Puppet Construction

Li Dian didn't often flaunt the fact that he was from the Yamamaka clan. It was only a small off shoot from the main branch of the tree, and in The Rain village that name didn't mean much anyway. In truth the only thing Li Dian had ever gotten from his relation to the Yamamaka clan was a lot of people claiming to be his cousin with the charts to prove it. He found very early on that he wasn't overly useful when it came to Ninjutsu so his families claim to fame was almost entirely wasted on him.

That's not to say it didn't have some benefits. Like access to some of the finest puppet making material, name and stature could amass.

It taken weeks of sending a letter to his cousin, who would send it to his cousin, who had a sister in the leaf village who had some spare parts. Then he had to arrange for their transportation, the drop location, the pick up time. Not to mention the favors he know owed three different branches of the family. He'd be indebted to them until he was a chunin! Didn't matter, though. Didn't matter. He had it's parts and now The village hidden in the Rain would have it's angels.

Li Dian was bubbling with excitement. He'd had the vision in his mind for so many years. His basement was covered in designs, and re-designs. He was calling it "The Angel Project." Catchy right? This was his grand scheme. How he was going to inspire awe and hope into the city!

He was raised on a steady diet of Kohnan as a kid. An angel who once ruled, and watched over the city. She ruled during a time of peace in the City's history. Her elegant white rings, brought tears to the eyes of all that saw her. They knew when they looked at her that they were safe and protected. They had hope. Something which had sadly, vacated the city in recent years.
He collected every drawing and picture of Kohnan he could. Studied her 'Design' if you would. Everything that made people belive in her, physically he wanted to capture in his puppets design. People would see his creation and instantly be reminded of their cities former glory.
Under the pounding rain Li pulled his tarp covered wagon alone the street. His shoes did their job well as he trounced through the puddles, never feeling a bit of moisture upon his foot. Li Dian never really minded the rain all that much. He found it soothing. Maybe he was just lucky in birth, but he loved the rain.

As he walked himself down the alley road he came upon a man camped out under a terrace. He was scrawny, and weary, as well as sitting by a pile of refuse. "Good, morning." Li announced tipping his straw hat.

"What so good about it?" The old man grumbled.

Li certainly hadn't been expecting that! "Well you're awake and alive."

The man grunted. "That doesn't necessarily constitute a good day." Well fuck you too, old man. Li Dian was just trying to be friendly! You old bastard.

At least that's what a lesser being would have exclaimed. Li just smiled, his infinite reserve of patience, seemingly infinite. As well as inexhaustible, boundless even. "Because today an angel is coming to our city. Just like the legends of Kohnan."

The man gave him a quizzical look. "What nonsense do you speak."

Li Simply laughed and continued on is way. "No lie my good man, soon angels will fill the sky!

(602/3,000) of Raphael As of yet un-approved. Sooooooo yeah,

+3 stats?

Approved

It took about an hour for Li to unload his entire cart, and get it down to his work shop in the basement. The brick walls of his little palace could scarcely be seen under the layers of posters, and puppet diagrams. He was almost ashamed to admit that he'd been planning this out for a long long time. Ever since he saw those little kids laughing at the puppet show he knew what power he could hold. The power to make people laugh, and maybe even give them hope.
He cleared off a good amount of papers from his work desk, throwing them haphazardly to the floor. It was a horrifying fire hazard he had on his hands. Not important! He was working with wood and wire! Fire would come nowhere close to his dungeon!
He looked credulously at a lantern before blowing it out. Okay now, there was no risk of fire.

His entire morning was spent putting together the skeleton of the puppet. Just the basic outline. of a human body. It would be the frame work that would hold the entire thing together. The strong lightweight metal provided an excellent base to start with. It would also be the easiest part of the procedure.

Li attached his chakra strings to the skeleton, and have a shot an controlling it. Back when he'd traveled around with the puppeteer he'd done this many of times. He'd started out controlling the simple little dolls they used for kids shows. That was kid stuff thought. The puppeteer also had some full sized puppets, he often used those for high paying gigs, like for nobles and the like. Those performances were always a little harder. They were usually used for well choreographed battles in the houses of important people. Li always made sure to pay extra attention during those lessons.

The skeleton moved about antiquity at Li's fingers. Performing grand gestures and movements at the lightest flick of his fingers. Nothing caught on anything, and it all moved without a hitch. "Good stuff."

He set the headless skeleton down, and considered where to go now. The shell. Yeah that would probably actually be the best place to start. Actually it was really stupid to consider anything else. Shame on Li! He should know better.

Li looked over his shelves, and piles of wood. "Good Grief." It'd all sounded like a good idea, before he started. Suddenly he felt like prasuing his ninja carrier in a different field. He'd kicked some ass in the forest. Okay sure Coco actually killed people,  but he pulled off that awesome knee move.

Ah F it. He'd already put way too much effort into this whole thing. Plus he had those chakra threads so...

"Algiht." He announced clapping his hands together. "Time to get to work." Once more he looked around. "Crap."

He brought his knife out and set to wildling. The ancient ninja art of widling.

Li Dian took a medium sized block of wood. And got to work. He began with a head. Good chizzled features. A nice strong jaw. He scooped out the chin giving it a compartment for later use. He scooped out the eyes, carved up a nose, a nice brow. Then some ears. Yadda yadda. Listen by the end of the night Li had him self a head. A damn fine looking head not. Not sexually fine looking, but fine as in of good craftsmanship. He wasn't a master, but damn, that was a fine looking head.

"You're gorgeous." Just outside Li's window the sun peered inside his window. "Aww man." He moaned slipping into his seat. Suddenly the weight of the night was upon him. He'd said just one more hour, throughout the entire night. Now it was dawn and his eyes were sealing themselves shut. He slummed off to bed, a bit credgilious about his chances of actually getting any for of proper sleep.

(1258/3000)

Li awoke early in the morning (1:12PM Same difference) ready to get to work. He grabbed himself some breakfast (Leftover pizza) and set off to his work station read to build himself a puppet. In the future when they told of the puppetying genius who made works of art from wood and metal, they'd be talking about Li Dian. (The Puppet man.)

He chopped through that wood like a beaver. He carved two fully articulate hands. Bam! He sunk his stings into that hand, and suddenly that shit could grab stuff. "Hey, where'd I put that soda." Well Li Dian it's over yonder on that table! "Well that's a pain, I don't want to have to walk all the way over there to grab it." Well then just look down there at your hand you've just created. "I'm looking." Good, now form the Idea. "I've got it!"

Li cast his chakra threads over to his puppet's hands and sent those hands flying towards the can. With a grasp that wooden hand clutched onto the can. "I'm awesome." Like a skilled cowboy Li tugged his lasso back sending his can flying into his hand. Well it sent the hand grasping the can, flying into his hand. The real one. "Nice." Li cracked that can open and took a long cool swig of the delicious Pepsi Max. "Wow this is the most delicious zero calorie soda I've ever had!" He looks towards the camera and winks. That Rascal.

Hands? Done. What do hands need? Forearms! Done. Two little cylinders, nothing to it. Oh can't forget a balled wrist to connect the two. That one was pretty horrible to make. A little more metal work than Li liked, but he did it. Joints had always been what he struggled most with when making his puppets on the road. Luckily his teacher was a fairly patient old man.

After that? Arms. Good Choice. Very popular around the world. Snakes? Not a big fan, but what do snakes know anyway?

Feet? Easy, didn't really take much craftsmanship. Besides his puppets wouldn't be touching the ground with their feet. So that was done. Ankles, shins, and legs. All done. The hips were a little harder, he had to ready the sockets for both legs. Not only that but he had to prepare the hips for joining up with the torso.

The torso it what he was really dreading. It just seemed like a big hassle. He checked the time.  just after one in the morning. That actually wasn't that bad. He knocked his shoes off, and mosey himself onto bed. Which he flopped into falling asleep almost instantly. Dreams of angels floating through his head.

xxxx

Have you ever woken up feeling just horribly Rank. Well Li Dian did. He'd done nothing but slave over a hot sauttering iron for the past two days., and he smelled like it too. In a town where everything  is moist it doesn't take much to make something start smelling moldy. "Alright." He slid off his shirt and boxers. "A quick shower then back to work." Today was going to be the fun part.

He cleaned that body up. With soap and everything. The scumming residue of two days hard work, rippled off of him, down the drain. Ca'chow.

He threw on a fresh shirt, pants, underwear, not necessarily in that order. Okay it was absolutely in that order. Listen the guy had been working for two days straight he was tired give him a break! He redressed himself, and this time was ready to go. "Let's do it!"

He ran down to the stairs of his workshop. Two at a time ladies. The smell of freshly cut wood, wafted into his nostrils. "God I love that smell." He sniffed at the air, beautiful. Put side the rain was splattering against the window that just barley peered out at the world. It was the kind of day that would have kept people indoors anyway. He was happy that he wasn't missing much. Besides, he would be doing something productive while inside. All the others would be chewing on potato chips, and watching re-runs, suckers!

He grabbed, a knife and chisel and set out to work.
The chest would be tricky. Tricky tricky. He'd have to make it vaguely human looking, which in itself was hard enough. But it'd have the be the connecting point for the rest of the puppet network. If he messed that little beauty up, then the whole puppet would be useless. Good Grief. Plus it'd take more wood than any of the other parts, which meant that too many failures wouldn't be pretty costly to his bottom line.

No Pressure.

The first cut into a fresh unit of timber always gave Li Dian shivers. There was something about the wood curling away from his blade, that was immensely satisfying. The white shaving of wood flaked away from his blade, and snow flaked to the ground. It was soon followed, by another, and another. Soon it was an entire snow storm of wooden flakes trickling down to Li Dian's stone floor. It wasn't long there after that, that stone grey floor was littered with a layer of saw dust. The room looked like Christmas morning, with a beautiful dusting of saw... dust. Li Dian was only vaguely concerned about any potential lung diseases he may contract from his environment.

As Li Dian's knife tore into the wood, he considered how much detail was actually needed to the torso. Surley not much right? I mean it would be covered up in a robe in no time, so really it shouldn't matter at all if the torso was a log stump, or the chiseled abs of a greek god. It wouldn't, but it did. Li Dian was an artist. So much so that even if no one else knew he simply couldn't settle for anything less than perfection, no he had far too much integrity for all of that. This puppet would have the gratest abs to ever grace the flesh of wood or it wouldn't have abs at all!
He made every stroke count. He didn't want to waste anymore time mucking about with the torso than he had to. Each stroke had a purpose, and each one served to make the torso emerge a little bit more from the wood. Sweat would drip from Li's brow, down unto the wood. It'd bead up upon the flesh of the wood, before being absorbed by the fibers.

After hours of careful labor, at last Li Dian had his torso. Thank goodness. His hand was beginning to cramp up, plus splinters. Oh Lord the splinters! He looked upon the parts he had scattered about the room, satisfied with what he saw. " I am the puppet master."

He collect his scattered bodies parts, and began connecting them with skeleton he'd created earlier. He began with the torso. He wanted everything involving the torso done with as soon as possible. You have to get the hardest piece of equipment out of the way first. Now you'd think that the hands would have been the hardest. What with it's articulating fingers, and what not. However you'd be wrong. Sure they were hard to do, but the torso was bit. In this case, quantity did make up for quality.

From there Li Dian connected the arms to the torso, the hands to the arms. The legs to the torso, and the feet to the legs. He plucked on the head, and badda bing he had an absolutely decent puppet upon his hands!

At this point Li Dian began carving carefully into the abs of the puppet. Again no mess up would be allowed on this particular section of the body. This part was even harder than the original. He carved out the abs, and added a pair of swiveling hinges. With these modification Li Would be able to open up the puppets abs, allowing for it's contents to fall out from it.  Good stuff.

Out from a draw Li Dian drew a bulb. A light bulb. Well it was like a light but much more powerful. It could actually blind a man if it went of in their face. Now that'd be fun for anyone trying to bring ruin to Amegakure. He opened up his Puppets mouth, and installed the bulb, and it's device that would allow it to be ignited by nothing more than Li's chakra thread. Now things were getting andgerous. Li liked it, his own imagination was taking form before him. It was glorious.

Now came the point that Li had been waiting for throughout the entirety of the creation process. The wings. Out from a wardrobe Li Dian brought them forth. A pair of large white angel wings large enough for any man. They were the purest white, like the driven snow. Made of a strange material, that was neither wood, nor metal, nor stone. In fact they almost seemed to have a sheen to them, a light rainbow sheen. They were perfect. Unfortunately Li couldn't claim these pieces of masterwork as his own. His sensei had made them for Li. He was blessed to have such an attentive mentor, not to mention a masterful one. These wings were beyond meer craftsmanship they were like the work of a divine being. The wings were fully articulate. They could move, swivel, and flap like that of any bird, or any angelic beings. Li slid the pieces of art into position, careful that he had them locked into position before letting them go. Beautiful. They were inserted into the puppets back, and stayed there with ease. The puppet was no longer a man, but an angel.

Li Dian swaddled his creation up in a dark green robe. It's material shimmered in the low lighting of his over head lamp. It took a little extra sewing, but in the end the clothed formed a robe about his angelic puppet. It gave the thing a scholarly look, and with the hood draped over the head, it became mysterious. "Oh almost forgot!" From yet another draw Li Dian Drew out several clumps of dark brown hair. Using a good amount of glue, and some masterful knife work Li was able to attach the hair to the puppets head. To even Li's surprise it looked natural, like real hair! go figure!

Li looked upon his creation with pride. It was angelic. There was no other word for it. Sure that'd been the plan all along, but now that he was looking at his creation. It was true, reality. Now all he had to do was sand, and polish it. He looked once more upon his beautiful wooden creation. All six feet of it. All six feet of jagged un sanded wood. Good greif why did he have to be such a perfectionist?

(3075/3000) Finishing the puppet, and 15 stats)