Feeling Artsy

Jason hummed to himself as he added more paint to the canvas on his easel, giving highlights to Ineo's vibrant hair. She sat on a rock protruding from the sea, in a pose taken directly from The Little Mermaid. Really, there was no more fitting character for him to paint Ineo as.

The art room was otherwise empty at this time of day, but he'd kept the door open in case someone felt like wandering in.

Kemekin did not enter the room. He was just suddenly there. He quirked his lips to one side as he leaned over to look at Jason's canvas; the details were on point and the color pallette was gorgeous.

He waited until Jason pulled his brush from the canvas to speak, to avoid startling him. "If Ineo is Ariel, who's Ursula?"

He beamed. "This is amazing, by the way."

Jason turned at the sound of a voice he didn't recognize, and smiled at the young man who stood by. "Thank you. I'm not sure who Ursula is yet. Good question, though." He glanced back at the painting. "I don't know who Prince Eric is, either."

Kemekin chuckled. He straightened and hooked his thumbs into his pockets. "If the rest of Veronique's brood is to be believed, then Samantha should be Eric."

He started to chuckle at the thought. "Kuma-kun could be Scuttle."

Jason snorted in amusement. "Somehow I doubt he'd appreciate that. From what I hear the Baratoges can't swim. Speaking of, who could be Flounder?"

Kemekin tapped his chin in thought.  "Hmm... Maybe Himmel?  Just a mer-puppy with blue stripes painted on him."

Jason burst out laughing. "That works! Ursula's still a mystery, though. I would say Dubhiarr, but she's not really the malicious type. She'd be one of Ariel's sisters."

"I feel like Du would make a particularly intimidating King Triton." He paused. "Or Queen Triton, in this case. Jaebi could be a very, very large Sebastian."

He sat in the next chair over and was struck by a sudden idea. "Ooh! Dominic as Ursula!"

"Hah! But then who would Vincent be? I can see him being King Triton, honestly. I recall hearing he was Ursula's brother or something, so if Dom was Ursula, that makes it even better."

Kemekin pursed his lips. "Triton is Ursula's brother? But that doesn't make sense. One's a fish and the other's a mollusk."

He dug around in his bag for his sketchbook. Over the rustling, he added, "But I do like the idea of Dom as Ursula. Bolin and Hoshi could be Flotsam and Jetsam."

Jason giggled and nodded eagerly. "Oooh, ja. Let's see, who else can we cast in this... I think we've about got all the main characters covered already."

Kemekin chuckled. He set his sketchbook on the table and flipped through doodles and notes, schematics for Rube-Goldberg machines and designs for sculptures and projects. One of which seemed to be a centipede made of baby doll parts, immediately followed by a sketch for a delicate column of dogwood flowers, to be whittled from wood and painted with a glaze that would darken to pink and green in the sunlight.

"There was the shark that chased Ariel. Maybe we can rope Fable into that."

"That's true. Oh! And the cook who tried to kill Sebastian! That'll have to be Rhythan, it couldn't be anyone else."

He leaned over to look at Kemekin's sketches, his eyebrows slowly lifting. Some of those drawings were... interesting. "Have you ever actually made anything from these ideas yet?"

Kemekin tried to imagine Rhythan tossing Jaebi into a pot while saying Here you go, in ze sauce, and snorted. "Rhythan couldn't be more perfect for the role."

He nodded as he flipped back through some of them. "The centipede baby was for a class project on different phobias. I think Bolin has it now. And the dogwoods were for a girl." He flipped through a few more pages, to a a design for a string of lights shaped like leaves that would change color based on the temperature for the room.

"I haven't found a way to make this one work yet, but I have all the leaf casings made. My room is absolutely full of bits and pieces from some of these projects."

Jason nodded, admiring the leaf-lights. "That looks like it'd be gorgeous if you found a way to make it work. Is this just a hobby, or do you plan on making money from any of these?"

Shrug. "I like making things. I guess if I felt like I could do well enough, I'd at least take commissions from people."

Kemekin realized that he'd never thought about the prospect of making a career out of his projects before. Maybe he should start looking into his options.

Jason nodded. "Commissions are good. I make decent money from those. Also selling prints on deviantART."

Jaebi nosed into the room and paused when he saw one of the tables occupied. He blinked, slowly, a tried lifting up on the door handle so the hinges wouldn't creak as he opened it. He was behind on his work for pottery class, and was hoping to make some headway before things started getting stressful.

He waved to Jason and peered curiously at his canvas, a subtle kitty grin curling his lips at the subject.

Jason caught Jaebi's eye and smiled. He wasn't sure he'd ever get used to how tall the younger student was. "Hallo. Feeling artsy too, are you?"

Jaebi's smile widened and he nodded. He loped into the supply closet and gathered cloth to cover a tabletop, a heavy block of clay, an apron, and a handful of sculpting tools. He set these on the next table over, then went to the cubbies to grab the wood and wire armature he had put together in class.

When he returned to his table, he scooted the bench away and slid his jacket off. He preferred to work with clay while standing up.

The bare wire skeleton suggested some kind of four-legged creature with an elongated torso. Perhaps a centaur.

Jason added the finishing touches to his canvas, then washed his brushes and moved to watch Jaebi work from a polite distance. He wasn't entirely sure what the armature was supposed to be yet, but he was interested in finding out.

Jaebi kneaded handfuls of clay until they were soft and smooth, and added them in lumps to the armature. Eventually the basic form took shape, though the four-legged portion of the body was too bulky to be a horse.

And then Jaebi added one large, thick horn to the head, followed by a smaller horn just above it.

It was a rhino.

Jason smiled as Jaebi's sculpture took shape. Well, that wasn't what he'd expected. It looked good, though. "Very cool. What do you call that? A rhinotaur?"