I’m working on a new series of Curves paper dolls. There’s a lot think about. I’m currently calling it Curves 2.0 in my head. Every paper doll starts with an idea. And then I go looking for inspiration. I’ve been wanting to do a pin up inspired paper doll for a while, so I knew that was going to be something I would explore with Curves 2.0.
If you’re interested, check out the rest of this post full of some of the images I’m drawing inspiration from. Otherwise, there will be a normal paper doll post up tomorrow evening.
On Saturday, I went to a nearby town, had dinner and then went to the drive in movie. It’s one of the few drive-in’s left in operation. We saw the new X-men movie which was quite uninspired and rather awful (though the actor who played Magneto was really quite stellar, tragically the rest of the cast was not).
Besides which, and this is going to sound nit-picky, but the film is supposed to be set in the sixties. While the men’s clothing was perfectly fine, most of the women were costumed in stuff whose only relation to the fashions of the 1963 was the fact that some had miniskirts (which didn’t really get going until 1966) , with the exception of Emma Frost, who looked a bit like the similarly named Emma Peel. Being a big fan of Emma Peel, I was not about to object.
I’m all for miniskirts, but really…
Of course, I say this while posting a paper doll which has absolutely no relation to any real historical costume what-so-ever. She’s a fairy tale princess. Does she need to be at all historical? I think not. I suppose the same argument could be made for superheros…
Be that as it may, I’m still annoyed by the mini-skirts.
However, I am now thinking about the idea of an Avengers paper doll. Jumpsuits, cut outs… could be an awful lot of fun.
I spent a fair bit of time tonight trying to figure out how to spell goddess. I swear that word has too many Ds for my own sanity. It’s quite late and I have no excuse for this except it was 97 degrees outside today and I spent most of it hiding in my apartment and then going out for frozen custard.
There’s something fantastic about frozen custard. The real stuff which is freshly made and has eggs in it and is fantastic.
Anyway, on a non-custard related note, classes start for me again next week. I’m not really looking very much forward to them, but I am trying to tell myself its worth it. At the moment, I am feeling fairly mixed about the topic. I’ve been enjoying my class free summer. This, unfortunately, will not last.
I was going to call this post Under the Sea, but I called my last mermaid paper doll Under the Sea. I didn’t think I could use the name twice, so I did the best I could with another, basically the same name. Synonyms… wonderful things.
It took me a long time to decide to do a mermaid version of Marisole. It was requested by a few different people, but I put it off since I wasn’t sure how to make tails work with the paper doll’s leg pose. In the end, I drafted both tails in full size several times, before settling on these designs. I wanted to do one traditional green tail and one more tropical exotic tail in the colors of my pet beta fish, Levi. (His full name is Levithan, but I call him Levi for short.) He has more blue in him then the pink and gold of the tail, but I liked the bright colors and though the pale yellow looked wonderful with the pink.
I strongly recommend taking an exact-o knife, or a pair of scissors, and cutting up along the side of the paper doll’s body between her arm and stomach. That way the tops and tails will both fit much better. The placement of the right arm is one of my major frustrations with Marisole. She needs to be redesigned, but that isn’t going to happen anytime soon.
Blossom is not named after the show from the 80’s, though after I mentioned what I was going to call the paper doll my friend commented about that and I almost renamed her. I can’t really say why I named her Blossom, except that she looked like a Blossom to me. I suppose that answer will have to do. Her costumes were inspired by anime costumes, more then anything else. Several of my good friends are heavily into anime, though I openly confess to not being much of a fan. I do like the outfits though.
I have been thinking a lot about process lately and about ways to make this blog about more then just the paper dolls I post every few days, so I thought I would also scan the thumbnail doodles that became these costumes. As you might notice, there are some differences between the finished product and the draft.That’s fairly common for me. I tend to change things as I am working on them. My only frustrating with this paper doll was the color schemes for the dresses. I went through several dozen and I am still not sure I like all of them. Maybe I’ll published a black and white version as well… Something to think about.
Also, I am very excited to present two paper dolls today. Along with Blossom, there is a version of the Puck paper doll done by Toni L.A. Cross, www.thinkinlikegavroche.wordpress.com, with a much different chin and a quirky expression. He’s an elf and his name is Pavell which is apparently Sanskrit and I think he’s wonderful and very inspired. I especially like what was done with his hand, so he could hold the bow. I want to thank Toni for kindly letting me share him with all of you. It was really fun for me to see what someone else had done based on my work and quite flattering.
It’s nearly Saturday and I am quite wiped out. I went out for drinks with some people after work and then came home and did a bit of cleaning. It was fun, but also tiring after a long intense week of work. This weekend I’ll be taking it easy and hopefully getting some more paper dolling done. It’s humid and hot here- so hot I can feel it on my skin. I very much dislike the heat and would take a rainstorm over this any day.
I am not at my most coherent today, so I offer up these dresses and a reminder that I have a poll in the sidebar.
So, this is a stupidly titled paper doll, but her sleeves are fuzzy, so that should be worth something. 🙂
Curves is a complicated series for me, in part because it fore fills two goals. I began it when I did all my paper dolls for the blog in the heavily shadowed style of Curves, but I wanted to do a full figured paper doll since the ones I had seen online were not very attractive and I thought I could do better.
Two years later, Curves is my only regularly updating paper doll in the heavily shadowed style I developed in college and still often use for non-paper doll drawing. I like the style, because I believe it doesn’t need to be colored, it has a strong enough graphic presence without adding color. A lot of people color them, and that’s fine with me, but my goal was to make a black and white paper doll that didn’t need to be colored.
There were some side effects of this. The heavy shadows, strongly influenced by Frank Miller’s graphic novels, make for a fairly “dark” paper doll. In several ways, the details are often obscured and lost while the tone is also distinctly heavy. Being a bit of a noir movie lover, I don’t mind the tonal shift, but I do think it lends its self to some styles better then others. Gothic, vintage, and somefantasyclothing comes out looking wonderful, but the average jeans and t-shirt leave something to be desired.
I don’t want to give up my heavily shadowed dolls, because I do like them. I also don’t want to stop drawing a full figured paper doll since I think its important. Unfortunately, I also getting somewhat bored with Curves after two years. I think there needs to be a Curves 2.0. I just haven’t figured out yet how to pull that off or what it’ll look like when I do.
Progress reports and thoughts on the subject will be forth coming. Until then, enjoy the furry Gothic costumes for this new Curves doll and anyone’s thoughts on the matter are welcome.
