Author Archives: RLC

Marisole Monday: Commercial Fisher

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Technically, it’s just past midnight here in Illinois, but its still Monday in Alaska, so I think she still counts as on time.

When I was a child, the we’d go out for a few weeks each summer and commercially fish for salmon and halibut, so I wanted it to be accurate beyond my own memories. Commercial fishing is some of the most back breaking labor I have ever done. It’s hard work, but you can’t beat the views. When I was 16, I was offered the choice of working for the summer fishing or finding a job.

I found a job.

My mom actually requested this paper doll a few months ago and it took me a while to decide what exactly to include on the sheet (Hi mom!). So, we have Marisole, with coloring as close to a self portrait of me as you’ll ever get on this blog, and she has a wardrobe of proper fishing clothing from her heavy duty dark green rain gear (overalls and a jacket) to her bright orange rubber gloves for baiting hooks and cutting fish. She comes with a small Pacific Halibut (slime not included) and a King Salmon, though neither looks as good as I wanted it too. She also has a gaffhook, a gutting knife and a little green tin of bag balm to wear under her gloves.

The cold storage we sold our fish too was in Hoonah, Alaska and it gave away baseball caps. I still remember my father walking around in his jeans with his bright pink Hoonah Cold Storage cap on his head. I had one for years, but I don’t know what happened to it. So, Marisole has one of those too along with some t-shirts, jeans and long underwear. Most importantly, Marisole has her Xtratuff boots which are a required part of any fisherperson’s wardrobe.

Personally, I think she’s prepared for her adventure.

Posted in Full Color, Marisole, Printable Paper Dolls | 10 Comments

Cocktail Dresses with Ruching

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This beautiful sent of cocktail dresses was meant to show off ruching which I have been practicing. I love the combination of the apple green and the strawberry pink, but also wanted to have a more sedate color scheme for the less adventurous among the Dictionary Girls. I am pleased with how both dresses came out, but I sometimes admire the work of other paper doll artists and know I need more practice.

Lately, I have been very impressed by Siyi Lin an artist from Taiwan, I think. Her work is beautiful and often featured in Haute Doll Magazine. She has both a webpage and a Picasa album which I confess to staring at for far too long. I love her colors and her drape and her faces. I think her paper dolls are done with vectors and that is something I really want to learn how to do. Someday, I’ll have the time to take a class on vector drawing. Yes… I’ll fit that in between my classes, work and job hunting. Not any time soon, I fear, but someday.

But I’m really inspired by her paper dolls of Ann Estelle and Betsy Mccall and I wonder about doing a child paper doll. I’ve played around with them in the past. It would certainly be a paper doll of a doll rather then a real child.

But this brings up a deeper more complicated issue of what should I do with paper dolls that aren’t part of my standard series, and I don’t have an answer. I don’t like the Gallery, but I don’t know what to do with the content I have there and the Short Run dolls were fine, but I haven’t used them in a while. I need to somehow consolidate the paper dolls that are not part of a series under a sort of umbrella category somehow… What do people like more? A gallery approach or something else? Does anyone, but me care? Possibly not.

Posted in Curves 2.0: Dictionary Girls, Full Color, Printable Paper Dolls | 5 Comments

From the Depths of the Sketchbook

As I sit here prepping this post, I have giving out candy to small children. Is there anything cuter on this planet then children dressed up for Halloween? I don’t think there is.

Shadow and Light

Shadow and Light Clothing

Shadow and Light clothing for the paper dolls. Some pirates and some fantasy Gothic attire. As always, I draw heads separately and attach them to the doll as needed. With Shadow & Light, I also tend to draw the heads a little bigger then needed and re-size them- it helps me get in more detail then I usually can.

Child paper doll

I’ve been working on some child paper dolls. This is some clothing I have drawn for one. I’m not totally pleased with the doll, but then I’m never totally pleased with anything. All of these dresses are based the clothing of Lenci dolls from the 1920s and 1930s.

Posted in Work-In-Progress | Leave a comment

Marisole Monday: Trick or Treat

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Happy Halloween! And to celebrate this festive day, I have a halloween paper doll.

Now, this isn’t the first Halloween paper doll I have done. After all, there was the vampire paper doll from last year, so you can celebrate with her too. (Also, there’s a zombie who would fit in well.)

I always have these high expectations and plans for Halloween. I mean, is there a better holiday for paper dolls? It’s all about costumes, for gods sake. It’s perfect. And yet, somehow, I never manage to actually get my act together enough to do anything major for the holiday. Sad, but true.

Last year, I actually drew this paper doll set. The idea was to do a whole month of costumes. Obviously, that didn’t happen last year and it didn’t happen this year, but since I’d never finished coloring this set, I thought I would post it now. The strapless white dress can either be used as the base for the Egyptian Queen costume set or the Angel costume set. The wings should be glued to the back of the doll along the white strip.

I hope everyone has a safe and fun Halloween. I’m planning on spending mine doing laundry, cleaning the apartment and handing out candy to small children.

Posted in Full Color, Marisole, Printable Paper Dolls | 3 Comments

Pixie & Puck: Kadeem and Gabriel Ready for Dates

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So, a few weeks ago before I dropped off the face of the earth, before I ended up sick, and before I discovered what fascinating colors old chicken curry can turn, I had a little drawing to celebrate the 65th Marisole paper doll ever. A wonderful reader known as Kat won by drawing and was so kind as to send me the following guidelines for what sort of paper doll she would like to see for her prize.

I was wondering if I could request a Puck doll. If so, I’d very much like to see him in a suit, so that he can take the gussied up Pixies to their soirees :) . No real preference on the colors but I would like a boutonniere.

Now, I’ve never been pleased with the Puck paper dolls, but I was willing to try to make some dapper Pucks for her, so I set to work and it took a lot longer then I thought it should, but sometimes these things do.

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It might be a few weeks late, but I am proud to provide two puck paper dolls in stylish suits. The first is Kadeem who I think of as a modern young man heading out for a date, though I suppose in his clean cut suits he could also be heading to work or something else. He has two different boutonnieres and a corsage for his date.

He’s joined by his good friend Gabriel, a slightly old fashioned gentleman, with a pair of black suits with red ties. Something about doublt breasted suits always makes me think of the noir movies, so I gave Gabriel an old fashioned hair style and shoes to go with it. Gabriel, Gabe to his friends, also has two boutonnieres and a corsage. If you slit along the dotted line on the suit jackets, the gentleman can wear their boutonniere.

I hope these guys were worth the wait, Kat and now any of the Puck paper dolls are ready for dates. Love maybe in the air.

Posted in Filler Doodles, Pixie & Puck, Printable Paper Dolls | 2 Comments

Shadow & Light 8

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Yay, Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland.

(I’m really tempted to end the post here, but I won’t.)

I’ve always been fascinated by how Alice in Wonderl and has spread and propagated fascinating cultural ideas. Though, I suspect Jefferson Airplane had a lot to do with it, the novel is one of my favorite as is the sequel. I’ve read them both many times and if you want to read them many times, then you can find them free online all over if you’ve never read it.

I, of course, agree with Alice. There’s not much use for a book if it doesn’t have any pictures in it, so I offer these illustrations. The outfit on the left is inspired by Alice herself and the right look is based on the Mad Hatter. Enjoy both the outfits and the paper doll.

On a semi-unrelated note, there will be Puck paper dolls up on Sunday and more sketchbook images next week as I take more photos of what I have been working on.

Posted in Black & White, Shadow & Light | 3 Comments

Sketchbook, Again…

So, some of you might be wondering what I was drawing while I was not updating and here’s a little look at some of the things that are sitting in my sketchbooks. Normally, I try not to post things that won’t someday become part of this site, but here I’m making no promises.

Drawing of Paper Doll

Most of my paper dolls begin as one doll body with multiple heads, so they look like this in my sketchbook. I have been told by friends that they are, and I quote, “kinda creepy looking”.

Drawing of Paper Doll Wigs

Hair is drawn separately, usually, then attached to the paper doll with the power of Photoshop. Sometimes I draw heads with hair, but in this case I didn’t. If I am going to give the paper doll “wigs” I usually draw a short hair style and then create the other styles to go over it.

Curves Bows

Lastly, I’ve been working on Dictionary Girls outfits. I’ve been enjoying drawing things inspired by the fifties and early sixties. This is a set focused on bows which I think is kinda obvious. I quite pleased with both the dresses and slightly frustrated by the shoes. I really love drawing shoes, but I really hate drawing feet which always seem to end up at odd angles. And don’t even get me started on hands…

Posted in Work-In-Progress | 2 Comments

Gowns and Jewels for Curves 2.0

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As I mentioned before, I am focusing on clothing for the Curves 2.0 for the next few weeks. I figure my five girls need some dresses to wear, or else they shall be poor cold paper dolls. As much as a paper doll can be cold, I suppose. I always did like drawing clothing far more then I liked drawing dolls, to tell you the truth. I just feel like I should have a nice set of dolls before I start drawing lots of clothing, even if clothing is more fun. It’s rather like eating veggies before the desert.

Speaking of eating my veggies, during my absence from the blog, I did some drawing of paper dolls, though not related to my usual serial dolls. After some debate, I thought I would ask how people felt about seeing things from my sketchbook that might never make it onto the blog.

Posted in Curves 2.0: Dictionary Girls, Full Color, Printable Paper Dolls | 5 Comments

Marisole Monday: Book Loving Princess

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I love her braids. I am less pleased with the title of this set. I am running out of things to call these darn sets. So, I just sort of pick words out of the air. I’m not sure that they are that informative for people, but what the heck? It’s a paper doll.

I have been working on creating a new pallet of skin tones based on photographs of supermodels/actresses of various elasticities. It is slow going. I tend to think of skintones in terms of color- light brown, dark brown, brown with a little red in it, brown with grey undertones, peach with yellow undertones, peach with red undertones… I rarely think in terms of ethnicity, so I find myself skipping around looking for various “colors” to adopt. It’s been educational and I like the colors I am getting out of it.

Also, I know I owe a Puck paper doll to Kat the winner of my drawing. Fear not, Kat, it is nearly done and will be up this coming Sunday. I have not forgotten, I just didn’t get it quite finished last week.

Posted in Full Color, Marisole | 3 Comments

Four Things I am Currently Obsessing Over…

1. The Illustrations of Ivan Bilibin.

I had a picture book with his illustrations when I was a child and I’ve never really gotten over it.
Illustration by Russian artist Ivan Bilibin
This one is from Vasaline the Beautiful. I seriously want to put her in thigh high boots and a short fur cape and a pair of pants and give her a sword. But I wouldn’t remove the skull. I love the skull. I wish I could draw skulls.

2. Dolls with Huge Heads like Blythe and Pullip

Blythe Doll
This image is from Blythe for McQ Alexander McQueen for Target and I love it. I love her face. She looks so mischievous.

Pullip Doll
And this is a Red Ridinghood Pullip, and I think she’s creepy and cute and sort of interesting. I might be on a little bit of a modern fairy tales kick. (And then I realize, I’m sort of always on a modern fairytales kick.)



3. Cybergoth Fashion

@@ Cybergoth Pictures, Images and Photos
This image comes from Photobucket. I love the hair. I love the color. I am unsure about the furry leg things. Though I confess, I can’t really tell the difference between Cybergoth and Cyberpunk. Perhaps someone more in the know can enlighten me.

4. Art Deco Bridge Tallies


Pullip Doll Pullip Doll

Seriously. And I don’t even play bridge. I don’t even know the rules of Bridge. I love these art deco tallies through. The movement and the dark lines and the flat color. Wonderful.

So, these are my current fascinations. Will they show up as paper dolls someday? Yes… Yes they will. How and when, I have no idea, but it will happen. It nearly always does. Besides, it’s been a while since I did a cyber/futuristic Marisole paper doll. She’s due for some crazy hair colors and platform boots.

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