd taken it through the door into the mess and slapped it down on one of the tables. Alex shot her a chastising look at that, and grinning she said, "Don't worry, I'll clean this up myself. Promise." Seeming pacified, he left her with the run of the mess hall. Now all she had to do was wait for Owen to show up.

As if her thought summoned him, the door opened and he fell into the room gracelessly. For a moment she was a little alarmed, but he seemed to be all right, and so stifling a giggle, Ciara came over to offer him a hand up. "You okay?" she asked warmly.

Then, with a skip in her step, she led the way back over to the table. "So, have you done anything with clay before? There are some forms of sculpting that are more complicated than others. I'm not very good at some of them myself, so I might not be the best teacher in that regard. Also, what would you like to sculpt? Something off memory? An inanimate object?" She laughed as she added, "Me?"

[izludemagnus]

Owen took Ciara’s hand and stood dusting himself off. “I’m good,” he replied with a smile, “Just need to be more careful next time.” Owen laughed and followed her to the table covered in clay. He looked the clay over remembering making a little bowl in art class back when he was a child. ‘OK my bowl sucked back then but it’s been years maybe it’ll be better this time,’ he thought as he picked up a piece of clay.

“I have a little experience from childhood but I don’t know any skills,” Owen replied to Ciara’s inquiry about his experience. She told him that she wasn’t the best teacher of some forms of sculpting. “I’m sure you’ll do a great job teaching me,” he said with a smile. She asked what he wanted to sculpt and jokingly asked if he would be doing a sculpture of her. “Well I can’t really think of anything out of memory or any sort of inanimate object… and I’d probably be working with people so… Would you mind if I tried to sculpt you?”

[Evangeline Irvine]

"Don't worry--your secret is safe with me," Ciara assured Owen with a cheery smile. "After all, when we first met I fell flat on my arse. We're even now." Not that it had been a competition or anything--Ciara fell down at least once or twice every day or so. "Graceful" would never be a word used to describe her.

"So you've got a basic idea of what to do, then," she clarified when he told her he'd done some sculpting in his younger years. She grinned slightly at his following comment. "We'll see. I've never been much of a teacher, but I've got no problem with trying something new--and teaching someone to sculpt is definitely something new for me."

When Owen actually took her up on her offer to model for him, Ciara blinked in surprise. She hadn't really meant it as more than a joke, but if he wanted her to pose for him, she wouldn't say no. Her mildly stupefied expression turned to one of amusement, and she skipped over to the opposite side of the table before plopping down.

"Right, so, did you just plan on sculpting a bust, then?" she queried, playing idly with her hair. "I think that trying to recreate all my clothes out of clay would keep us here for longer than planned."

[izludemagnus]

Owen saw that Ciara was surprised by him taking up her joking offer of sculpting her. She mentioned doing a bust because recreating her clothes would probably be time consuming. “Yeah a bust would be much easier than having to sculpt the clothing and I’d want to sculpt people life-sized and I don’t think there is enough clay for that. Well that and clay probably wouldn’t be the best to make a statue out of… probably need marble or some sort of ceramics,” he replied as Ciara played with her hair.

“I’m not sure how or where to begin,” Owen said as he looked for the perfect position to see Ciara’s face, “Have to find a good line of sight so I can try to get your features down.” He moved around the table for a few minutes before finally settling on a seat close and to the left of Ciara. “I’m probably going to have to move to the other side to get the rest of your face,” Owen said as he started to manipulate the clay into a head shape.

[Evangeline Irvine]

On top of what Ciara had been thinking, about how capturing all the contours of her clothing would be maddening and entirely too time consuming, Owen also pointed out that there probably wasn't enough clay for it, and she nodded. "You've got a point there," she agreed. "So a bust out of clay it is, then."

Making herself comfortable, she prepared to have to sit still for however long it would take Owen to sculpt her, having to work to keep from smiling--which was surprisingly difficult. First, she wasn't one not to smile--smiling was her default setting. But even if that weren't the case, she could feel his eyes on her face, and the odd sensation of being watched for artistic purposes made her feel like laughing.

When Owen explained that he'd have to move around to get the other side of her face, Ciara made to nod, but then stopped herself. Trying not to move her lips more than was necessary, she said, "Affirmative," before going still again.

[izludemagnus]

Owen manipulated the clay until it resembled a head then looked up at Ciara. “OK, time to do the hardest part… I think… the details of your face.” he said as he looked at her face then back at the clay. He made a few adjustments to try to reshape the clay to better resemble the shape of Ciara’s face. “It’s a good thing you have smooth, blemish free skin or this would be a lot tougher,” he mentioned as he smoothed the clay over and began work on her eyes.

Owen struggled with getting the shape of Ciara’s eye perfect and ended up filling the spot back in several times. “This is harder than I thought,” he said with a chuckle as he finally had the right shape carved, “But I’m getting better.” He smiled and made the eye more detailed before looking up to see if he missed anything. “Hm… looks like I have one of your eyes perfect… now for the other one,” he said as he moved to the other side of the table and started carving the other eye into the clay.

[Evangeline Irvine]

A smirk fought valiantly an diligently for a place on Ciara's face at Owen's comment about her skin, but she pushed it back. "I'll take that as a compliment," she murmured, still trying not to move her lips. In a way, that was what it had been. Even as a teenager, Ciara had taken pristine care of her skin, and apparently, it had paid off.

When he moved around her, she caught a glimpse of the finished half of her face and couldn't stop a little gasp from falling from her lips. He was good. "Wow. I'm better at predicting people's callings than I though," she giggled before stilling again so he could finish the other side of her face. "Are you having fun with it, by the way?"

She's run across several cases where someone had been very good at something that, as it had turned out, they despised. This didn't seem to be one of those times, but you never could tell.

[izludemagnus]

“It was a compliment,” Owen said with a smile as he finished the other eye much quicker than the previous one, “I think I’m getting the hang of this a lot quicker than I anticipated. And yeah it is pretty good isn’t it?” The next step for him was the eyebrows he laughed a little when he realized he was doing things in random order but it didn’t stall him for longer than a second. “This is pretty fun though I probably need to have a better plan on the order of things,” he said as he completed an eyebrow and started on the other.

Owen quickly finished the eyebrow and started on Ciara’s mouth. “You know you could have smiled if you wanted to, I wouldn’t have minded,” he said as he carved the outline of her mouth into the clay. He looked up at Ciara and added more detail. After a few minutes, he finished her mouth and looked back up to see if he missed anything staring a bit.

[Evangeline Irvine]

It was clear in Owen's tone that he was genuinely impressed with how the sculpture was turning out, and that pleased Ciara. So he was enjoying himself. That was good to know. It would have been horrible to go through with all this if he didn't have fun with it.

His laugh made her curious, and she spared a glance at him to see what was so funny. He appeared to be laughing at the eyebrow he was molding, and she chortled a little when he noted that he wasn't really using a specific order. "Well, to each their own, right?"

Owen jumped to her mouth after finishing both eyebrows, and Ciara noticed that he seemed to be looking up a little more than was truly necessary. It was as she observed this that her best friend Marcus' words came drifting back to her: if ever you should find a guy staring at your mouth, he's probably thinking on kissing you.

She felt her cheeks flame at the thought. Is that what Owen's thinking? If she could have shaken her head without arousing suspicion, she would have. No, no, he wasn't thinking of kissing her. He was just trying to get down all the details. All good artists checked over their work more than once to make sure they'd gotten things right. There was absolutely no way he was planning on kissing her... was there?

[izludemagnus]

Owen saw that Ciara was blushing a bit then he realized he was staring at her and quickly looked away beginning to blush himself. “Um… I-I was staring wasn’t I? S-sorry about that I um… I got a little bit too into uh looking at detail…,” he said as he looked at the clay making a few small changes to the lips of the bust.

Owen was visibly nervous as he started to mold ears out of the clay to put onto the bust. ‘I think I have to get closer to her in order to mold the ears properly… I hope I’m not creeping her out right now,’ he thought as he looked back at Ciara. “Um… I’m going to have to get a closer look at your ears… that way they don’t look like ear shaped blobs,” he said laughing nervously, “But w-we could skip that if it makes you too uncomfortable… and I uh I’m sorry if I make you uncomfortable…”

[Evangeline Irvine]

Oh jeez... now I'm making him uncomfortable! Ciara thought, mortified. Ugh, I just can't do anything right, can I? Still mentally chastising herself, hastily cut through Owen's stuttering. "I, er, no, really, it's okay," she told him, her Irish lilt more pronounced than usual out of nerves. "It's all a part of the sculpting procedure, right? I, uh..." Oh, God help me...

He looked down at the clay then, and she used the moment to study his features. He had a handsome face, she noted, with a straight nose and a soft mouth. One of his eyes was a rich coffee-brown, whereas the other was cybernetic, but even it held a certain appeal. When he glanced back up, she quickly averted her eyes to her lap, clearing her throat and shifting a little in her seat.

It was almost painfully obvious how shaken he was, and Ciara couldn't help but cringe internally. This evening had started out so innocent--just a friendly, artistic exploration. It was supposed to be fun, two people sculpting (well, one sculpting and one modeling, anyway). And she'd gone and perfectly spoiled it. Violently, albeit silently, she cursed Marcus for ever putting those words in her head.

"O-oh, um..." she stammered, jumping a little when Owen's voice cut through her reverie. When he apologized for making her uncomfortable, she shook her head almost frantically. "No, it's not you, really!" It's just my wandering mind, that's all! "If you need to move closer to continue, by all means, do!"

Realizing a little belatedly that she was starting to sound a tad on the hysterical side, she closed her eyes and managed an actual smile out of embarrassment. "Sorry," she sighed, turning her apologetic eyes on him. "I overreacted. I do that a lot. Really, it's not your fault. I made you feel awkward, and that definitely wasn't my intent, so I should be the one apologizing. In fact, here, I'll do that now: I'm sorry I made you uncomfortable, Owen."

[izludemagnus]

“No need to apologize, I made you uncomfortable first by staring at your lips…” Owen replied as he stood trailing off a bit, “And I apologize for staring… I-I… you’re um very pretty and I-I couldn’t help but stare… that’s kinda why I uh wanted to do the bust…” Owen coughed and continued to fiddle with the bit of clay in his hands.

“But um I should just get back to the sculpture um… I need you to move the hair covering your ears… it fell a bit when we were having our embarrassment seizures,” Owen replied with a laugh as he moved closer to Ciara. He stopped a couple feet away so he wouldn’t invade her personal space. “So… uh… your ears… have to sculpt them and stuff…” he said blushing a little. Waiting for a reply Owen scratched his nose getting a bit of clay on it and his cheek.

[Evangeline Irvine]

So Owen admitted it--he had been staring. Ciara wondered for a moment if it were humanly possible for her face to turn the same colour as her hair, and hoped not. Ignoring her blush, however, she made to say something--and then he called her pretty.

Sucking in her lower lip, she looked down at her hands and fought of the grin that threatened to split her face in two. He thought she was pretty. No one had ever called her pretty before--cute, sweet and/or adorable she heard a lot, but never pretty. It was entirely new to her. And she sort of liked it.

"...Thank you," she said quietly, sparing a glanced at his face again before returning her eyes to her lap. He then pointed out that they should get back to the sculpture, and she nodded a little as she lifted her head, her chin level with the floor now. Acquiescing to his request, she pushed the mass of red hair that had fallen forward back over her shoulder, at the same time trying to think of something to say.

Before she could think of anything, Owen had accidentally smudged his face with clay. "Um," she began lifting her hand to touch her own face where the smudges were on his, "You got a little... here." Giggling slightly, she reached over to wipe it off for him. Touching his face like this felt almost personal, in a way, and she pulled back as soon as the clay was gone.

"So..." Why was it words always came in abundance when she had no use for them, and then failed her when she needed them most? "The sculpture. Right..."

[izludemagnus]

“Huh I have wha…,” Owen said as he moved his hand to his face. Before he could wipe the clay off however Ciara reached up and wiped it off. Owen closed his eyes as she touched his face, no one had ever really felt the same when they touched him in fact he usually squirmed a bit when touched by people. He opened his eyes when Ciara moved her hand away. “Th-thanks… I probably would have just smeared more onto my face…,” he stammered as he tried not to blush heavily.

Ciara mentioned the sculpture and Owen looked back at it then to her. “Oh uh… I was doing a sculpture… I just got a uh a little… lost,” he replied looking down at the ear shaped lump of clay in his hand. He moved closer and looked at Ciara’s ear. “Um there’s uh…,” he mumbled as he moved a little bit of hair behind her ear getting a bit of clay on her cheek, “I darn…um got some clay on you…”