Ice skating, like most things that involve coordination, is not something I’m very good at. I occasionally watch other people and think, “That looks like fun.”
However, upon attempting the activity, I end up falling down a lot.
Never the less, I do like the clothing people wear to go ice skating and since I draw paper dolls, it seems to me that the clothing is the important part. Plus I thought these ice skating clothes would be a fun winter coloring page. It’s cold and dark outside, so coloring in front of a fire sounds like a pretty good time.
So, here we have a set of practice clothing for ice skating and a performance dress. I chose purple and black, because I like purple and black.
Not being an ice skater, I can’t speak to the accuracy of today’s ice skating ensembles, but I hope I didn’t screw up too badly. Maybe someone who does ice skate can let me know in a comment.
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First off 14th Century week continues with today’s surcoat over a kirtle and some headdresses. Second off Happy Thanksgiving to those who celebrated yesterday.
Surcoats were worn over kirtles (I did one of those on Wednesday). Like a lot of surcoats, today’s has slits in the front that provided access to the purse worn off the girdle underneath. Think of it as the 14th century solution to pockets.
Today’s paper doll surcoat with kirtle was inspired by the Romance of Alexander from the Bodleian Library MS. Bodl. 264. There’s a bunch of different examples of this short sleeved surcoat in there, but I based this dress off the red dress in this miniature and the blue dress (and pink dress) in this miniature.
One of the interesting things about those miniatures and many others from this era (check out my 14th Century Dress Pinterest board for more) is how many of them show women with their hair uncovered. Unlike later eras (and some earlier ones) the 14th century seems to be a time when women could go around without covering their hair.
(Women shown with uncovered hair in miniatures from other eras are often depicting vice and/or wickedness and this is indicated by the uncovered hair. The scandal of showing one’s hair in the 15th century was intense. )
However, some women did still cover their hair. Here’s one miniature with some hair covered and here’s another and here’s a third one. You also see head coverings in statuary. One thing I do when I am trying to decide what to include in these historical sets is to try to find multiple examples of something. That’s why you see some duplication of types of images on my 14th Century Dress Pinterest board.
That’s also why when I am dealing with an era I don’t know much about it can take me a long long time before I am comfortable drawing a paper doll of it. I learned a lot of history from Tom Tierney’s historical paper dolls and I want mine to be as helpful and accurate as I can make them.
If you want some say in the time periods I create paper dolls for, think about supporting the blog on Patreon. I tend to listen to my Patrons when they make requests. Here’s a post about what patrons have made possible from earlier this week.
Have you enjoyed 14th Century week? Let me know. I love to hear from you.
In the world of 14th century dress in Europe, there’s a lot of layers. On Monday, you got to see the shift, the stockings and the shoes which were the first layers. Over that, women wore a kirtle.
Technically, add a girdle (belt) to keep your purse (which was also as close as anyone got to having pockets in the 14th century) and you were fulling dressed. This kirtle example has a spiral laced front and buttons on the cuffs.
Her girdle is based on this example. I looked at a lot of carved sculptures of the Virgin Mary when designing this set like this one and this one.
Her shoes come from Stepping Through Time by Olaf Goubitz. It’s a great resource. Her stockings would have been held up by garters, because bias cut wool doesn’t stay up on its own. However, based on my current understanding, the stockings would be rolled down over the garters to cover them, so that’s why the garter’s aren’t visible.
If you want a historical doll to wear this example of 1300s clothing, than you can go grab Alice whose wearing a shift and has many pair of period shoes.
Right now, I am thinking about what to do with Paper Thin Personas in 2019. I have a poll and please answer it if you haven’t.
When I was looking at the all the B Pose dolls, I realized that I’d not really done one that was “steampunk” inspired. So, it wasn’t hard to decide to make the third version of Batari as a steampunk dress up doll that you can print. I mean, she could also just be a girl with a red bob. I suppose the difference is not exactly extensive.
Also, she has navy toenail polish which I think is super fun.
It’s been so long since I designed this paper doll, I really can’t recall what my inspirations were. If you head over to my Steampunk Pinterest Board, you’ll find plenty of steampunk fashion inspiration.
Right now, I am doing a poll about what I should create in 2019, if you have a moment, please hop over to the Patreon page to vote. Also, I’d love to hear if you have a comment, so feel free to let me know there or here.
Today’s paper doll dresses were inspired by retro-rockabilly styles. I’ve been thinking about rockabilly dresses ever since I posted this version of Aisha and Julie, of Paper Doll School, suggested that the pink haired version needed some rockabilly dresses in pastels.
Well, I confess that pastels just didn’t seem seasonal, so I went with autumn tones (which perhaps don’t go as well with the pink hair), but if you head over to the Patreon page you can download the spring time pastel version.
Meanwhile, there maybe some changes coming to the blog in the new year, so I’ll be putting up some polls looking for thoughts and I hope folks will respond.
And, as always, if you like the blog consider donating to the blog, following me on Instagram, or leaving a comment.
One of the things I love to do is draw paper doll clothing from fashion catalogs and magazines. Clear pictures are useful, but so it seeing clothing I might not have thought up myself.
This set of paper doll fashions were based on the latest Autumn trends. Sleeve details and ruffles are not super popular. So are blouses, so here we have some blouses with sleeve details. To go with this pair of blouses, there is a pair of skinny jeans tucked into boots. The paper doll also has a matching purse.
Today’s paper doll post is a big skirted princess fantasy dress- one of my favorite styles to explore. I’ve done quite a few of these dresses for the B pose ladies before. You might remember my fall steampunk inspired one from a few weeks ago.
I did my first version of Batari back in August, so I am happy to get to post a second version. This version of Batari has lots of shoes (a super important paper doll garment, because they are the least versatile) and a short hair style. Both of the first two Bartari versions had longer hair, so I wanted to do one with short hair.
As I mentioned before, Batari is an Indonesian name that means Goddess. It was voted on by my Patrons. I like to give them the opportunity to choose paper doll names whenever I can.
(Sometimes, I have a name in mind.)
So, some may remember that I was drawing a paper doll for Inktober. My goal was to draw ten paper doll outfits over the course of the month and post them on Instagram. It was a rough month, but I managed to get all ten done. You can see them over at the #ptpinktober2018
If you want to help keep the blog up on the internet and see more behind the scenes stuff, think of becoming a Patron. Also, you get to vote on things there.
So, when I was rounding up all the paper dolls for my C Pose paper doll post with all the sets I’d done in the last few months, I realized how few versions of the guys I had created. The girls all have several versions and the poor guys were just hanging out in their modern hair without much to turn too. I felt bad for them.
So, I set to work designing some new versions of the guys. I still need to design a second Cyrus, but have done elf Cameron, fantasy Carlos and now we have steampunk Changrui. I might have just really wanted an excuse to draw a Victorian mustache. Maybe.
I need a theme for Cyrus, any suggestions? I’m leaning towards cyberpunk or post-apocalyptic.
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Sometimes I create a paper doll outfit that gives me fits and this was one such paper doll outfit. I must have been seriously out of it when I penciled this. So, I ended up needed to do a lot of Photoshop work to make the whole outfit fit the paper doll. It was a pain.
But I’m actually pretty happy with how it came out once I solved the problem of the fit.
I do try to test everything in Photoshop before I finish it, even if I don’t test everything physically. If I had to cut out every paper doll set I ever designed, I would basically spend my entire life cutting out paper dolls.
Not that I don’t cut them out sometimes just for fun.
I really do enjoy designing these fantasy outfits. They are probably my favorite things to design. I think I watched too much Hercules and Lord of the Rings as a young person. I love the costumes from Game of Thrones, but I confess I haven’t been able to get into the actual show. There’s a little to much violence for me to actually watch the show.
What shows are you watching right now? I’m super enjoying the X-men show, Gifted and I am slowly getting into Doctor Who which I never watched before. I have a long time before I catch up.
