Month: August 2011

Marisole Monday: Sporty Girl

Lately, I’ve been thinking about children (or, as I think of them, proto-people) and paper dolls. Recently, a friend, upon finding out I drew paper dolls as a hobby, remarked that children must like them.

There was a beat as I thought about this and then I said, « Yeah, I guess. » But truth be told, I don’t think much about children when I’m drawing my paper dolls.

marisole-sporty-girl

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I think about play-ability a fair bit- will these pieces go together and could someone really play with this paper doll. And I think about color and shape and a bit about skin tone (ie: I don’t want all my paper dolls to be white skinned blond Babarbie-esque creatures), but I don’t think a lot about message.

Except a friend has decided she would like to turn some of my paper dolls into magnets for when she is working as a school librarian to have at a play table for the kids. And while I have assisted her by removing tabs and resizing the dolls (instructions and versions of printable magnetic Marisole). I still haven’t quite gotten over the idea that children will be playing with them.

I know just enough about toys and modeling behaviors to feel like its important that I draw some versions of Marisole as something other then a ninja or a pirate. So, I decided to draw some sporty clothing (from a basketball uniform to a tennis dress), because I figured it was a good thing to show Marisole as a sporty girl as well as a girly girl, but I also think this sense of obligation is one of the reasons the paper doll sort of fails. I don’t know much about sports wear and outside of my erratic yoga class, I don’t do a lot of sports. I think it’s pretty clear I wasn’t committed to the set when I drew it. So, while I don’t think it’s the worst set of Marisole stuff I’ve ever drawn, it’s not at the top for me. But, I do like all the neat little sport balls and the tennis racquet, so it’s not a complete loss.

Edit 1/6/2014: Get a colorable version of this paper doll to print here.

Pixie & Puck: Alexa

pixie-alexa

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I am crazy busy getting ready for classes. I have nothing intelligent to say about this paper doll. Enjoy her. Play with her. Cut her out. Get her married. Take her home to meet your Mother… (Okay, maybe not the meeting your Mother thing, cause that could be kinda creepy)

Anyway, the point is to enjoy her.

On a quasi related note, I really do like how her hair came out. I am less sure about her dresses, but I think the hair makes up for it. I’ve been wanting to do a darker skinned Asian doll for a while. Her coloring is based on a lovely visiting Chinese student who was in my courses with me last year. We did a project together during which we both brought food to group meetings. I brought oatmeal chocolate chip cookies and she brought the most wonderful meat filled dumplings. As I recall, she was somewhat suspicious of our insistence that we dip the cookies in milk. I guess it’s not something they do in China.

Shadow & Light 3: Steampunk Paper Doll

shadow-light-paper-doll-3

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I’m not totally happy with her face. I’m going to say that straight up, so that I can get it out of the way. Now, onto other things…

I really am pleased with her adventuring outfit on the left and then on the right is her ball gown- for when she can’t show up dressed in what she wore to fight off the molepeople. It’s not a good adventure story unless there are molepeople and zombies and possibly some sort of fishmen. Of course, it should be noted that no one ever asks the molepeople how they feel about these things. I mean, there they are minding their own business when suddenly they’re being attacked.

Poor Molepeople.

Curves 2.0 Capri Pants… Pigtails… Huge Sunglasses

dictionary-girls-paper-dolls-capri

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I hope is to have at least six different skin tones for these paper dolls. In order to keep straight which things can be worn by which dolls (they all have the same pose, but some shoes show off skin), things that can’t be really exchanged between the dolls will have colored tabs which match the dolls stand color (most wigs, some shoes) and the things which can be worn by any paper doll will have plain white tabs (dresses, hats). The wigs might be able to be exchanged among dolls in some circumstances, but I won’t be double checking them, so I can’t assure their versatility.

I can easily think of more then six skin-tones I would like to do as paper dolls, but the reality is that while people come in thousands of colors, paper dolls are best I think if they come in a more limited palette. It helps make more pieces wearable between paper dolls.

On a slightly unrelated note, I am totally in love with her white sunglasses and they are meant to match the belt and I think it’s cute, though a little absurd which is rather the point of pin-ups, isn’t it?

Marisole Monday: Yellow Princess

When I was a child, I always wanted one of those cakes which had a doll inside of it, but I didn’t like Barbie dolls, so I don’t know what I would have done with one if I had gotten it. I was reminded of them as I worked on this set of paper dolls. Marisole doesn’t have a lot of huge skirted dresses. I think because I more often take my inspiration from the Regency then from the Antebellum eras of costume. Never the less, I knew I wanted to draw some things that were utterly over the top and I think these qualify.

marisole-yellow-princess

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I don’t usually start knowing a color scheme, but in the case of these dresses I was pretty sure I wanted them to be yellow from the beginning. Because the dresses were going to be yellow, I chose a warm pale brown color for Marisole’s skintone and a dark color for her hair. I was really concerned with her skin clashing with her costumes. I don’t think it does, but I was worried it might.

I have, as I sometimes do, left this to the last minute. So, now that its posted, I am going to crawl into bed and sleep for I have work and homework to finish in the morning.

Edit 8/10/2013: There is now a a black and white version of this paper doll for coloring.

At Hogwarts: Harry Potter Paper Doll

I’ve been thinking about doing Harry Potter paper dolls for a while, but have be resisting the urge because I always felt like Marisole looked as though she was too old and so did the other paper dolls on the site. To me, Marisole will always be in her early-20’s and that means dressing her up as a student takes on kinky connotations. Not a place I wanted to go with my paper dolls. While I’ve always thought of Marisole as an adult, I’ve always thought of Pixie as a teenager (late teens, but teens never the less). So, it made more sense in my head to do Pixie as a Hogwarts Student for my Harry Potter foray.

A Harry Potter inspired paper doll of a young Hogwarts Students with uniforms and accesories. Free from PaperThinPersonas.com

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Since I didn’t feel like drawing the same thing over and over again, I decided to do four different sweater and shirt combos- one for each house. The school uniform aspect of Hogwarts garb is a movie creation, since I don’t recall anything beyond a black robe ever being described in the books. Though most schools in the UK do have uniforms and, while I didn’t have a school uniform as a kid in the US, I did enjoy watching the kids stream out of school in their uniforms while I was living in England. It never ceased to amuse me.

Actually, the Hogwarts uniform have changed subtly with each movie, taking on a darker feel as the movies have gotten darker. Rather fascinating really, if you have more time then you know what to do with and you’re easily amused -or watching them in a row while drawing your Harry Potter paper doll.

Of the four sweater combos, I think I like the bronze and blue Ravenclaw one the best. I like the colors and I like how it came out. I should say that I didn’t really plan which sweater would be which house, it just sort of happened without me thinking much about it.

I think the doll looks either Latino or perhaps East Indian would be more fitting given that the school is in Scotland. Maybe a relative of the Patils… Hard to say.

Sketchbook Rides Again

I finally finished inking my latest sketchbook. I have started scanning the images from it. I hope to have the first set up Sunday since I don’t have anything ready yet for Sunday… Leaving things to the last minute is a bad habit of mine, I confess.

sketch-1a
I nearly always draw Pixie paper dolls in half page groups. That’s about how many items of clothing I can fit on a single set. The lower set of clothing is for a Harry Potter paper doll I’ve been planning for a while (though I haven’t seen the last film yet). I realized after I drew her that I needed another sweater for the fourth house, so I’ll have to do that. The upper set is just some normal clothing. I decided I needed more casual normal things for Pixie.

sketch-1b
Future Marisole post, I think. I can fit three long dresses easily on one Marisole post. Each Marisole post takes up a page and a bit in a sketch book. Oh, and I’m kinda on a “crown” kick, though I don’t really like either of those.

The last page here is two more Pixie post things. The top is bell dancer inspired clothing- has about as sketch-1cmuch in common with actual Middle Eastern dress as the Marisole fantasy dresses have in common with Western historical costume, which is to say very little. The bottom are some in-accurate but pretty 18th century inspired dresses.

Shadow & Light 2: Printable Paper Doll

I love contrast of heavy structured pieces with light draped pieces. So, I wanted to sort of play with that and draw nifty harness looking things. See… I was trying to justify my wacky-ness with some sort of artistic statement, but I don’t really take myself that seriously.

shadow-light-paper-doll-2

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On a semi-unrelated note, I’ve become rather obsessed with Blythe dolls lately. At first, I thought they were creepy- all big eyes and weird mouths, but lately I’ve come to actually think they are sort of cute. Mostly I like their little tiny clothing. Not surprising to anyone who knows me, I’ve always been more of a doll clothing, then a doll sort of person. The same is true for paper dolls. As a child, I was just as happy to have just one paper doll and lots of dresses (if not more happy) then to have a lot of dolls.

I’d like to do some sort of Blythe paper doll, but I’m still working on keeping up with what I’ve committed too and I don’t think I’m ready for that quite yet. If I do decide, it might not be serial which brings back the “What to do with non-serial” paper dolls problem.

On an utterly non-related note, I am now going to walk away from my laptop and curl up on my couch with fresh sweet corn and Harry Potter movies. Summer classes are over and life is good.

Curves 2.0 Meet Bianna

Today we have Alyssa’s partner in crime, Bianna. I spent a while debating if I should post clothing before I posted another doll, but in the end the other doll won out, mostly because I’m rather in love with her wigs and her lips.

dictionary-girls-paper-dolls-bianna

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I promise next week there will be some clothing, so the poor girls aren’t running around in their girdles for too much longer. I’m having a lot of fun digging around the Vintage Pattern Wiki looking for dress ideas while fretting about how I don’t like their feet placement.

Oh, well, I don’t think I’ll ever have a perfect paper doll. 🙂

Bianna is not named after anything or anyone specific, except that her name starts with B and I liked how it sounded. Do cut along the dotted lines on her wigs and by her arm to help her wear her costumes. I’ve spent the last few days working hard to finish up assignments for my summer course work and I must confess I have little intelligent to say in this blog post, so enjoy the paper doll and, as always, I love to hear what people think.