Printable Paper Dolls

Shadow and Light: Fantasy Paper Dolls…

I shall confess openly that I chose to rather than finish my Marisole paper doll for Monday I went out and had drinks with some friends. I think I had more fun with the drinks and burgers than I would have had with the paper doll, though I always value the opportunity to work on paper dolls. It was a busy, but weirdly unproductive weekend.

So, yesterday evening, after I got home from a panel on slavery and christian thought in the 1860s (which was fascinating, by the way), I settled down to watch something mindless on television (I have an odd addiction to HGTV) and work on this paper doll set.

This brings us rather neatly to today when I uploaded my files and posted the paper doll.

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Every printable paper doll I make is a little different. In today’s paper doll set, I wanted to create some historically inspired (Tudor-lite) dresses that would feel like they could have actually existed, though obviously they did not.

There’s a bit in the film Enchanted where the character goes from the cartoon fantasy world into the real world and suddenly the inherent absurdity of the huge skirted dress she is wearing becomes obvious. I bring this up, because sometimes I feel like fantasy costumes are absurd for the sake of absurdity.

There is nothing wrong with giant skirts.

But this set of paper dolls, I found myself thinking of the stiffer conical skirts of the tudor period (thanks to the farthingale) rather than the softer styles I usually favor. The hair owes more to the Rudi Gernreich and Givenchy of the sixties than to anything older.

By the way, I have been looking for a really stellar book on the sixites mod fashions, if anyone knows of one, I’d love to get the title. The few I have found have all been lackluster at best.

Valentine’s Day…

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So, it’s Valentine’s Day again.

I have a history of fairly unpleasant Valentine’s Days, but being that as it is, I still enjoy the holiday as an excuse to eat those weird message hearts that taste like chalk. Personally, I almost wish we’d consider returning Valentine’s Day to it’s roots.

By which I mean the feast of Lupercalia which the Roman’s celebrated from the 13th to the 15th of Feburary. The men sacrificed a goat and a dog, then whipped women with the hides of the animals they had just slain all while drunk and naked. How’s that for a good time?

Apparently, the women thought (well everyone thought) that being slapped by a bloody hide of a dead animal would make them fertile.

Anyway, short of getting slapped with straps of wet animal skin, I’ve decided to draw and post a paper doll. Slightly less messy, I suspect, though also, perhaps, less fun. The Chinese New Year paper doll poll got lots of votes for friends to go with the New Year paper doll, so she can share clothing if you want snakes to go with the hearts.

Goats and dogs, you’ll have to draw yourself.

By the way, I have a history of Valentine’s Day paper dolls. I did two in 2011 Marisole Monday and Pixie named Valentina . I didn’t do one last year, so I thought I better do one this year.

Marisole Monday: Vintage Roses in Pinks and Browns and Purples…

So, a version of this paper doll set got to become magnetic and is on it’s way to my grandmother, hopefully to get there before Valentine’s Day. Her set has a different doll with it, but I liked this doll a lot. The truth is that I have owed her a magnetic paper doll set for a while and I would be nervous about saying this online, but since she doesn’t seem to believe in the internet, I think I’m safe. I tend to be of the view that when you get to a certain age than you can decide not to use the internet if it suits you. I plan on becoming a grouchy old woman who may or may not chase children off my porch with a shotgun.

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Anyway, this is a busy week for me. There’s a birthday in my family and Valentines Day for which I really should draw a paper doll. I did one for the Chinese New Year after all.

I’m also pleased to announce I now have a Showcase page inspired by Toria’s wonderful one. I am looking for more people’s colored versions of my black and white paper dolls or costumes you might have drawn for the paper dolls or anything else related to the paper dolls on this site that I might feature, so please email me“>email me if you have work that you would like included.

Questions? Thoughts? Theories on the meaning of life? Feel free to comment. I do love comments.

A Chinese New Year Paper Doll

Happy New Year! Apparently, this year is the year of the Snake. My limited understanding of the Chinese Zodiac informs me that it’s both the year of the Snake and the year of Water. I really don’t know much about the Chinese Zodiac.

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Anyway, I have been on a Chinese traditional dress kick since last year. I decided to draw a qípáo or cheongsam which is the figure hugging high collared dress of kung fu movie fame. The dress isn’t that old, but evolved around the 1920s in Shanghai. The original qipao was wide and loose and long and trimmed with bands of embroidered fabric.

The tunic on the left has “horse hoof” sleeves which were a standard part of Manchu dress during the Qing Dynasty in China. I shortened it to make it a little more modern. There’s also a pair of jeans, a pair of trousers and a modern qipao with a matching skirt, which is apparently not an uncommon way to wear one.

Speaking of all things Chinese, I was heavily inspired by the Kurhn dolls like this one which I guess are sort of Chinese Barbie dolls. Anyway, I hope everyone has a lovely New Years Day, I plan on eating dumplings in celebration. (Also, because I have them in my freezer.)

I am currently debating if I should give today’s paper doll some friends, because I really liked the pose and I had fun drawing her (though I’m not totally pleased with the hair).

Shadow and Light: And then there were Twenty-Four…

I’ve done a lot of futuristic posts over the years. Some I think have been more successful than others. I still consider Shadow and Light Paper Doll 1 to be one of the best in this genre, even if most of her costuming was inspired by Cleopatra 2525.

It was free on Hulu and I didn’t have cable. Don’t judge me.

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My idea with this paper doll was do show off some more “casual” sci-fi inspired attire, but in the end I think it’s a little uninteresting. If I’m not careful, and I don’t know what to draw, I tend to draw the same things over and over again. I think these pieces are to close to those worn by Marisole Monday when she was an alien.

Despite my mixed feelings, I am posting her today, because I think it is important to put up what I have finished, even when I’m unsure about it. As I’m sure I’ve mentioned before, if I only posted what I was certain I liked, than half my posts wouldn’t have ever gone up.

Marisole Monday: Vintage Roses

After two set of Margot, I thought we’d pop back to Marisole for a while. This paper doll also has no pants. I just realized this.

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So, a while ago, I was asked about programs I use to work on my paper dolls. I don’t remember who asked me the question, but as I worked on this paper doll set, I tried to figure out the answer. Not exactly rocket science, but it took some thought.

I use Photoshop CS3 for all my paper dolling (a bit out of date, I know) and I like it, though the learning curve on it is steep. To color my paper dolls, I use a filter called the Bpelt filter, which is designed for flatting comics. Flatting is the process of coloring in shapes with no black line border. Traditionally, newspapers printed all of the color and then over printed the line work. I think comics, in the real world, may still be printed this way though I’m not sure… my printing history gets fuzzy once computers enter onto the scene.

I like Bpelt because it allows me to have my line-work on a separate layer which is useful for me.

Frankly, I don’t have much experience with other programs. I would like to learn Illustrator and Indesign, but I never have. I can’t really provide a helpful review except to say that I am certain I use Photoshop for about a tenth of what it is capable of.

New Full Color Printable Paper Doll Named Madison

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{A Full Set Printable PDF of the Three Page Madison Paper Doll}

I don’t have very many Asian paper dolls, partly because it took a long time before I was comfortable drawing epicanthic folds, which are a characteristic of many East and Central Asian people, though are by no means exclusive to those groups. There is a huge variety the shape of the epicanthic fold and I never felt like it looked right until I got to grad school and ended up sitting across from a Chinese student for an entire semester. I don’t know what she did to stay awake, but what I did was use her as a model for my first Asian Pixie paper doll, named Zoe. Of course, she didn’t have blue hair or such a huge head, but I digress.

So, the Poll is over, since January is done and a child paper doll won to my own astonishment. So, I’ll get on that. In the mean time, enjoy Madison.

Spikes and Pleats… A Colorful Paper Doll to Print

I seriously feel like I should have saved this for Valentine’s Day, but I didn’t have anything else finished, so up it goes.

It’s not like I started with a plan for the obnoxious color scheme, but somehow the traditional black and red thing I do for punk clothing just wasn’t hitting the mark. So, pink, purple and black became the name of the game.

I sort of like it.

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I do wish the fuzzy sweater looked… well… fuzzier. By the way, the neckline of that sweater is low and it’s meant to go over one of the corsets or other tops, otherwise she shows off more of her swimsuit than perhaps is decent for polite society.

So, I think I’ve mentioned my wacky formula for calculating the number of outfit combos a paper doll set contains before which is the number of tops multiplied by the number of bottoms and then by the number of shoes and then by the number of “jackets” plus 1. Now often the formula doesn’t work, because the pieces aren’t really totally interchangeable, but this is a rare set where I think everything really can go with everything else. The result is a total of 146 outfit combinations (not taking into consideration accessories) which is pretty remarkable.

The Princes in Color… Paper Dolls to Print

So, the black and white version of today’s paper dolls went up last week and I, being a space cadet, sorta forgot to post the color version, though I finished it on Sunday. I hope a little belated paper doll posting will be forgiven.

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Our first page of this set is just the dolls and the second page is more clothing for them. I chose a soft blue, green color scheme with red accents. Of all the eras of men’s clothing, I confess a soft side for the 18th century.

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Have I mentioned this week has been INSANE? Because it has been, and classes get into full swing next week, so things are not looking to be much more peaceful. Despite that, I’m enjoying it. As I know I’ve said before, I would far rather be busy then bored. I also seem to have a lot of stuff inked, but I’m having trouble getting it onto the blog, so I am going to put some more effort into getting it scanned this weekend, so that it can go up.

Spikes & Pleats: A Punk Fashion Paper Doll in Black and White

First of all: Happy Martin Luther King Jr. Day to those in the United States who celebrate.

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I am spending my day off doing exciting things like washing laundry and cleaning my kitchen and getting this slightly belated than usual Marisole post up. I decided to use Margot since she’s new.
After some thought, I have broken down the Marisole Monday category into sections for Margot, Marisole and Mia, my three different “faces” for Marisole, if that makes sense. The dolls can all share clothing.

Sometimes an whole paper doll set comes out of my desire to draw a single outfit. In the case of today’s paper doll set, it was the high-waisted plaid skirt and the tie. So, after I decided I wanted to draw that then the rest of it came together along similar lines- lots of pleats and a sort of “school girl gone wrong” kinda vibe.

One of my favorite paper dolls blogs has a new address. A Time For Paper Dolls used to be Inflammation Of… and I am really enjoying her dolls. I love their clean crisp lines and simple shapes. If I had small children, I would totally print these out for them and I might just color a few on my own for fun.

I totally make my own fun.