Dolls

Meet Fleur, our new Dictionary Girl Paper Doll

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Today’s Dictionary Girl paper doll was colored after a friend of my friend complained that I didn’t have enough brunette pale-skinned blue-eyed paper dolls like her and she thought this wasn’t fair. Well, there is some truth to her remark, since I tend to favor variety of skin tone over variety of hair color. That all began when I realized the internet was full of printable paper dolls and they all seemed awfully white. Still, when a someone demands a blue-eyed brown-haired paper doll, and when they live in the same apartment building, it seems hard to refuse.

So, here is Fleur. She has the same skin tone as Alyssa and therefore can share shoes with Alyssa though I can not promise wigs will work since they have two different hair styles.

What sort of coloring would people like to see for the next Dictionary Girl?

D is for Davina of Curves 2.0

I know some people have been waiting on this paper doll, so I hope she doesn’t disappoint. I’m not totally pleased with her skin tone. I based her coloring of a young girl who rides the bus with me, but I think she looks a little too grey-toned. I’ve been debating about the skin tone for the whole day and finally decided to go for it. I think it’s a nice color, if a little less warm then I’d intended. My frustration, if I have one, is that.

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The weather is getting into fall here. The weather it turning cold and crisp. I’ve been walking to work and from work and I can feel the cold on my skin. Fall is fully here in the land of corn, so I suspect that soon it will be winter. Meanwhile, I’m doing my class work and working through my school stuff. Mid-terms just passed, so now it’s the long slow fight to the finish line. I always have trouble this time of the semester, but I’m in classes I enjoy.

So, I think I’m done with dolls for the Dictionary Girl’s for a while. I’d like to focus on clothing for them.

Curves 2.0 Welcome Elena

This paper doll is named in honor of a good friend, as many of my paper dolls are. The moment I drew her, I thought she looked Hispanic, so I decided to make her Elena and I gave her more coral colored lips since I’ve done a lot of red lipped pin-up dolls. Someday I need to draw her a bull fighter costume in order to forefill a complicated inside joke, but until then she has some darn sexy underwear.

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She’s up a little late tonight, because I spent the evening baking rather then working on blog things. I am part of a club at my University and we’re having a bakesale. I promised to make stuff for it, so tonight I found myself putting together cookies. Tomorrow will be brownies and rice crispy treats- both easy enough to make though I confess I haven’t made rice crispy treats since I was about ten. Still, how complicated can they possibly be?

I forget sometimes how much I like baking until I get back into the kitchen to do it. I rarely bake for myself, because I live alone and it would be dangerous to have cookies around the house. Stuff like this is an excuse to pull out my grandmothers chocolate chip cookie recipe and use it, though I don’t make them as crispy as she always did.

And that, my friends, is more then I can imagine anyone wanted to know about my cooking habits. I am thinking now though that a series of aprons would be a fun thing to draw for Curves 2.0. I should get on that… but not until I finish my cookies.

Curves 2.0 Meet Chiharu

I debated long and hard what to name this paper doll. I had a friend in high-school who was Japanese American named Claire, and I almost named the paper doll (with whom she shares really no resemblance) Claire, but then I decided I wanted to actually try to find a name with Asian origins which started with C. I wanted it to be a fairly common name and I didn’t care if it was Chinese or Korean or Japanese or really from anywhere else.

Being as I know nothing about traditional naming practices of pretty much any Asian country and being as I didn’t really feel like learning them, I ended up pawing around baby name sites looking for something I could pronounce and which was not hyper unusual. I don’t know how common this name is, but based on the fact that several actresses in Hong Kong have it, I think it can’t be that unusual. (Thank you, Wikipedia.)

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There will be another paper doll next week and then some costumes to dress them both in. Once I have a few more dolls, I’ll do more clothing. I just wanted to have a range of different dolls for dressing up. I’ve written before about the large number of child development studies which have been done about the need for children to see themselves reflected in their toys. While I don’t usually think much about children when I’m working on paper dolls, I do try to have many different skin tones and hair colors and combinations, so that almost any child could be given a paper doll that looked like them. Plus it keeps me amused. I’m always divided between the desire to have a bunch of different skin tones and the practical need to create mix and match clothing options. The biggest issue is shoes which often show some skin and then can only be worn by paper dolls who have the same color skin as the skin shown in the shoes.

Some people worry about world hunger, I worry about paper doll shoes.

Curves 2.0 Meet Bianna

Today we have Alyssa’s partner in crime, Bianna. I spent a while debating if I should post clothing before I posted another doll, but in the end the other doll won out, mostly because I’m rather in love with her wigs and her lips.

dictionary-girls-paper-dolls-bianna

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I promise next week there will be some clothing, so the poor girls aren’t running around in their girdles for too much longer. I’m having a lot of fun digging around the Vintage Pattern Wiki looking for dress ideas while fretting about how I don’t like their feet placement.

Oh, well, I don’t think I’ll ever have a perfect paper doll. 🙂

Bianna is not named after anything or anyone specific, except that her name starts with B and I liked how it sounded. Do cut along the dotted lines on her wigs and by her arm to help her wear her costumes. I’ve spent the last few days working hard to finish up assignments for my summer course work and I must confess I have little intelligent to say in this blog post, so enjoy the paper doll and, as always, I love to hear what people think.

Curves 2.0 The Beginning…

When I started this blog, the temptation was to name all of my paper dolls after Greek letters. So, there could be Alpha and Beta and Omega and others. However, I decided that they would end up sounding like some sort of strange paper doll SWAT team.

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On an only slightly less surreal note, I have decided to give each of the Curves 2.0 dolls a name based on a letter of the alphabet. So, today we have the first paper doll. Her name is Alyssa. She’s a redhead for I openly confess to having a soft spot for redheads. Her skin looks overly pale on some computers and normal on mine, so I can’t really say much about that. I’ve decided to call the paper dolls “Dictionary Girls” after the idea of “Calendar Girls” which dates from the tendency for there to be pin-ups on calendars.

The plan is to have another paper doll for next week and then some clothing for them the week after so that aren’t running around in their underwear, poor dears.

PS: To everyone who wanted these dolls to be done in the heavily shadowed style of the old Curves sets, there’s another new series starting Friday which will replace Flora and will be in that style.

Cogs & Gears: Steampunk Printable Paper Doll

So, if this paper doll seems vaguely familiar, that’s likely because I have done steampunk things before for Marisole and for Curves. I openly admit I think William Gibson’s Difference Engine is among the boringest books I have ever tried to read; however, I do love anything which lets me play with Victorian fashion and not have my natural need to research to overwhelm me. There might be better steampunk books out there. Suggestions anyone?

steampunk-paper-doll-marisole-150

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So, if this paper doll seems vaguely familiar, that’s likely because I have done steampunk things before for Marisole and for Curves. I openly admit I think William Gibson’s Difference Engine is among the boringest books I have ever tried to read; however, I do love anything which lets me play with Victorian fashion and not have my natural need to research to overwhelm me. There might be better steampunk books out there. Suggestions anyone?

I feel I should add, I love many of Gibson’s other books including the fantastic art work Agrippa which the librarian in me both loves and hates. Seriously, a mind-blowing piece of artistic work.

Okay, I’m done gushing now about digital poetics which technically have no place on this blog. This blog is about more important things like paper dolls.

So, speaking of paper dolls, today’s Marisole is considerably more brightly colored then my last foray into Steampunk. I like the brighter colors and though I tend to think of the Victorian era as sepia toned, I know the reality is that it was a horribly gaudy era of fashion since chemical dyes had just been invented.