Marisole Monday & Friends: A New Romantics Paper Doll & Her Outfit


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Today’s Printable Paper Doll Inspirations: A Patron Request for New Romantic Fashions
A paper doll celebrating the early 1980s New Romantics music and fashion movement from paperthinpersonas.com.

Paper doll post-apocalyptic fashion with boots, stockings and a sweater for the Marisole Monday and Friends printable paper doll series from paperthinpersonas.com.

One of my patrons asked me last year for some New Romantics paper dolls and I was stumped a little.

First of all, the New Romantics music and fashion movement was born in London and I’m not from there. Secondly, it’s actually tough to research fashion from the 1980s. It just hasn’t been long enough for there to be a lot of scholarly work on the subject.

So, nearly two years passed while I tried to figure out what I was doing.

But now I am pleased to present the first of two New Romantics paper dolls.

The second piece of this set is a set of clothing for the guys of the Marisole Monday and friend’s family.

For those you who, like me, aren’t an expert on these things, the New Romantics or New Romanticism was a movement in the early 1980s. Music wise think David Bowie, Adam Ant and Visage. There’s a decent article about the while thing from the Guardian.

Fashion wise, think poet shirts for men and lots of lace for women. Exotic makeup was also a big trend and wild hair. In fact, I don’t think the makeup I did here was nearly wild enough, but I did the best I could given some of the limitations of pen and ink.

Okay, so I know some of my readers lived through this era (and I did, technically, but I was very very little), how did I do? Let me know in a comment!

Think about supporting the blog by becoming a patron. Not only do you get to help keep the blog around, but I am also way more likely to actually draw requests from Patrons. Even if sometimes it takes, you know, a few years.

Need a more outfits for today’s Marisole Monday & Friends Paper Doll? Find More Ladies Clothing Here

A 1920s Children’s Playsuit for the Poppet’s Printable Paper Dolls


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Today’s Printable Paper Doll Inspirations: 1920s Children’s Clothing

A 1920s playsuit in navy and red for the Poppet printable paper doll series from paperthinpersonas.com.

A 1920s inspired paper doll play suit for the Poppet printable paper doll series. Free printable in black and white to color from paperthinpersonas.com.

Playsuits were the 1920s version of overalls for small children. Overall out start being worn by both sexes in the 1930s, but before that the play suit was the thing to do.

Playsuits are bloomers worn under a short dress like tunic. They usually have a high waist and a aline shape to the dress and then the bloomers just peep out the bottom.

It’s really a very girly look for play clothing, but still is pretty practical, all things considered.

Normally a style for younger children, I had some conflict about drawing a play suit for the Poppets.

In my head, the Poppets are between 7 and 9 years old. The playsuit is really a style mostly for younger children, but I found a few that were cited as fitting children up to 8 years old. I decided that they were on the edge of the age range, but I would go for it anyway.

I didn’t record where I got this design from. This is shameful behavior for a librarian and I swear the next batch of the Poppet’s 1920s Collection is all properly cited.

However, I am pretty sure this play suit is from the book 1920s Fashions from B. Altman and Company. I can’t say for positive, but I am pretty sure.

(Mostly, because I am too lazy right now to get off my couch and double check the book which is sitting on my bookshelf.)

If you feel like you need a Poppet to wear this outfit with the right hair or you are just feeling like you’d like some more 1920s styles, you can check out the whole collection under the “1920s Children’s Wardrobe Collection” tag.

So, what do you like today’s 1920s paper doll playsuit? Let me know in a comment. Always love to hear from y’all.

If you have a moment, think about becoming a Patron or liking it on facebook. It really does help.

Need a paper doll to wear today’s outfit? Pick a Poppet Paper Doll Here.

Marisole Monday’s Qi Lolita Inspired Paper Doll Dress


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Today’s Printable Paper Doll Inspirations: Child’s Vests from China Like This One and 1930s Cheongsam Like This One
A fantasy paper doll dress based on traditional Chinese clothing and inspired by Qi Lolita. Free to print in color or black and white from paperthinpersonas.com.

Paper doll Dress. Printable paper doll series from paperthinpersonas.com.

Most of my Asian fantasy stuff is inspired by kimonos, because I really love kimonos.

However,  this one is actually very much not about the kimono. It was heavily influenced by vests like this one from the Met, this one from the Philadelphia Museum of Art and this other one from the Philadelphia Museum of Art. And some really fun vintage cheongsam like this one and this one. You can see more traditional Chinese clothing on my Pinterest board devoted to it.

The other major influence was Qi Lolita, which is a style of Lolita fashion which adapts traditional Chinese outfits like qipao and combines them with the classic full skirted Lolita fashion silhouette.

Basically, imagine if a cheongsam and a big skirted prom dress had a love child.

Initially, I’d planned to use the floral pattern on the top of the dress. I didn’t actually like the flowers on the top of the dress, so I ended up placing them on the two tiered skirt.

The shoes I have mixed feelings about, I confess.

I created them to try to “fill-out” the post, but I am not really in love with them.

So, what do you think about today’s fantasy paper doll dress? Let me know in a comment.

Need a Marisole Monday & Friends Lady Paper Doll to wear today’s outfit? Pick One Out Here

Mini-Maidens as a Paper Doll Warrior Woman


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Today’s Printable Paper Doll Inspirations: Xena: Warrior Princess

A paper doll fantasy armor coloring page with wrist guards and a sword, boots and a knife. The outfit is designed to fit the Mini-Maiden's printable paper doll series.

As you know if you read this blog, I love Xena: Warrior Princess and I am not about to stop loving Xena: Warrior Princess anytime soon.

So, here’s yet another Xena inspired warrior outfit with more exposed skin than common sense dictates.

I realize that there are some Xena-esque outfits in the new Wonder Woman movie (which is a super fun film), but I drew this long before  saw it. I can’t claim any relation between this and that, but I am glad to see a return to absurd armor as a concept.

It’s really very pulpy. I suspect if you really wanted, you could trace a lot of this back to the pulps of the 1930s and 1940s. I am reminded of the Flash Gordon paper dolls I have seen.

And obviously, everyone should want Flash Gordon paper dolls.

I suppose my point is that there is nothing new under the sun and everything is constantly being revamped and recycled.

This recycling is part of why I love collecting reference images on Pinterest as much as I do and why I added the “Inspired By” to the tops of every post. I want people to know that rarely do these thing just “happen”.

I took a poetry class in college. The professor remarked that if you wait around for inspiration to strike, you’ll spend a lot of time waiting and you won’t really spend much of it creating.

In fact, I find I am at my most creative when I already am creating. Sure, everyone needs breaks, but often I find that once I start drawing for one series, other ideas flow much better for me.

Need a Mini-Maiden paper doll to wear today’s outfit? Pick a Mini-Maiden Paper Doll Here.

B&B in Some Patriotic Clothing


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Today’s Printable Paper Doll Inspirations: Stars, Stripes and All Things 4th of July
A set of patriotic paper doll clothing to celebrate the 4th of July for the curvy B&B printable paper doll series from paperthinpersonas.com.

A paper doll Princess Lolita outfit with thigh high socks from paperthinpersonas.com. Available in color or black and white for coloring.

Happy 4th of July!

I didn’t really design this paper doll clothing set to be 4th of July themed. I just wanted to do red jeans and a shirt with stars on it. Somehow once I was coloring the set, the patriotic theme seemed inevitable.

The truth is that I tend to forget most holidays. I think I have all the time in the world and then suddenly they are upon me and I panic. The entire Mini-Maiden series owns its existence to my holiday panic.

Despite that I want to do holiday themed sets. I just seem to forget a lot.

Maybe the thing to do is start planning for Halloween today and then I might not end up scrambling. I’ve always admired Liana’s October themed months. I need to some up with an idea for the month or maybe just something for the 31st.

I hope everyone in the United States has a great 4th of July. I plan to spend mine playing board games, eating barbecued chicken and peach pie.

Need to get a Bodacious & Buxom paper doll to wear these fabulous clothes? Pick one out here.

Meet Chunhua: The New Ms. Mannequinn Doll


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Today’s Printable Paper Doll Inspirations: New Skin-tones, Asian Paper Dolls and the Three Kingdom Period of Chinese History

An Asian printable paper doll with short hair and two pairs of shoes. Part of the Ms Mannequin series, she can share clothing with any of the other Ms. Mannequin paper dolls. She's free to print from paperthinpersonas.com.

A set of urban fashion inspired printable paper doll clothing from paperthinpersonas.com. One pair of jeans and two tank tops make up today's paper doll outfit.

So, today’s paper doll was born out of a few different things. The first was that I wanted to create a paper Miss Mannequin doll with Asian features, since I hadn’t since 2015.

It also seemed past time to introduce another Ms. Mannequin paper doll skin-tone. This one is a bit redder than the skin-tone I use for the paper dolls with the orange bases (like Zola) and a bit darker then the tone I use for the paper dolls with the green bases (like Sunitha).

Her name, Chunhua, is a Chinese name meaning Spring Flower and was the name of a powerful woman in the Three Kingdoms period of Chinese history.

I also happened to like the name a lot.

A few other little bookkeeping things, I’m in the midst of updating my tags and working on my Printable Paper Doll Index, so just be aware there maybe some updates and changes there.

Also, if you like the blog think about liking it on Facebook or supporting it through Patreon.

Goals for this month include getting some new stuff into the Etsy Story. And since it is the end of the second quarter of the year, putting together a blog income report for the second quarter. Stay tuned for that.

Lastly, I want to thank everyone for their kind wishes last week. I’m feeling much better. While I’m still not 100% (Alabama is the WORST state for allergies, I swear), I don’t expect there to be any blog disruption this week.

Need some clothing for today’s Ms Mannequin paper doll? Pick Out Some Ms. Mannequin Clothing Here

A Mermaid for the 2017 Collaborative Paper Doll Project


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Today’s Printable Paper Doll Inspirations: Mermaids! Because I like ’em.

So, this isn’t as inspired as Sekhmet by Boots or Julie Williams amazing centaur or Miss Missy’s Lamia/Naga, but this month has been crazy, so I went for a mermaid.

I like mermaids.

The truth is that I was sick at the start of this week and then I had some blog related problems, but I have been assured those are fixed.

However, if anyone has an issue, please email me at paperthinpersonas(at)gmail.com. It seems the blocking issue was only impacting people in specific geographic regions, so it was really hard to track down.

Of course, when the blog is down, I tend to stress out about it and it makes it hard to want to create new content. Luckily, things should be back to normal next week.

This collaborative paper doll project has been so much fun. When we came up with the idea, I confess that I wasn’t sure we’d be able to make it through the whole year, but here we are in June and we’re still going!

That’s very exciting.

Be sure to check out Popculture and Paper DollsMiss. Missy and Paper Doll School for three other literature inspired paper doll outfits.

Need a doll to wear this stylish outfit? Grab the Doll here. 

Mini-Maiden’s Paper Doll Sci-Fi Dress & Serious Boots to Print


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Today’s Printable Paper Doll Inspirations: Dark Matter and My Sci-fi Fashion Pinterest Board

So, when I drew today’s printable paper doll outfit, I thought to myself, “Man, those are some serious boots.”

And I think I like the serious boots.

I love sci-fi shows. Currently, I’m watching Dark Matter. I started Dark Matter a few weeks ago and I just about done with season 1. It is a good paper doll drawing show- engaging, but not so complex that I can’t look away from the screen for inking purposes.

The costuming, however, is uninspired thus far. It’s a lot of very basic pieces and I find myself wishing for a little more interest. I suppose it is more realistic, but then I’m honestly not sure.

Is the assumption that people would be wearing basically what we wear today in the far future really that realistic? I mean, this is what people were wearing a 100 years ago. Certainly not what I am wearing as I type this blog post.

(In fact, any self respecting Edwardian would be scandalized by my sweats and over-sized t-shirt.)

The truth is that science fiction is more about the present than it is about the future, but that’s true about just about every art form on the planet, I suppose. Still would like some more interesting costuming though. Any shows out there with really stellar costumes I should check out?

Anyway, I had fun designing this strange dress. It was partly inspired by my Sci-fi Pinterest board, but mostly just kinda a random fun piece.

Need a Mini-Maiden paper doll to wear today’s outfit? Pick a Mini-Maiden Paper Doll Here.

Marisole Monday’s 1820s Morning Dress With Cap in White


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Today’s Printable Paper Doll Inspirations: This Cap from 1825-1830 and This Morning Dress Circa 1827

An 1820s morning dress for the Marisole Monday & Friends printable paper doll series from paperthinpersonas.com. Free to print and play with.

An 1820s morning dress for the Marisole Monday & Friends printable paper doll series from paperthinpersonas.com. Free to print and play with.

I wanted to make an 1820s dress and I wanted to do a morning dress, because morning dresses kinda fascinate me. I knew it I was drawing a morning dress, than I would have to draw a cap. So, today’s 1820s morning dress was born.

First thing, I kinda messed up. I wrote in my notes that the source image which I printed to draw from was from 1828, but actually it is from 1827. This error got repeated on the image of the dress, so I will fix it as soon as I have a chance, but that might be a while since I am traveling this week.

Anyway, here is the 1820s morning dress that I based today’s printable paper doll dress on from the Met. It had the most wonderful delicate flowers on it that I simply could not render to scale. Morning dresses were a private piece of clothing worn usually just for family members. They were classified as undress which was a least formal form of clothing in the 1800s. There was also half-dress and full-dress, if you’re interested.

No lady would be seen without a hat of some kind and caps were basically indoor hats. I based the paper doll’s cap off one from the McCord Museum in Canada and you can see it here.

Today’s dress from 1828 will eventually evolve into this style from 1830. The skirts will widen, the waist will drop and the sleeves will get yet bigger. The late 1820s is such an interesting period, because it is evolving into the 1830s.

I hope everyone enjoys today’s foray into the late 1820s for a morning dress. Tomorrow, the week wraps with a sci-fi outfit.

Need a Marisole Monday & Friends Lady Paper Doll to wear today’s outfit? Pick One Out Here