Marisole

Jinn in the Desert: A Paper Doll in Black and White

logo-marisole-jinn-paper-dollIn my head, I imagine today’s paper doll as a companion to my Marauder princess paper doll from… wow, last year. That doesn’t seem so long ago. Time flies when you’re drawing paper dolls, I suppose.

Today’s paper doll was inspired by the Arabic folklore creatures called Jinn (or Genies). According to some sources, Jinn are made up of smokeless fire and scorching heat and they are sentient, like humans and angels. Jinn appear in many fairytales and folktales from the Middle East including the most famous to my readers, I suspect, which is the genie in Aladdin. Though there are some stories of Jinn granting wishes, this doesn’t seem to be something they do outside of fairytales.

I decided to give my paper doll a separate tail piece which is meant to be glued to her back once she’s been cut out. I thought it would be easier for the variety of clothing options which you might want to dress her up in. Her clothing has nothing terribly Middle Eastern about it, but that’s neither here nor there. As often happens, the resulting doll has wandered far from the source material.

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One of the things I really do like about today’s paper doll is the number of outfit options. With seven tops and four bottoms and two pairs of shoes, she’s got over 56 different outfit options and that’s nothing to sneeze at.

Oh, and before I forget, I did manage to get my email notices up and running again. If youve already put in your email than you should being receiving a notice when the site updates. If you haven’t gotten a notice and you think you should, please email me (paperthinpersonas (at) gmail (dot) com) and I shall see what I can do. If you want to receive a notice, just type your email into the box on the sidebar and you’ll be added to the list.

Three Sets of Marisole Paper Dolls in Black and White

So… I often get asked for more black and white versions to color of Marisole Monday paper dolls. Oddly, I have almost never been asked for black and white versions of other paper dolls, but that’s neither here nor there.

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This was specifically requested a while ago, so I wanted to make sure to do Ancient Chic and one of the sets.


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I forgot that I hadn’t done this in black and white. I would have sworn I had… but as it turned out, I was wrong. It’s odd to me to think this paper doll set in color was posted nearly two years ago. Wow… That was a while ago. I’m still not pleased with how the floral skirt turned out, but sometimes you just can’t win.


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Walk in the Woods in color was a set which I wanted to do some more casual wear and as I recall someone had asked for East Indian coloring, so that was my attempt at that. In hind sight, I rather like the accessories with this set like the apple, water bottle and backpack.

So, here they are. A few sets in black and white to be colored. Enjoy them everyone.

A Paper Doll with Vintage Evening Gowns in Color

marisole-vintage-logo-colorLast week, I posted this paper doll set in black and white for coloring. I promised I would talk a little about each of the gowns and where they came from.

I need to learn to streamline my method for dealing with elaborate florals, or I need to never do one ever again. Normally coloring a paper doll set takes about 2 to 4 hours, at most. Sometimes longer, but only if I take a lot of breaks and am doing a lot of other stuff. If I have my colors picked out and I’m on a roll, I can do the set in about an hour when I’m really on the ball, though formatting, saving and other detail work takes longer. That single floral dress took me nearly an hour, by itself, to color. NEVER AGAIN.

(I say that and I’m already thinking of other cool florals I might draw… I have a problem, people.)

Okay, so here’s the paper doll in full color:


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Let’s talk about where each gown came from. The floral gown, the blue gown and the red gown are all from the V&A in London.

The blue gown is based on this red dress from 1957. The red evening dress was drawn from this evening gown by Hardy Amies was made right after fabric rationing was lifted in England (1949), so lacks the layers of lace and silk that were common in evening gowns on this period. I love the simplicity and shape of the dress. The last dress from the V&A is my favorite, the floral evening gown made in Paris and worn by the wife of the British Ambassador. I tried, but I don’t think I captured the beauty of the rose patterned skirt and layered bodice.

The last pink dress comes from The Met, known as “Tree” this gown was designed by Charles James. Of all of the gowns I drew, I feel like this one didn’t work. My style of flat color just can’t capture the layering of the gowns beautiful fabric. Liana did a beautiful version of Charles james Butterfly dress on her blog several years ago which I think captures his work better than I did here.

Okay, that’s everything. Happy MLK Day to those in the US who are celebrating like me.

Marisole Monday in Vintage Gowns to Color

marisole-vintage-logo-bwNearly a year ago, I was asked to draw a paper doll of 1950s evening gowns.

Initially, I didn’t do it, because I couldn’t find any 1950’s evening gowns that I liked. Eventually I felt guilty enough to check out the V&A and the Met, both have strong collections from the 1950s.

I told the requester that I was working on the paper doll and asked what the hair should look like. The immediate answer was, “Like Mine.”

“Well,” I said, “Micro-braids with streaks weren’t really a thing in 1950 something, but okay. If that’s what you want…”

So, we have Marisole here, rocking her micro-braids with some couture 1950’s evening gowns to show off. As inspired by Liana’s comment a few days ago about stories, I offer the following scenario to justify this strange juxtaposition:

Marisole, working as the fashion editor of a major publication, has been invited to the Met’s annual gala whose theme, this year, is the designers of the 1950s. Eager to make an impression on the red carpet, she’s choosen to wear a vintage gown from the period. I am sure she will be the hit of the party when she arrives. 🙂

By the way, in a totally unrelated note, that floral pattern on the full skirted gown was the most complicated floral pattern I have ever done. I’ll rant more about coloring next week when I post the colored version. All I have to say is that normally, a paper doll takes me four to six hours to color, layout and get set up for blog. This paper doll… took longer. Much Longer.


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I will talk about the sources for each gown next week when I post it in color.

Also, my little drawing/contest is open until midnight on the 15th. Feel free to enter.

Marisole Monday Paper Dolls To Color- 3 Modern Sets

This is the 500th post on Paper Thin Personas. YAY. Go Me! (I feel like I should do something more celebratory, but I’m not really sure what.)

Anyway, I’ve had several comments lately requesting old paper dolls re-done in black and white for coloring. So, today I’ll be posting three older Marisole Monday Paper Dolls in black and white.

Plus I didn’t quite get done with my planned post, so there’s always that too. I’m doing my usual January poll about what th blog should gain in the next year. Feel free to vote and there’s a drawing/contest with details here.


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This was a pretty early Marisole paper doll. I think she was the first Caucasian Marisole paper doll (which still looks odd to me) and she’s, unsurprisingly, a redhead. I’d had a few requests for redheads, which is where she came from. I see a lot of problems with her now that I’ve drawn a lot more Marisole paper dolls, but I still like her hair.


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I love winter coats and I drew this right after moving to Illinois. It was a cold chilly snow filled place and I particularly like the snowman and the snowball. This remains one of my favorite sets. It’s also a rare set where Marisole’s original hairstyle is visible.


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I was never really pleased with how this Sporty Girl paper doll came out. I drew her because I got a request to do some spots outfits and the requester wrote a really nice email about the importance of girls in sports.I thought the intention was really good, but I think the desire to do something that my heart wasn’t in really shows. I was drawing it because I thought I should, not because I liked the idea or I was committed to it. On the other hand, I like her shoes.

And that is all for this Monday. There will be another edition to Greta’s Trousseau later this week.

Queen of the Dusk Paper doll in Color

logo-queen-of-the-dusk-full-colorWell… this is the last paper doll of 2013.

I’m pretty pleased with the year as it has turned out. I’ve been more consistent with my posting and I think the blog has grown in positive ways. I do have changes I would like to make in the future and some of them are the same changes I’ve been wanting to make for a while.

2014 will be here in a few days and I will return to work in a few days. I’m excited and nervous and looking forward to the New Year. The next post on this blog will be in 2014. YAY!

Meanwhile, I am totally pleased to show off the Queen of the Dusk fully colored. (By the way, I keep typing Queen of the Duck, which would be a totally different paper doll set, I think.) I started with a more traditional color scheme for me, which means I found a set of colors which I liked and was going to use on each paper doll dress, but after I used them I decided I really didn’t like them and instead went with each paper doll dress being monochromatically one color. I think this causes some problems for the shoes, but I rather like how the dresses came out.


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Any thoughts or comments on what you’d like to see the blog become or the blog should be, drop me a comment.

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.

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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.

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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

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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

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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.


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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.