Kiln Heated

Looking at him, one might expect Matthias to be a relatively put together bun. He does make an attempt to dress nicely, even if his sleeves tend to be stained with paint and clay. What one might not expect, however, is that his attempts at personal grooming barely extend to his living space.

This is most apparent in the largest, and most used, room of his burrow - his workshop. Despite having a large window, visibly dusty blackout curtains are almost always covering the window, leaving the space dark and musty. The first to draw the eye when entering into the room is a large worktable pushed against one wall, with scattered pieces of Matthias' active project. The wooden surface of the table has some deeply ingrained bits of clay stuck into worn grooves, alongside layers of dust, and small splotches of dropped paints. A couple of mugs adorn the table as well, one filled with tools usually marketed for wax carving, and the other with delicate paintbrushes. Shoved to one corner is a small lamp, with a bendable body. While there is an overhead light in the ceiling, one of the two bulbs have burned out, leading to Matthias making heavy use of his shiny, silver desk lamp.

Currently, a few pieces of sandpaper of varied coarseness, alongside a respirator sized for Matthias' doll form, have been set down next to the newly fired porcelain doll parts, carefully arranged into the shape they will eventually be assembled in. While not strictly necessary, Matthias has the tendency to leave most of his unfinished dolls in a similar state to help prevent mixing up the pieces. After all, while it's possible to tell the right calf from the left, it can become difficult when fatigued and distracted. It was always better to be safe rather than sorry.

Set alongside the nearby wall is a shelving unit, stuffed full of small plastic bins containing a variety of materials. One is filled to the brim with bits of foam, styrofoam, plastic wrap, and other similar material for use during the prototyping phase. Another has a collection of small metal S-shaped hooks, ones that will eventually help hold the pieces of a doll together. Yet another contains a collection of elastic rolls, with varying thickness and colors. While most of Matthias' works are dolls that are roughly 1/3 the size of a Succubun's doll form, any that are larger or smaller necessitate slightly different materials. The last bin of note has scraps of soft leather, suede, that is used to pad the joints of porcelain dolls to help limit wear of the delicate material. 

The rest of the shelves are filled with old notebooks, sketches, sewing patterns, and bottles of paints and glazes, shoved haphazardly into the available space. The books tend to be jammed with concept art and blueprints for past projects, with some extra pieces of paper shoved between their pages and covers to help keep them dust-free.

A second set of shelves is set alongside the same wall as the door, though this one is sturdier, and made with metal. It holds bags of plaster, doll part molds, containers of liquid porcelain, and blocks of clay. Some of the clay is air dry, for easy prototyping and shaping, and some of it is a variety of clay that requires firing, something that Matthias tends to keep around for other projects.

Sprinkled across the shelves, as well as on the floor near the unit of clay, sit a variety of old plaster molds. Most will be reused, as there's not necessarily a lot of need to design a completely new doll body for every single doll. Others, like the faces, may only be used once or twice, to help keep each doll Matthias creates unique. It wasn't something that everyone did, but he found the original sculpting process too much fun to leave behind completely.For all that it needs dusted, it's relatively organized, and that helps smooth Matthias' workflow.

Across the short hallway is Matthias' bedroom, an area that's small and compact. It's relatively obvious that the burrow's builder was expecting what became the workshop to be the bedroom, leaving Matthias to fit a twin-sized cot into some sort of small storage room. It's large enough to accommodate the bed, but it leaves little space for anything else.

He's completely unbothered by this, and uses any of the extra space not taken up by his bed to store more crafting materials - namely, the fabric for sewing doll clothes, alongside the thread and beads, that he does not want exposed to the dust created from sanding the dolls. Alongside the small chest of drawers, in which is keeps his clothes, it ends up leaving the small space cramped and cluttered, with only a small area to be able to enter and exit the space.Next to his bedroom, just down the hall, is a small bathroom. Without a bathtub, it only a small shower alongside the sink and toilet. This space, too, is small, but unlike the workshop and bedroom, pretty sparse. A hook on the wall has a bath towel, and the shower itself has only one bottle - a 3-in-1 body wash, shampoo, and conditioner. It still has a sticker proclaiming that it's on clearance for almost half price. A small bar of scented soap rests next to the sink, slowly being whittled down to it's last slivers.

The final room in the burrow is a modest kitchen and dining room. The table is small and wooden, with a small stack of cardboard under one leg to help even it out. There's enough space for 4 chairs, but only 3 are present, as one had broken not long ago. The sink is filled with a hodgepodge of dishes, some misshapen and obviously hand-made. Resting on the countertop is an old, worn microwave. It's in desperate need of a cleaning, though Matthias has obviously been procrastinating on that for some time.

If you were to open the cabinets, you'd find a large collection of mugs, cups, and glasses, alongside a lot of empty space, and a set of 3 pots. On a closer inspection, one would be able to notice that these pots still seem pretty new, and rarely used. The reason for this is apparent, once you inspect the rest of the area.

However, the potentially most striking part of the kitchen is likely the fact that the spot that obviously hosted an oven and part of the countertop at one point. Now, however, that space is being taken up by a modestly sized kiln. While it's not large enough to have commercial capacity, it's certainly more than enough to accommodate firing dolls and other projects on the small size.

It's somewhat obvious that Matthias has chosen to forgo mildly expensive furnishings, dishes, cooking supplies, and other staples in favor of being able to install a personal kiln. If anyone ever asks, Matthias will insist that it was definitely worth it, and that he had no regrets. After all, the kiln does see heavy use, and it means that he never needs to find a studio outside his home to be able to work on his art. If nothing else, it did mean that while it was running, he rarely needed to turn a heater on during winter.