Marisole

Queen of Dusk: Paper Doll Coloring Sheet

logo-queen-of-the-duskI confess I named this paper doll after I decided on the color scheme, so it doesn’t make as much sense in black and white as it does when the doll is fully colored. I thought about making her another princess, but then I decided that Queens have power. Power seems like a good thing. So, she’s a Queen not a Princess. (Unless you want her to be a Princess, in which case, go for it, I say.)

Having recently watched the first Hobbit film with my Mother to get ready to go see the sequel, I feel that I can say these costumes feel far more Elf like than Hobbit or Dwarf. Also the new first of the Hobbit movies felt very manic.

I like the layers on the dresses, but I’m not totally pleased with the shoes. Still… Not everything has to be perfect, I suppose.

Someone requested the lute. That’s why she has a lute. I am not going to go down in history as the worlds best lute artist. Still, it was fun to draw my slightly deformed insturement. I wish I could recall who asked for a lute… If it was you, drop me a comment. It’s bugging me now.

Anyway… Um… Here’s a paper doll.

queen-of-the-dusk-black-white

{Click Here for a PDF to Print} {Click Here for a PNG to Print} {Click Here for More Marisole Monday & Friends Printable Paper Dolls}

Marisole Monday & Friends: Flowers and Jewels in Full Color!

So, we had the black and white version of this paper doll set last week. Sometimes, I feel like I don’t do a good enough job linking the full color versions of the paper dolls with the black and white versions of the same paper doll, but then… I also sort of figure that people are smart enough to figure it out. I don’t like treating my readers as though they’re stupid.

flowers-jewels-marisole-paper-doll-color

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

Anyway… I had a lot of fun with today’s paper doll.

Her underwear is the same color as the site’s base color which is Hex Code 990033. Her skin is the warmer of my two medium brown colors that I like to use Hex Code d29569 from the Skintone Pallette. It’s got more orange in it than some of the colors I use more often, so I tend to be careful what colors I pair it with. The dresses are a range of colors whose Hex Codes, I can’t remember at present. I wanted to use Jeweltones, but not get too dark. Autumnal without getting into the orange, yellow, red, brown combination.

Anyway, I think I’ve run out of things to say about the paper doll. Enjoy her.

Flowers and Jewels: Paper Doll Coloring Page

flowers-jewels-marisole-paper-doll-bw

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

I always have high hopes for October. I mean… it’s Halloween. Could there be a better holiday to celebrate with paper dolls? Any yet despite my idea that I’m really going to be festive, I hardly ever am.

I think I’ve done one Marisole Halloween set (which I didn’t feel like digging around the archives for). I remember fondly Liana’s wonderful Octobers with fantastic costumes and I always think I’m going to do something like that.

Clearly, once again, that didn’t happen.

But hey… here’s some pretty prom dresses/evening wear and it’ll be in color next week. I could say I planned on using halloween colors… but I don’t. I plan on using a lot of teal and maybe some purple.

Marisole Mondy & Friends: Black and White Printable Paper Dolls

First of all… More Black and White Marisole Monday & Friends printable paper dolls (but you’ll need to scroll down…)

Secondly, Check out the new layout. It is still in progress and I’m still messing with it a fair bit, but I have high hopes for eventual success with it.

What happened was that I updated my version of WordPress and updated my old theme. Well.. that messed up the formatting and I decided that the right thing to do was finally bite the bullet and redo the entire thing. So, the blog looked schizophrenic for a few days while I tried out new and different themes. Right now, the theme is Mantra and I can only say good things about it. I judge a theme on how much of the CSS I have to rewrite myself and with Mantra the answer has been… shockingly little. Just a few small tweaks to the code. All in all, a very nice and clean theme.

Anyway, I’m not sure how I feel about the new layout, so feel free to comment and tell me what you think.

As for today’s printable paper dolls… I’m posting some more previously colored Marisole’s in black and white. I think they look charming. They’re all very modern though some of them are two years old.


marisole-BW-Autumn

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

Well, I did a series of seasonal paper dolls- or at least I thought seriously about it- and this one was for Autumn. You can see the Autumn Chic in color and I forgot to give her a background pattern, though I’ve fixed that in my black and white version. Paper dolls without backgrounds just look so sad and empty to me.


marisole-BW-Candy-Coated

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

Being someone who loves alliteration, I called this paper doll set Candy Coated Couture, which made more sense when she was full color. I think she’s a great example of the importance of mixing neutrals into a colorful scheme to increase mix and match clothing options. Plus did I mention that I love most of her clothing? Now that she’s available in black and white and I think she’s just as cute.


marisole-BW-Enchanting-Evening

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So, now Mia is getting into the act. Here she is off to prom or maybe some sort of red carpet event. I never wear an evening gown in the real world, but paper dolls aren’t meant for the real world, are they? Enchanting Evening in full color is another paper doll where I forgot to put in a background image. It bothers me, though not enough to fix it. I should really fix the apstorphe in Streets of China first… that’s the one that really gets to me.

Anyway, let me know what you think of the new theme and check back later this week. There will be another update. I’m not sure when yet… but it is going to happen.

Hearts, Denim and Bows: Paper Doll in Color

marisole-hearts-denim-bows-paper-doll{Click Here for a PDF to Print} {Click Here for a PNG to Print} {Click Here for the rest of this series}

So, I thought I hated this color scheme. I really did.

Except when I opened the file late last night to check on it and make sure it would go up today, I discovered (to my own shock) that I actually rather liked the paper doll set all of a sudden. I’d planned to write a whiny post about how muddy it all looked…

And now I feel like she has a sort of funky 1970s vibe to her. (That might just be the little afro talking…)

Speaking of afros, there was this woman at the local Target yesterday who had the most amazing afro and I wanted to ask her to stand still so I could draw it, but I decided that would just be creepily stalker-ish, so I simply admired it from a distance.

One of the things people sometimes ask is where I get my color ideas. I’d love to say I create them all from scratch, but the truth is that I create a lot of them from scratch, but I also use Color Lovers. I mention this, because I just discovered a wonderful new site for color pallettes called Design Seeds. I haven’t used Design Seeds much yet, but I think I will soon.

Hearts, Denims & Bows: Paper Doll Coloring Page

Over the years, I have created a lot of these little dolls made of paper. I have made paper dolls with all sorts of hair, but I was recently asked to make some natural hair dolls. Now, let me make a confession- I know very little about the nuances of black hair politics (except that I have been told by several people that there totally are black hair politics.)

So, today we have a rare attempt at an afro. I had a very kind email requesting more natural hairstyles for Marisole, specifically. Now, I don’t know much about black hair fashions, but I got a magazine and after reading up a little, I decided to try the afro. I don’t think it came out quite right… but hopefully that will be forgiven. I think there is something off about her hairline… anyway, I think my next challenge might be dreadlocks or more work on afros.

After a request for natural hair on my paper dolls, I created this paper doll sporting an afro. She's free to print and color. Over 2 mix and match pieces. {Click Here for a PDF to Print} {Click Here for a PNG to Print} {Click Here for the rest of this series}

So, I probably could have called this Hearts, Denims and Florals without being wrong on the titling front… but I hate coming up with titles. Sometimes, I think it would be easier just to number everything.

First off: Happy Labor Day! I hope those in the United States are having a wonderful holiday, I know I will.

Secondly, I’ve added a new section to the blog for instructions. Some of this information is repeated from the FAQ and some of it has shown up before, around the site, but I thought it would be nice to have it all in one place. Any advice or questions about it would be great, since I’m still trying to figure out what I need to tell people.

Black and White Printable Paper Dolls…. Marisole Monday & Friends

I’ve been busily converting old color Marisole Monday paper dolls into black and white files. Sometimes, this is a totally painless process, but the older the files get and the more… cranky the line-work becomes. Still, it’s been rather fun and it is probably the only time I will ever do this.

So, rather than a “real” Marisole Monday post today, I offer three old Marisole Monday sets in black and white… all historically themed


A paper doll coloring page with an 18th century wardrobe free from paperthinpersonas.com.

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

First, let’s take a short trip to the 18th century, shall we? Fourth of July paper doll from several years ago. She had a friend, but I haven’t converted that one to black and white yet.


Historical paper doll coloring page with dresses from the 1910s. Free to print from paperthinpersonas.com.

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

Though personally, I’ve never been that keen on the fashions of the 1910’s, I really love how this paper doll came out in color and I think she’s just as cute in black and white. She was inspired, though I don’t think I mentioned this in the original post in part by this doll from Madame Alexander of CJ Walker.


A 1920s paper doll coloring page from paperthinpersonas.com. Free to print.

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

I do love the 1920s, as you can see from the color version of this paper doll, but I do think that Marisole makes an odd flapper girl.

Four Paper Doll Princess Coloring Pages to Print

So, things have been a little busy for me lately, which should be obvious from my neglectful activities towards the blog. Anyway… to beg forgiveness today, I’ve got some paper doll princess coloring pages to print and play with. I never really know how to describe black and white paper dolls. Anyway, these are meant to be colored, so I think they are coloring pages as much as they are paper dolls. They’re all fairy tale/princess themed which I think is kinda fun, since they can all share clothing.

The first one of is a Fairytale Maiden. Back when I posted her in color, I imagined she was a fairy tale princess in that stage of the story where she’s sent off to live with a kindly fairies and avoid spinning wheels OR before she meets the Prince while he’s out hunting. Her skirts are all meant to mix and match with her tops.
A Fairy Tale maiden black and white princess coloring page to print and dress up. She's a free paper doll from paperthinpersonas.com

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

Here’s this paper doll in full color, if you don’t want to color her. It’s fascinating to see how my art has changed since I created her back in 2010.

Yellow Princess is maybe the most traditional of these paper doll princesses, I created her earlier this year. I wanted to draw princess dresses that were ruffled and fluffy and decorated with ribbons and lace which is totally what I think of when I think “princess.” Of all the paper dolls I’ve created, I think Yellow Princess is one of the most over the top. I kinda love her. Like any good princess, she has a crown and some awesome accessories.


A black and white princess coloring page to print and dress up with two ballgowns, shoes and a crown. She's a free paper doll from paperthinpersonas.com

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

And here is this paper doll in color, very yellow and ruffled. I think she’d be fun to color… I sort of wish I’d done her in purple rather than yellow the first time. Perhaps now is my chance.

Our Book Loving Princess has a lot to do with my inability to come up with names for paper doll sets. (Embarassing, but true!) She’s got three dresses, books and book accessories like an ink pot. Her princess gowns are based on renaissance dresses. But only really vaguely, I mean… not trying to be accurate here in anyway.


A black princess coloring page to print and dress up. Three dress, box braids and fun accessories. She's a free paper doll from paperthinpersonas.com

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

This princess paper doll in color is very red and yellow. She is awfully cute in color, I gotta say.

My Elven Princess is one of my favorite sets. I love her gowns and shoes. The simple dress is supposed to be a nightgown for this paper doll, but I get that most people didn’t notice that when I first posted her.


An elf princess coloring page to print and dress up. She's got two gowns, a night gown, shoes and some pointy ears. Free printable paper doll from paperthinpersonas.com.

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

Here she is in color. Did I mention how much I love her trained skirts and her platform shoes? Cause I totally do.

I hope these paper doll coloring pages make up a little for my absence these last two weeks.

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.

Marisole Monday & Friends: Noble Knight in Color…

noble-knight-marisole-paper-doll-color{Click Here for a PDF to Print} {Click Here for a PNG to Print} {Click Here for the rest of this series}

So, last week I posted today’s knight paper doll in black and white. Today, we have her in color. I’m going to be frank and say that I’m really not all that pleased with how she came out.

When I was in elementary school there was a girl, who shall remain nameless, with whom I did not get along. This paper doll has very similar coloring and I find myself disliking her for that reason. Is that strange? Perhaps… I have no idea what happened to the girl in question, but I hope she is happy where ever life leads her.

It is funny how things from childhood stick around so many years later.

Anyway… I recently updated to the latest version of WordPress and did it without break the blog, so go me! There’s still a few things that might be a little different as I get the theme updated, but all the links and things seem to be working fine. Please be patient with me as I work out the kinks in the code. I’m not great at CSS, but I can do it with enough time and trial and error. Still, stuff might look a bit strange around here while I get it done and I apologize for that in advance.

Marisole Monday & Friends: A Noble Knight

noble-knight-marisole-paper-doll{Click Here for a PDF to Print} {Click Here for a PNG to Print} {Click Here for the rest of this series}

I was about six seconds from titling this “Knoble Knight”, but I fought off the urge. Be proud of me.

It is both late and past my bedtime, so I am going to keep this post short and fairly sweet. I’ve done a lot of princess paper dolls, but I also like doing warrior paper dolls, so here is one. I’ve never tried to draw full armor before. I don’t know anything about full-plate armor, except that it seems awfully bulky and I wouldn’t want to wear it into battle.

Actually, I wouldn’t want to wear anything into battle. I don’t really want to be in battle at all, so I guess that is a factor in all that. As I was working on this paper doll, my mind kept going back to this current internet kerfuffle over a redo of Merida the main character in Pixar’s Brave as she enters the merchandizing world of Disney Princesses.

The Daily Mail has a nice article on the subject. The criticism I agree with is that I think its important that girls with different body types be celebrated, so the slimming down of Merida bothers me a little. There’s even a Change.Org petition (because this is really important…) which reads, partly, “Merida was the princess that countless girls and their parents were waiting for — a strong, confident, self-rescuing princess ready to set off on her next adventure with her bow at the ready. ”

Why does she need a bow and arrows? Okay, object to the body changing stuff as much as you like, I won’t argue, but what is up with the obsession with her bow and arrows? Does taking away her bow and arrows make her suddenly a weak character? I really don’t think so…

So, today’s paper doll has armor. I don’t think she’s anymore of a feminist paper doll than say last weeks princess who didn’t have a bow and arrows or sword. What is up with the current tendency to arm fairy tale princesses (like that really bad movie with Snow White and the Huntsmen…)?

Women don’t need weapons to be strong and I don’t think taking away Merida’s makes her weak. And wow… this is like the most political post I have ever written. I am seriously going to bed, before I start ranting about something more pointless.

Marisole Monday & Friends: Marisole as an Elven Maiden

So, a while ago I had a contest to name the Mini Maidens. Natalie won my contest and therefore won her very own custom paper doll. Natalie selected a Marisole Monday & Friends paper doll as the basis for her paper doll, specifically Marisole.

Natalie Wrote:

I would love to have an Elf themed sort of thing like in the Lord of the Rings (with marisole)… Also can you make sure she has a bow and arrows?(that would be awesome!)…. I’m sort of imagining her with a little medievial themed clothing.

marisole-elven-princess-color{Click Here for a PDF of Elven Maiden in Color} {Click Here for a 150 dpi PNG of Elven Maiden in Color}

So I openly confess that the last time I read Lord of the Rings I was thirteen, stuck in Italy and only got through it due to the lack of other English language reading material. I’m not much of a Tolkien fan, truth be told. Never the less, I liked the movies (not enough to own them, just enough to not mind watching them with others) and I do think Tolkien was the father of modern epic fantasy. Not being a huge epic fantasy reader, the jury is out as to whether or not this was good thing.

Needless to say, I wanted to try to capture the spirit of the LOtR elves from the movie to the best of my ability without actually copying anything from the films. The Costumer’s Guide to Movie Costumes was a godsend in this regard, proving me with a wealth of photos of elven costumes to pull from. The kimono sleeves are my addition, because I love kimono sleeves and the modified mandarin collars give everything a tiny bit of Asian flair.

marisole-elven-princess-bw

{Click Here for a PDF of Elven Maiden in Black and White} {Click Here for a 150 dpi PNG of Elven Maiden in Black and White}

Normally, I don’t post both the black and white and the color versions at the same time and I won’t be doing this again, but I didn’t want to make Natalie wait for the color version of her paper doll set. Both are here for printing, so people can select their choice. I did a sort of autumn theme for the colors. Natalie didn’t give me any guidance on the color scheme, since she said she wanted to be surprised.

Natalie, if this color scheme is a little too surprising, let me know. I can re-color them for you. 🙂

So, did I capture the spirit of Lord of the Rings or totally fall flat? Let me know in a comment, since I’m not going to be picking up those books again if I can help it.