So, we’re up a little late this time and I am sorry for that. This weekend has been nothing short of insane here in the land of the corn. I’ve had classes (yes, weekend classes) which were educational, but time consuming. I finished this paper doll close to midnight and decided to crawl into bed rather then finish the posting.
But that’s okay, we now have a paper doll. Drawing a superhero paper doll was a suggestion of a friend who reads far more superhero comics then I do. The only superhero comic, I’ve ever really enjoyed was Deadpool and Cable. Mostly, because Deadpool is hilarious and extensional and everything I enjoy when reading a comic.
And also, I’ve been trying to get a good “shiny” effect on the clothes. This is the first one I’ve posted like this. I think it came out all right, but what do others think?
Today’s paper doll is a little gothic and a little steampunk. That’s okay right? It’s not like mixing oil and water or something.
Erin, who won my little Trivia contest from last Monday, wrote me the following description of what she wanted for her custom Marisole paper doll.
I know that I want my doll to be very pale with brown hair… As for style of clothes and what not, I know that I love Victorian and Steampunk style. Belts, buckles, zippers, lace, keys, and corsets. That kind of stuff. I have included a few links as inspiration I guess, but feel free to disregard them. I dislike the color yellow, LOVE red, black and purple, but other than that… I’m not overly picky.
I asked for a little clarification on shades of brown (she said red brown) and exactly what sort of colors for metals she liked and then set to work. Like a deadline, it was oddly liberating to be paper dolling based on someone else’s guidelines. I’ve done other steampunk sets, but this one quickly got a gothic steampunk paper doll flare- I think the color scheme is what pushed it into gothic territory for me. I’ll always think of those as a gothic colors. I do hope she’s pale enough, because outside of doing another vampire paper doll, I couldn’t imagine going paler than this color. I think it reads as “pale” rather than reading as “corpus.”
Since one of my favorite features of Victorian dresses was the fact that women got to wear all sorts of different clothing for different activities, I decided to treat the paper doll as though she was an actual Victorian lady- all be it in an alternative steampunk universe- in need of costumes for the range of standard Victorian lady activities.
Here we go.
The Morning Dress: Morning dresses were always more casual then other costumes. Erin sent me a reference link to this beautiful costume. I loved the colors and the drape. To make it a little more Victorian feeling, I added sleeves. Though technically a morning dress would never be worn outside the house, I added a hat since the reference costume featured one. Also, I like hats.
The Walking Costume: The other set of reference images I got was for a beautiful 1880’s reproduction bustled suit and I confess the early 1880’s when skirts were tight, before the huge bustle emerged is one of my favorite times in Victorian fashion. I made the suit purple (to match the purple/red color scheme), created a totally non-period hat and added some accents in silver and brass.
The Afternoon Dress: Mostly an excuse to draw a wild leather corset (well, I imagine its in leather, I suppose technically it could be any fabric you like), the afternoon dress was inspired by the corsets of 1910. The net/lace overlay was my attempt at lace, though I have mixed feelings about how it turned out. Afternoon dresses were also often visiting costumes, so she had to have a hat.
The Ball Gown: No costume set could be complete with out a ballgown and as I love drawing corsets, no ballgown couldn’t not have a corset top. The far left costume of this fashiion plate inspired the oddly bondage-esque skirt. I got a little carried away with my lock and key motif I think, but I had fun doing it.
As regular readers know, I’m a wee bit obsessed with Victorian inspired costumes. I’ve done two other steampunk/neo-Victorian Marisole paper dolls. There was the slightly candy like one (a lesson in how colors don’t look so bright before I process the images for Web and then seem to get brighter) and a more traditional color scheme.
I will probably do another trivia contest thing next week. So, keep your eyes open for that.
Picking out color schemes is one of the hardest things I do for my paper dolls, but I think it’s very important to make sure each paper doll makes sense. I want it to be colored in such a way that you can combine as many pieces as possible for as many outfits as possible. After all, that is the point of a paper doll isn’t it? I use some tools like The Color Scheme Designer and the Color Schemer Gallery which provides all sorts of color scheme options. I love looking at different color ideas, but I find I come back to the blue, orange, purple schemes a lot. I wear all those colors fairly often in the real world.
So, I’ve also decided to have a contest. Answer the question right and you get a custom Marisole paper doll. Details below:
What is my favorite holiday?
The Rules: 1) One guess per person per day. 2) If no one guesses right by Monday, I’ll give a hint or pick the closest. 3) Anyone who knows me well enough to make a very informed guess, doesn’t get to enter. Sorry guys.
I think that’s everything. And lest you think this is completely random, I assure everyone that I have mentioned the holiday on the blog before, but not in a very obvious way. The prize is a custom Marisole paper doll, so you tell me the hair color, skin color, hair style and basic theme and I’ll draw the paper doll. Of course, it might take me a while since I’m often slow with finishing things.
Good luck 🙂
Edit: The Contest is now closed. Thanks to everyone who entered.
First, quick apology thing… if you emailed me in the last week or so… then I probably haven’t replied, because I forward that account to my other email and my other email was putting those emails into my spam folder. I think I’ve fixed the problem.
I did this paper doll originally with tan skin and dark hair, but then I also did a version as a blond. I liked it well both ways, so I decided to post them both. At the top is the dark haired version and then you can click the thumbnail on the left and get the 150 dpi PNG version of the blond paper doll. There’s also a PDF for the blond paper doll. I figured regardless of what skin tone and hair color was desired, there could be a paper doll to fit the bill.
I always associate Valentines Day with paper dolls. My grandmother used to send my and my sister Valentines Day cards when we were kids and they usually had a paper doll in them or some other activity. I still remember being excited at getting the cards and I would open them up and play with whatever had been included. Even all these years later, I remember what many of the cards looked like.
This weekend has been very busy. I spent most of Saturday morning helping my friend push her car out from where it was stuck in a snow berm and then did a lot of reading and homework. I did go play board games with some friends on Saturday and managed to lose at Catan twice, but had a lot of fun while I did.
I need to buy that game. I enjoy it, but I don’t own a copy.
Today, we have Marisole: on Ice! When I was a kid and I watched figure skating, I always judged them on their costumes, but then…. doesn’t everyone? I also liked it when they skated to things that weren’t classical music. When I was working on this paper doll, I spent a bit of time on websites that sell figureskating gear and I learned some things like the tights that figure skaters wear cover the tops of the boots (this makes a lot of sense, actually, because it would make it easier to move) and that my ice skates don’t look much like actual ice skates.
I had fun drawing them though. 🙂
Marisole’s maroon costume is supposed to look as though parts of it are transparent, but I don’t think the effect worked very well. I need to figure out a way to making things look transparent when I color them on the computer, but I haven’t figured out a good way to do it yet… I think I will eventually. If anyone knows any tricks, I’d love to hear about them.
Where to start about this paper doll set… Well, it all started with the blue dress which is the strange love child of a kimono, a peacoat and a 1850’s hoop skirt and then sort of evolved from there. Secretly I kinda love it, but publicly I’m a little more unsure. The underwear in yellow and cream came out of the desire to draw absurd underwear (and practice my ruching as I mentioned last week) and then I felt like I needed a second dress to fill in the set, so I drew her odd formal costume with the pleats and underbust corset with the flower. My favorite is the blue dress, though I know I shouldn’t have favorites among my paper dolls.
I think fantasy is all about combining different sources in ways that they were never combined in the real world. So, to take the blue dress as my example, the skirt is based on Japanese stencil dyed fabrics, the coat/jacket is quilted much like 18th century women’s petticoat and has a large portrait collar much like my own winter coat. It is tied with an obi style sash/belt (displayed on that website on a beautiful example of Japanese doll making).
The poll is, of course, on going. I am not at all surprised that fantasy is in the lead. I always rather suspected it would win out in the end, but I wasn’t sure where everything else would fall in between, so it has been education in its own way.
I threw this together on Saturday when I realized I didn’t have a Marisole for Monday. It’s not my best work, but I do love the sleeves on the red dress. I’m working on my ruching (sp?) since I got some books on drawing fashion from the library. So, you can expect to see more of it as I practice. I’m also practicing shiny fabric. Neither has come easily as I thought it would.
I’m trying to stretch myself.
Part of that means trying to draw an actual male who looks like a male rather then like a rather unconvincing woman in drag. The upside is there might be a male paper doll someday. The downside is that that male paper doll might look like a woman in drag. We shall see.
Edit 3/28/2016: There is now a black and white version of this paper doll. Find it here.
Usually, I come up with a color scheme for a post and then work it into the costumes. There’s almost always something with a pattern which I can use multiple colors in. Addison (one of the Pixie paper dolls) and Marisole: Wings & Petals are both good examples of this principle at work. However, since there wasn’t any pattern on today’s Marisole and no ways I could imagine incorporating a coherent color scheme, I just sort of picked colors that reminded me of winter and went with them.
Winter always makes me happy, because I means I can break out my gray clothing and not feel guilty about it. Of all the neutral colors in the world, gray is my favorite. It has all the features I like about black, but it’s not black. It’s like a delightful lighter better black (which I rather suppose is the definition of gray).
Update 8/11/2014: This paper doll is now available in black and white for coloring. You can find her here.
Every time I do a two color version, I always swear I won’t ever do it again. It always takes twice as long as I think it will. However, I think it’s kinda fun to play with color and I think people like it, so I keep doing even when I should know better.
This paper is sort of a gift for a friend who very much likes retro-vintage styling. Sometimes, when I don’t know what to draw I ask my friends what they think I should draw. This has caused some totally unusable suggestions, but mostly the suggestions are good if a trifle odd. These are the people who can be blamed for my zombie paper doll and my attempt at a Gothic Lolita paper doll, both of which I rather like (the zombie more then the Lolita, to be honest).
This one came out with a series of suggestions that included Ninja Vs. Pirate (I’m not even sure how I would draw that), superhero (well, actually Batgirl from the 1960’s.. ideally, Batgirl tied up from the 1960’s, but I think this says more about the guy making the suggestion then anything else), and retro-pin-up. Obviously, the pin-up was the easy one.
Unlike many of my vintage costumed paper dolls, this doll has more in common with people’s ideas of what was worn then what was actually worn. I borrowed designs from Pinup Girl Clothing and a few others who I don’t recall. I use online stores a lot when I’m looking for ideas.
