Solo A New Shop

[Palla Frostfawn]

OOCThis thread will be formatted a little differently than others, with more than one timestamp in the thread. I am doing multiple short job thread posts instead of just two job thread posts, as this is my first time writing job threads and I am finding it difficult. I have ST approval, don't worry! 60th of winter, 513 AV Palla was constantly worried, ever since her shop opened, that her skill level wasn’t high enough to run a shop. She sometimes regretted even applying for a carving shop, but when she got engaged in her carvings, all of her fears faded away. Palla was happy to find, when her shop was approved, that it was filled with all the necessary items she would need, and everything was set up just how she wanted it. She imagined that whoever had set up the shop had great intuition about where she would like everything. The shelf sets for displaying carvings were set up at the front of the shop. The small, somewhat cramped room in which Palla intended to work in had her wood in one corner, and her table with three chairs on the other side of the wall. A carver’s toolkit lay on the table, along with some clay for models, still fresh and moist. Palla made a mental note to water the clay every day to keep it from drying out. She was so excited to get started, but decided to set up first. Palla opened up the carver’s toolkit. It was one of the stupidest things I had ever done, leaving my carving kit in Avanthal. I’m so glad to be surrounded by my familiar tools again. She looked at each of the gouges and chisels in turn, examining the quality tools. Palla was so excited to see all these familiar tools that she had back, finally. She set down the tools and decided to start carving. Palla got out a small piece of unusual lumber, and decided to start carving. Palla wanted this to be something special, symbolic of the first day in her very own shop. Oh, I’m only nineteen! I guess I have to be very independent, with a carving shop already. Palla started to carve. She decided to start by carving a squirrel. Simple, and cute. Palla started by carving the general shape of the squirrel. She carved it fairly quickly, as a basic form doesn’t require much detail. She started to hone in on the form a little more, so that you could see what it was without being told, and would recognize it as a horned squirrel. Palla had read about them, or seen them in a book when she was young. Palla was fascinated by them, and the first thing that she actually carved was a horned squirrel. The first thing that she counted, that is. It was the first thing that was half recognisable, although you wouldn’t start to actually realize what it was without being told. Palla remembered the young version of her, running to find her mother and shyly nudging her until she looked down. Her mother, or course, acted excited to see her carving, and was very proud of her. Thinking about her mother brought up a bout of homesickness. I can't do this now. I have to focus. I can't run a carving shop with no carvings, after all. Palla carved through it, using the squirrel as a distraction as she soon forgot what had been upsetting her. She started to carve the face, switching gouges as she saw fit. Palla decided to opt out of doing detailed fur, and instead made the squirrel smooth and slender. It was hard to make the bushy tail, but Palla managed to do it without texture. The only reason she didn't do texture was because she didn't think she was skilled enough to. In about two bells, the carving was finished. It had been about three bells total, as Palla had taken a bell to just admire her tools and new shop. It was a small shop, but it was new, or at least Palla suspected it was new, and had no business, really, but Palla felt like she had accomplished something by getting this shop. She had mixed feelings about this place, but in the end, she was proud of herself. Palla moved on, putting the squirrel on a shelf set, front and center, and then debating what to make next. After a couple of moments, Palla decided to make a bird. She first made the general shape as she always did, only recognizable if you already knew what it was beforehand. Palla had decided to give this bird a smooth head and long neck. Palla made the bird elegant looking, with a long, curved neck. One with imagination could envision it's graceful movements and it's beauty. Of course, Palla's skill level was not high enough to mimic that utter grace and beauty, but it still turned out to be a pretty bird. Palla pushed her chair back and walked to the front of the room. She put it on a different shelf set than the squirrel, and scanned it for a second. She saw nothing wrong with the carving, and decided to let it be. Palla then decided to start on something else. She looked at the walls of her shop, at her tools, and then at her clay. Palla decided to make something out of clay as a model before she actually carved it this time. Palla made a little hand out of clay, then an arm, then a body for it to be attached to. The clay figurine had long, straight hair, and slender limbs. Palla imagined the girl to be a model for someone, a painter, maybe. Palla envisioned her pretty enough to be. The clay model was sitting down on the edge of the table with her legs crossed in a very ladylike manner. Palla started carving in wood the same clay figure she had previously made in clay. At first, it was just a block of wood that had a bit of it that dangled off the table. She carved out the legs, then the torso, then the face and arms. The face had no eyes, still, and the hands were not detailed enough to resemble hands. Palla carefully carved the eyes, and while she made a small mistake on one of them, they still turned out okay. The hands were harder. Palla accidentally chipped off the ends of the fingers on one hand, but you wouldn't notice it unless you were looking very carefully. By the time Palla had finished the girl, she realized that there was only a quarter of a bell left until she decided to close, at the 18th bell. Palla carefully packed up her tools and put her clay and wood in their respective places. Palla left her toolkit on the table before leaving the shop. She walked quickly towards her home, ready to retrieve her dogs to go for a jog.

[Palla Frostfawn]

68th of winter, 513 AV It was a week since her shop had been approved, and so far Palla had three squirrels, a plate set, a bowl set, and some assorted other animals, as well as a monster that Palla thought demented. Palla had a few paying customers stop by, but not that many people had even discovered her shop, let alone thought to buy from it. Palla worked quickly but carefully. She was a competent wood carver, but she still chipped wood often, or at least more often than she would like to. Palla, using her axe, carved the outline of a flower into the surface of her block of wood. She placed the axe on the table and picked up her knife. She slowly carved the petals, going deeper and deeper, making them look realistic. She shaved the petals thinner and thinner, very carefully. Palla tried to make the petals as thin as they could be without her breaking them, but she was not yet skilled enough to make them as thin as she would have liked. Palla started to carve the flower out out the block of wood, to continue to make it 3D. She continued to very carefully carve the rose and the outer petals finished it with only 1 broken petal. That was great for Palla as she usually wasn't good with detail work. However, as she carved the stem out, with a slip of her axe, Palla accidentally made the stem too thin and it snapped. Palla still liked the rose, however, and kept the rose with the part of the stem that was not broken. While Palla was not yet a master at carving, she still thought this flower looked pretty good. She pushed herself, along with the chair she was sitting in, away from the table. Palla walked up to one of her shelves and placed the flower front and center on the shelf. It was one of her best works so far. Palla hoped to become an expert at carving, perhaps even a master. Palla, bored, used some of her clay that she made models of her carvings before she carved them to make little figures. She imagined she was making little people out of clay. Palla stared at the army of clay figures she had made. She smashed all of the figures and put them back with the rest of her clay but one. She liked this little clay squirrel-girl she made and started a carving based on her. Palla very carefully carved the little squirrel-girl's facial features out, which were that of a human's. The detail work on the face was not that great, as Palla wasn't the greatest carver, but the face still looked ok, if pretty comical. Palla carved out the legs and torso, along with the dress that the squirrel-girl was wearing carefully but quickly. Since there wasn't much detail on the form of the squirrel girl, it turned out pretty good, with only minor blemishes which Palla carefully smoothed out. Palla started to carve out the slender limbs of the girl, and the paws which were those of a squirrel. Palla carved a bushy tail for the girl, and long, thin lines on it for texture. Palla carved ears for the girl which were placed on the top of her head, and looked like they belonged to a squirrel. The girl was standing up, and she looked like she was talking to someone. But who? Palla decided to make a boy to reply to her. She carved in for him shortish hair, down to just below his ears, and carefully carved lines in it for texture. Palla tried to make the hair straight and tame, but she messed up the detail work, and the boy's hair ended up looking wild. Palla didn't mind, though. She thought the messy hair gave him a cute look. She carved the boy's lean body out of the wood, and gave him a shirt with buttons across the front. Palla painstakingly carved wrinkles into the boy's shirt, one by one, and to her pleasure, the wrinkles were practically perfect, save many minor mistakes. She gave the boy simple dress pants and dancing shoes. Palla liked the young conversing couple, she thought they were pretty cute. As she was putting the finishing touches on her work, a customer walked into the store. "Hello, how can I help you?" The young woman had eyes shaped like the petals of a lotus, and nut-brown hair down to the middle of her back. Palla guessed she was human. "Hi!" The young woman surveyed the shop. "Could you get me a carving?" "S-Sure!" replied Palla "Of what?" "Do you have carvings of a horned squirrel?" The woman asked. "I-I do, in fact." Palla stammered. "I-I saw pictures of them in a book at home, and they were fascinating to me. They're so cute! O-Of course, being brought up in Avanthal, I didn't see them in real life, really." Palla realized she was blabbing on and on. "S-Sorry." "Oh, that's no problem" the woman replied kindly "I do it all the time myself" she chuckled. "So anyways, do you have a squirrel in unusual wood?" "Yup!" Palla said, trying not to sound nervous. She found her squirrels on the bottom shelf of her second shelf of carvings. She soon found her unusual wood squirrel, and handed it to the woman. The squirrel was sleeping peacefully with it's head on it's paws, and Palla thought it looked cute. "D-Do you like this one, ma'am, o-or would you like another squirrel made?" Palla asked the woman. "Oh, it's perfect, thank you!" She was happy to let the satisfied customer go on her way and continued carving. Palla sanded off any minor blemishes and soon, the statues were finished. By that time, the sun was starting to set, and Palla packed up her tools and put all the pieces of wood that were a usable size away. She threw the small wood shavings away, and put the statues on a shelf. Palla, satisfied, started to get distracted, thinking about the future of her shop. In that moment, she was incredibly glad she had started the shop, carving was fun and as she got better at it, made good money. Taking one last look at the pair, Palla locked the shop and went out on her nightly jog, enjoying the feel of icy air in her lungs.

[Palla Frostfawn]

OOCSorry this one is especially short! 69th of winter, 513 AV It was freezing cold outside today. Palla left her condo early in the morning and bore the cold with ease because she grew up in Avanthal. Soon, she reached her shop and went inside. Palla got out her tools, and looking around, she realized she needed more plates and bowls. Palla started to carve out a plate. These were simple and quick, as far as carving went. Palla could get a whole set done in a day. Partially because of the easiness of carving plates, partially because of how fast of a carver Palla was. Each set of plates consisted of ten plates. Palla sanded off the bumps on the plate, and she then, bored, decided to carve simple designs on each of the plates. The first one boasted a simple design of flowers, all along the rim. This one was simple, but even then, Palla still made a couple of mistakes. These, however were easily fixed. Palla finished the plate with only very minor mistakes that one could not see unless they looked very, very closely. On the next plate, Palla carved a series of simple, swirling designs along the rim. This one, Palla managed to finish fairly quickly with no mistakes, or at least none that she could see at the time. The third plate bore little polka dots in a seemingly random pattern. On one of the larger dots, Palla carved a little too deep, but one would probably think it was intentional. Palla decided to leave the rest of the plates untouched, as a customer may not like the designs. Palla carved three new plates, so a customer could choose whether they wanted the plates with designs or not. Now that the set of plates was done, Palla had only a small amount of time left in her day. Just as Palla was pondering what to do, a man walked through the door of her shop. “I need a set of plates. Medium.” The man had a deep, gruff voice, and long unkempt hair. He was a pretty big man, he stood at around 6 foot 4, and was proportionately wide. Palla handed him seven of the plates she had just made. “W-Would you like the plates with designs or not?” “Just plates.” The man said. “No designs. Palla handed him the three plates without designs. “T-That’ll be 2 silvers, sir. The man handed her two silver mizas and left. After the man left, there was only a chime left until Palla had to close up her shop. She packed up her tools and put all of her wood away. Palla closed up her shop for the day and set off on her nightly jog.

[Palla Frostfawn]

70th of Winter, 513 AV Today, it was pretty mellow outside, for Riverfall’s winters at least. As she was walking to her shop, Palla imagined the winters in Avanthal, and how others would do while there. She had seen many people shivering in the cold here, it made her chuckle a little to think about them in Avanthal. Palla started to pick up her pace and soon arrived at her shop. Palla opened the door and rushed in excitedly. Palla shut it behind her so as to not let the cold air in. She did this not for her sake, as she didn’t mind the cold, but for the sake of her customers. Palla rushed to get her tools out and placed them on her work table in the front room. She was so excited to carve today, for some reason. Palla just had the feeling that after her last couple of slow days, this day was going to be a great one. And great one it was. Palla decided to carve a relief scene of a copperin that had built its nest inside of a hollow tree. First, Palla carved out a medium sized ‘log’, as the wood she had was not shaped well for this project. Next, Palla carved a roughly oval-shaped opening with jagged edges inside the tree to give herself a general idea of how the hole would be shaped. Palla carved out the rough shape of the bird inside the hole, and then started to hone in on detail. she decided not to make marks for the fur or carve out very much detail on the bark, as she liked how the Copperin looked now, and didn’t want to mess it up by going into detail further. Palla was grateful that she had done this in exotic wood, as it was her very best piece, at least in her opinion, to this day. Just as she was putting her piece on the shelf, a customer came in. She looked very athletic, and not like someone to be messed with. She had blond hair and very pale skin, and looked straight at Palla with her piercing brown eyes. “I need a little something for my home, and I was always interested in carvings.” the woman’s gaze traveled to the shelf sets that had all of Palla’s carvings on them. “How about that Copperin one?” “S-Sure” Palla replied. She chuckled nervously. “A-Actually, I just made this today! T-That will be one gold Miza, ma’am” Palla hated to part with the carving so soon, but she had a feeling that this woman would take good care of it. The woman gave Palla a gold Miza, turned on her heel, and was on her way. Palla decided to start a new carving, but she didn’t know what to make it of. She decided to make her little clay statues for inspiration again. Palla made a little statue of a Riverfall constrictor curled up on a branch . Palla decided to carve this one, once she had her clay model ready. She quickly made a simple branch with a small blob on it. Palla carved this blob into a series of coils, by making little lines, and then carving them into valleys and then, once she carved the head, into a snake. She started to carve the scales, and very slowly and carefully, Palla produced a snake. While a few of the scales Palla had chipped, she thought it gave him a war-torn appearance. It wasn’t the look she was going for, but it worked. Palla carefully studied the snake for missing scales and miscellaneous blemishes, and, satisfied, she placed the snake on one of the shelves. Another customer walked into the store. A pair of customers, actually. A man in a crisp suit and tie came in holding the hand of a woman who wore a white dress. They look like they just got married. I think it would be rude to ask, though “Hello!” announced the man in a booming voice. “We need some decorations for our new house, as we just got married.” Well, that answers my question. The konti woman stood quietly by the man’s side. She was small and meek, especially standing next to the huge Akalak man who was her husband. They seemed like exact opposites. “I...like that flower” The woman said in a voice barely over a whisper. It was the flower that Palla had carved a few days ago. Palla handed it to the woman. “Also, I would like that monster!” The man said. Both Palla and the woman flinched at the noise. I wish he wasn’t so loud, he’s giving me a headache! The monster was a very comical and simple monster with a huge mouth, open wide, to reveal blunt, funny, teeth. It had a huge head to accommodate for it’s mouth, and a tiny body. Palla never liked it, but she figured someone would. “T-That’ll be 2 gm, sir. Palla stammered as she handed the man the carving. The 2 coins were silently handed to Palla by the woman. “T-Thanks!” Palla stammered in reply as she put the coins away. The man hustled the woman out of the store and into the wintry air. I wondered why the pair had gotten married, they seem like polar opposites. Love is a strange thing. For both their sakes, though, I hope it wasn’t an arranged marriage. Palla went back to her carvings, wondering what to do next. She smashed the clay statue of a snake and played with the clay in her hands, wondering what else to make. She surveyed the shop, looking for inspiration. What to make, what to make? Palla looked at her other creations over and over, but she was drawing a blank. She decided to make some bowls. She was running low, anyways. Palla carved out some cylinders, and then started to hollow one out with a shallow gouge, being careful when carving near the rim. She switched to the outer rim, shaping the bowl a little more. She switched gouges, then continued to deepen the inner part of the bowl. Once the inside was close to her liking, Palla started to shape the bowl more, starting the bottom portion where the bowl curved more dramatically. Palla finished the bowl quickly by sanding it, and decided to engrave some designs on the side. She drew a simple vine with some flowers underneath it. After a bell, she had finished the bowl. Palla carved unusually fast, and bowls were quick anyways. Palla knew she should finish what she had started first by making more bowls in the remaining time before she closed her shop, but she had a flash of inspiration too great to let go of. She carved a medium-sized circle out of some local wood, and then started "drawing" with a knife on it. Palla drew big flourishes and random designs. Feeling whimsical, she switched to a v-gouge to fix the lines of her "drawings", to make them more clear and defined. Palla left the edges alone, however, and the rim was raised with soft edges, unlike the rest of the designs. She sanded down the edges and any splinters. Palla left the carving alone after that, as it looked pretty to her, and she didn't want to ruin it by over finishing it. Palla realized the time, and packed up her tool kit before going home.

[Palla Frostfawn]

71st of Winter, 513 AV Palla rose early in the morning, restless and unable to go back to sleep. She jogged to her shop, got out her tools, and opened her shop about a bell earlier than she usually did. She didn't think it would be a very good day for sales today, and by the end of the day, her suspicions were confirmed. Palla started out the day by carving a box. She used a square block of wood, and then first rounded the top a bit. She hollowed this piece of wood until it was a shallow lid. Hollowing this out was a bit harder than a bowl, but it wasn't that bad for Palla. She then moved onto the bottom portion of the box, the real body. Palla carved four pieces of wood for walls of the box, and made the joints so they would barely be able to be pushed together, and even harder to take apart. Palla assembled the bottom of the box and put the lid on it. She sanded down the coarse wood until it was smooth to the touch, inside and out, and you had no risk of getting splinters. The box looked relatively well made, but was very plain, or at least, too plain for Palla's taste. She carved a flower on the top of the box, with a leaf on either side. She decided that someone would like the comparatively simple box. Palla usually liked things with more flourishes, but she decided sometimes less was more. Palla pushed herself in her chair back, walked to the front of the store, put the box on one of the shelf sets she had and went back to the back room to work on her carvings again. She decided to work on her detail carvings. She had enough items to sell for a while before she needed to replenish her stores. She had a plate set, a bowl set, and various other carvings, at least thirty. Besides, she was constantly making new things to replace the old, so taking a bit of time for practice wouldn't hurt. Palla decided to just whittle using her knife. She worked on fur texture, as even though her animals still looked okay to her without the fur, detail would give the carvings more lifelike looks, and working on this would improve her skill. Palla first just carved little marks in the wood to look like fur, and while she thought it would work for some animals, she thought that for things such as a squirrel's tail, and a bird's feathers, it would not work. She carved row after row of spikes of fur until she felt like she had it good enough, and then started carving rounded, overlapping feathers. Feathers were different, as they were usually longer than fur and didn't get thinner at the ends. If anything, they got wider, and they were not spiky like fur, but rounded at the end. Palla decided to just carve feathers using her knife, and started to carve a sole feather instead of feathers together. It was unlikely that she would ever have to, but the sole feathers were pretty, and she could probably sell some carvings of feathers. Palla caved a few feathers on a piece of common wood, messing up again and again. Finally, she carved down the wood to a flat surface once again, and this time, her feathers were near perfect. Palla was very pleased with her handiwork, and put the slab of wood with scattered feathers on it on one of her shelf sets. It wasn't front and center like some of her carvings, because she had a feeling that others wouldn't appreciate the plain feathers like she did. Palla figured the slab would sell anyways, but it would probably take a little longer to. Palla got out her clay and made random objects out of clay. She wondered if any customers would stop by today, or if her suspicions were correct that today would not be a good sales day. Palla looked at the mess of clay she had on her table, and tried to see what they resembled. One of them looked like a horse, but tall and lanky, with a long neck and legs. Another kind of looked like a night lion. A third resembled a grass bear, in a comical pose. Palla giggled, looking at it. She decided to carve a night lion. They were dangerous creatures, pure carnivores, but Palla still liked their appearance. She carved out the body, strong and dangerous. After that, she did the mane and scratched little lines into it, texturing it until it it sort of resembled fur. She couldn't make it very realistic, but you could still clearly tell what it was, as long as you had seen or heard of a night lion before. Palla had only heard descriptions of them, but that was enough for her to have a general idea of what they looked like. She improvised the parts of the lion she didn't know, and thought it turned out looking pretty nice, despite her minor mistakes. Palla considered the time and decided she had some time for just one more carving. Maybe even two. Palla decided to carve out an apple. She made a sphere, and added the stem and a small leaf coming from it. She messed up the stem once, twice, and finally finished the stem with it's small leaf on the third try. Palla carved out the bottom portion of the apple, and did this with more success then the top part. She carved the apple into a more suitable form, and put it on one of her shelf sets. It wasn't front and center, but it would be noticeable nevertheless. Palla had finished the carving faster than expected, and had 2 bells left to make a carving. She started on a horse, carving it's tail and rear end. Palla carved it’s body, the body of this particular horse was short and stocky. Palla was just about to start on the head when she realized it was time to pack up and leave, and she put all her tools away before examining each of them in turn to make sure that they were still holding up well to her use. Palla was very careful with her tools, and they were new and good quality, so they showed no signs of wear. She put all of them carefully back in her kit, and closed up her shop. She stepped out into the icy air and took a deep breath. She walked home at a slower pace than she usually did, a bit tired, probably because she had risen early.

[Venser Rush]

Grade Awarded!

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Palla

Award :

Skills

+3 Carving
+1 Sculpting
+2 Observation
+2 Socialization


Lores


My Shop has Everything I Need!
Carving: A Squirrel's Shape
Carving: An Apple's Shape
Carving: A Lion's Shape

Miscellaneous

N/A

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Notes

Enjoy the grade. ^.^