Late Summer Flowers: Black & White Printable Paper Doll

summer-flowers-margot{Click Here for a PDF to Print} {Click Here for a PNG to Print} {Click Here for the rest of this series}

A new Margot paper doll today in black and white for coloring. Also, she has glassess

It’s been a sort of surreal few days and I nearly didn’t get this done. I’ve been fighting a flea problem in my apartment, as I mentioned last week, and while I don’t see any fleas today, every time I feel a little itch, I get nervous. Needless to say, I’m not really keen on insects at the moment.

Meanwhile, the new school year starts in a few weeks which means things get busy at the library. I like it when the school year begins though, because I find campus feel empty when it is just staff and graduate students.

Dionisia: Printable Fantasy Paper Doll

So, I used to think that cockroaches were the most annoying pest ever known to man, but recently fleas have taken over as my least favorite pest. I have been working on eradicating them from my apartment over the last few days. The Flea Eradication Effort (FEE) is progressing well, I think, though now everytime I enter my apartment I start itching (fleas or not..). Ugh….

Anyway… Let’s talk about paper dolls.

As far as paper dolls go, Pixie is pretty versatile. So, is Marisole, but perhaps because Pixie sets take fewer pieces (the average number of pieces on a Pixie paper doll set is 8 vs 11 for a Marisole Monday paper doll set), I tend to find them less intimidating. I also think the pose is easier to draw for.

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{Click Here for a PDF in Color} {Click Here for a 150 dpi PNG in Color} {Click Here for More Pixie & Puck Paper Dolls}

Anyway, I was inspired to do this paper doll set by the episode The Outsider (specifically Belle’s outfit here) from Once Upon a Time. I openly confess I haven’t gotten up the energy to watch the second half of the second season of that show. I enjoyed the first season, but the second season just got a little two soap opera complicated. Trying to follow three different plot-lines each episode was confusing and I found myself feeling like I just didn’t care enough about any of the people involved. I might not finish the season.

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{Click Here for a PDF of Black and White} {Click Here for a 150 dpi PNG in Black and White} {Click Here for More Pixie & Puck Paper Dolls}

Despite my apathy towards the series as a whole, here’s a paper doll inspired by it, vaguely. I don’t dislike today’s paper doll, but her eyes are kinda huge and a little to faun like. Anyhow, enjoy the paper dolls and let me know if it is worth it to finish Season 2 of Once Upon a Time. 🙂

Lord of the North in Color: Fantasy Paper Doll to Print

lord-of-the-north-marcus-color{Click Here for a PDF to Print} {Click Here for a PNG to Print} {Click Here for the rest of this series}

The Spirit of the North paper doll is sort of the same world as this one, I think, sort of the female counterpoint to this male paper doll.

Now that Julie pointed out to me that his head is out of proportion in comparison to Marisole, it’s been bothering me… but since he was in color I wanted to post him anyway. His head might be getting some surgery.

I spent a chunk of my weekend looking for a dress to wear to a wedding and trying to treat a flea problem which my apartment is currently suffering from. I used to hate cockroaches, but I have decided that fleas suck more.

Snow-White and Rose-Red: Magnetic Paper Dolls

Snow-White and Rose-Red (Schneeweißchen und Rosenrot) is a German fairy tale collected by the Brother’s Grimm. It’s not the same as Snow White (Schneewittchen), though a lot of comics and stories do connect the two, like Fables (which is wonderful, by the way, if you like comics).

I know Snow White and Rose Red is not the most well known story, but basically it’s your standard girls meet bear, girls meet evil dwarf, girls cut off evil dwarf’s beard, bear kills dwarf, bear becomes prince sort of affair.

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The moral of the story probably has something to do with being nice to bears and/or dwarfs, but that all seems rather unimportant.

I decided to draw a new Flock doll to go along with Dove for this story, so everyone can meet Swan. Swan, here with blond hair in ringlet curls, is the latest member of the Flock family and the second Asian doll (or at least my attempt at it). I was going to do a fairytale from the Asian continent, but I don’t know much about Asian fairy tales (and even sticking and entire continent’s culture into one block is totally painful to me, but I digress).

Before someone suggests Mulan, I should say that Mulan is not, technically, a fairy tale, but rather it is a legend. Fairy tales, generally, are defined by folklorists as containing magic, mystical creatures and generally not being perceived by the tellers as being true. In other words, no one ever through Rose-Red and Snow-White actually happened.

Legends, generally, at some point in their history, were perceived to be true. King Arthur and the Holy Grail is a legend.

Anyway, enjoy Snow White and Rose Red. I certainly had fun drawing them.

 

Fairytale Flock: Dove & Swan as Rose Red & Snow White Set PDF Downloads
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Swan as Snow White PDF Download Dove as Rose Red PDF Download Snow White & Rose Red Clothing PDF Download

 

Sketchbook Pics on a Wednesday

It’s been a while since I’ve done a Sketchbook preview post. I thought I might actually get around to doing it. I used an old red woolen shawl as a background, but I think it was not the best choice. Still, here they are.

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So, one of the requests I got during my New Year poll was for a child paper doll. I have really no real interest in drawing children, but I do like drawing paper dolls based on dolls, so this is as close as I am likely to get to drawing a paper doll of a child.

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Some clothing for the paper doll above. I haven’t really figured out if it’s going to be a stand alone piece or something more serial or even when it will be done, but here some of it is.

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I recently stopped my current curvy set, and I rather liked the idea of the curves. This new curvy doll is here. I don’t know if she’s going to be a series or what. But I rather love her hair.

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A bit of sci-fi cyberpunk clothing here. 🙂 A theme I rather often use, I must confess.

Lord of the North: Male Paper Doll Coloring Page

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{Click Here for a PDF to Print} {Click Here for a PNG to Print} {Click Here for the rest of this series}

Another Marcus paper doll today… Marcus was the subject of a conversation with my friend who I stayed with during my travels…

Me: See, I made a boy for the Marisoles…
Friend: He looks really unhappy…
Me: No, he doesn’t.
Friend: Or maybe just constipated…
Me: Humph…

Now, of course, when I look at him all I can think is… “Does he look depressed or constipated?”

So, clearly, you can’t show your friends anything.

This is my second Marcus paper doll, ever, so I do think I’m still working out the kinks. I must confess he still feels very big to me, next to Marisole. I can’t decide how much the size difference bothers me. Anyway, think of him as a prince or huntsman or whatever you might need to provide a friend for some of the fantasy paper doll sets I’ve done over the years.

Providing Some Cutting Diagrams Paper Dolls

So, a reader named Elizabeth made the following comment:

I just wanted to let you know that lots of your paper dolls (like this one) don’t work when you cut them out because of their hair. It’s too long so when you try and put the tabs over the shoulders the hair is blocking the way. I’ve found a way to fix it but it would be nice if you could improve that! I’m not trying to be rude so if it is then sorry!

First of all, your comment is not rude at all Elizabeth. I’m more then happy to respond to this and I’m happy to take constructive criticism.

I have a lot of paper dolls with very long hair and it’s true that I have never indicated where I expect people will need to cut in order to make the clothing wearable. I always thought it would be obvious that you had to cut along the shoulders and the sides of the paper dolls body to allow for the tabs to fit, but perhaps this is not as obvious as I always thought it was.

So, I have done some rather quick and dirty diagrams here of where you may need to cut in order to allow long haired paper dolls to wear the clothing.

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PandP-diagram
Hope this helps. As I say fairly regularly, questions are always appreciated and I try to answer all the questions that I can.

Kalisha: Paper Doll to Print in Color

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{Click Here for a PDF in Color} {Click Here for a 150 dpi PNG in Color} {Click Here for More Pixie & Puck Paper Dolls}

I try to be balanced in paper dolls. I want to have a variety of styles, a variety of skin tones, a variety of hair styles, a variety of genders (okay, maybe not the last one so much…), but I haven’t done a paper doll with glasses in a while.

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{Click Here for a PDF in Black and White} {Click Here for a 150 dpi PNG in Black and White} {Click Here for More Pixie & Puck Paper Dolls}

Recently, I have been watching a lot of Black Adder, particularly Black Adder Goes Forth, which I have never seen before. I’m really enjoying it, though I don’t know if that has anything to do with today’s paper doll creation, actually, I expect it doesn’t, but it has allowed me to draw some paper dolls.

Kalisha’s color scheme was inspired by flowers and sunsets- warm soft tones. I love pale grey trousers which perhaps explains why they show up so often in my paper dolls (also in my closet).

Divergent: Paper Dolls Inspired by the Book

So, when I was in Chicago last week I visited a good friend who works as a children’s librarian and she recommended a book she’d just finished called Divergent, which is a recent Young Adult novel by Veronica Roth. I read the book while I was riding the train from Chicago to Minneapolis and drew the paper doll outfits soon after.

marisole-divergent-color{Click Here for a PDF to Print in Color} {Click Here for a PNG to Print in Color}

In a slight change of pace from usual, the black and white version is posted today along with the color version. Each of the sects is defined largely by color and I didn’t think spacing out the two posts was really worth it. Plus I got both paper doll versions done at the same time, so I might as well show them off.

marisole-divergent-black-white

 {Click Here for a PDF to Print in Black and White} {Click Here for a PNG to Print in Black and White} {Click Here for the rest of this series}

In the distopian future of Chicago, as told by Divergent, all people belong to one of five sects. In alphabetical order- Abnegation (self-denial) wear grey, Amity (fellowship) wear red and yellow, Candor (frankness) wear black and white, Dauntless (fear-less) wear black punky style and Erudite (scholarly) wear blue.

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The story follows Beatrice, born into Abnegation, through her choice to join Dauntless on her sixteenth birthday and everything which comes with this decision.

I enjoyed the novels engagement in questions of identity, a topic I think that is important to a young adult audience, plus Chicago was shown as a swamp which, without the various canals currently in the city, it certainly would be. And we don’t get enough novels these days that pull out esoteric words like abnegation into common speech.

This isn’t a paper doll of Beatrice, since I don’t draw other people’s characters, but rather some other member of the society. I didn’t look at any of the movie promotional stuff, because I wanted to draw what I saw people in, not what the costume designer on the film saw people in. Though I did see the camera stuff around downtown Chicago where they are currently filming the movie.

I also went to the Chicago City Museum’s exhibit on the Ebony Fashion Fair and you can expect to see that in paper doll format soon as well.

Oh, and I haven’t read the sequel yet, so no spoilers in the comments please, though I’d love to hear that other people thought of the book.

New Clothes for the Magnetic Marisole

So, this isn’t a very big update, but I did get some more clothes for the Magnetic Marisole series formatted and resized for the magnetic dolls. All contemporary stuff. I brought some magnetic paper dolls to one of my hosts over my travels and she remarked that she really thought her magnetic paper dolls needed more clothing. Needless to say, I am working on that. 🙂

{ Directions for Making Printable Magnetic Paper Dolls }

{ The Rest of the Magnetic Marisole Series }

 

Some New Contemporary Clothes

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