Among my various hobbies, other than drawing paper dolls, I mean, I play table top rpgs. One of my favorites is Shadowrun which I play on Saturday nights, usually. Inevitably, a bout of Shadowrun playing leads to be drawing cyberpunk inspired paper doll sets. While I agree with the general complaint that Shadowrun isn’t very pure cyberpunk, it is still a lot of fun, plus in how many other games can you have elves with assault rifles? I openly confess I have some reservations about the portrayal of Native American’s in the cannon of the game world, but no more of a problem than I have with how women are portrayed in almost every game book ever, so I can get over it.

By the way, I updated the Showcase recently and forgot to mention it. My bad. So, there’s some new work in there by Meredith and I have more to add, I just haven’t gotten the files re-sized yet. It will happen soon enough. Thank you, Meredith for participating.

The other thing I wanted to mention is that the blog will be going into hiatus for the month of June. I have travel, work obligations and I’m going to be presenting a paper at an academic conference, all of which leaves me terrified and really busy. I’ll still be checking my email and answering comments when I can, but I won’t be updating. I’ll give a longer announcement about it when we get closer to the date in question.

Thoughts? Comments? As always, I love to hear from you guys.

{Click Here for a PDF to Print }{Click Here for the Original Paper Doll in Black and White from Paper Closet }

{Click Here for a PDF to Print }{Click Here for the Original Paper Doll in Black and White from Paper Closet }

So, I have been wanting to play with digital painting, not something I have much experience with nor something I think I’m very good at. As I was working on playing with these techniques, I decided I need to stop working with my own art. Don’t get me wrong, I love my art, but I also felt like I was too close to it to really feel comfortable playing with it. There was a little too much pressure. So, with the permission of Toria from A Paper Closet, I set to work.

I kept thinking I would do her ballgown, but somehow it never happened. Toria described Cordiel as “a rare beauty of dark brunette hair, smooth pale skin, and clear blue eyes”, but I ended up making her a fire redhead. I hope Toria doesn’t mind some creative liberties taken.

Also, I sort of hope posting this will inspire her to return to updating her blog, because I sorely miss getting to check A Paper Closet for new work. Not to, you know, heap on any guilt or anything… (Who am I kidding? I am totally willing to heap on guilt.)

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.

Magdelana Babinska is an artist who does beautiful work and has a selection of paper dolls, including a darling baby, True Blood and Twlight, on her blog.

Little girl with pigtails and cute modern costumes is fun to check out and here is a darling doll in Muslim dress.

On the other hand, if you want your child to grow up to be a cleaning lady… here’s the paper doll for you. I can’t decide how I feel about this paper doll. She’s interesting, but I think about how hard the cleaning women who do the library work and I feel its a little disrespectful…

Of course, I haven’t read the entire Polish blog post, so there’s that.

Moving on… we have a cute vintage boy and a chick with a giant head.

I don’t know what to make of this paper doll, but I like the tattoos.

So, I can now add Polish to my Swedish and Danish paper doll hunting.

{Click Here for a PDF of the Paper Doll}{Click Here for a PDF of The Paper Doll’s Stylin’ Clothes}

My best friend in middle school and in high school and college was a girl with a distinctly punky style. I admired her guts at wearing vynal pants in our small Alaskan town. This was before the days of days of universal internet shopping (we had Amazon and it pretty much only sold books back then), so the school was pretty sedate in style. (Not from desire, as much as lack of access.) Her style, on the other hand, was loud and bright and adventurous. I’ve always admired her for having the gall to go for it when I didn’t.

Since I wasn’t going to actually wear the clothing I admired so much, I made up for it by drawing paper dolls. This was dates from my college years, back in 2005. I remember planning on doing that brick pattern, by hand, for the entire sheet of clothes and then concluding life was way to short. Unlike a lot of my stuff from college, I’m still pleased with this one, though I see a few flaws that I would correct now, except that I want to keep the integrity of my old art.

Enjoy her. She’s been added to the index as well.

I have also, quietly, migrated the Dictionary Girls into retired status. The series hasn’t been updated in six months and I hate to leave it hanging as a “possibility” when I know, secretly, that it’s probably not. I do want to have a full figured paper doll series, I just need to think about how to handle it. Having said that, inspiration might strike and they might return. I just don’t want people to think they update often when, in truth, they don’t.

So, my original idea was to make today’s paper doll a little bit latino looking with a darker skin tone than I’ve done with a Margot paper doll before, but I think she rather turned out just looking like she got a bit of a tan. So, next time I’ll rethink the color choice. Skin tones are hard, as I think I’ve mentioned many many times before. Personally, I really like the dark blue dress the best. I think it came out just like I wanted it to.

Stumbled across a new tumblr today, called Paper Doll Central. Beautiful work. Makes me wish I still was trying to keep up with my tumblr. Lots of nice paper dolls there worth checking out if you have a few minutes and want to indulge.

I mentioned last week I was inspired by the Mediterranean ocean when I colored this paper doll. I was also inspired by the idea of not using any pinks or reds, just clean clear cool colors. I imagine Margot walking on the beach, wind whipping through her skirts while she watches ships on the ocean. Then, possibly, being attacked by giant crabmen from the planet Neptune.

Maybe I should have drawn her a sword.

I stumbled across this set when I was looking for something else (sometimes days are like that) and I realized I’d drawn it year ago and never posted it.

Opps.

So, here the set is in all it’s glory. It’s one of those set’s I’m not overly pleased with, but I’m glad to finally share it, even if its a bit late. Sometimes I scan things and sort of forget about them in the depths of my harddrive. I like to think that sometimes it’s okay for paper dolls to age like a fine wine.

Since I have plans tonight and plans on Saturday, this is a short little post. I hope everyone enjoys the paper doll and I’ll be back next week for more. In June though, I should mention, I’ll be taking a break for a few weeks, possibly the whole month for travel and some work things.

And my usual answer is- Photoshop and the BPelt filter.

Still, I keep getting the question, so clearly that answer does not satisfy.

So, this post aims to illustrate the steps that go into the average paper dolls coloring and to answer questions I get about the process I use to make paper dolls. In other words, this is how I color paper dolls. Hopefully, you’ll find some of it interesting and useful, or at least fun to look at.

I’ve tried to include everything someone would need to copy the way I do things, but I’ve been doing this for a long time and I might forget to say something important. So, bear with me as I try to show how I do things with lots of screen captures and a sneak peek of Coastal Princess’s colors.

Assumptions:

1. You already have Photoshop (I use CS3, but others will work) and you have installed the BPelt Flatting Plugin for Photoshop, available here for free.

2. You have an image you’ve scanned and cleaned up that you want to color. That image must contain only black and white. If there is ANY other color in the image, this process won’t work.

So, armed with an image saved in black and white, we begin the epic battle with the world of coloring paper dolls… Fortunately, short of paper cuts, we should be okay.

Step 1: The Image

Here is my image. It’s a black and white scan, saved to the Background Layer. The image is 600 dpi, at the moment. I work at a very high resolution. It’s set as the background of the Photoshop file.

This image contains nothing, but black and white. BPelt gets upset if there is grey in the image.

Step 2: Create a Linework Layer

Using Layer –> Duplicate Layer, I duplicate the Background layer and name it something like Linework. This is the layer I’ll be mostly working with. You can name it anything you like. Maybe George… George is a nice name.

Step 3: Using the BPelt Filter- Multifill

BPelt has two settings, MultiFill and Flatten. The way the MultiFill works is that it selects each area entirely enclosed in black lines and gives it a different color. The Flatten plug-in expands all these area’s until they meet and no black line-art is left in the layer. Since I’ll be recoloring the MultiFill layer, I don’t want there to be any gaps in the line work, so I check using the Multifill setting which can be found under the Filters–>BPelt.

These are the settings I use when I Multifill.

The resulting image looks like this. As you can see there are some areas that are the same color. This means there’s a gap line the line work. So, I go back and I fix it.

And here is a picture of my gap. One of several, as it turned out. I repeat the process until all of the gaps are gone. Sometimes this take several tries. If you’re following along at home, you’ll want to Undo the Multifill before you correct the line-work. Once all the line work is corrected, save the document.

Step 4: Creating a Colorwork layer

Before using the Flatten filter on BPelt, I duplicate the Linework layer and create a new layer called Colorwork. At this point, there are three layers- Background, Linework and Colorwork. Each of these layers should consist of nothing but the black and white image. They should all look pretty much alike. Now I save the file, again.

I forgot to take a picture of this part. Opps.

Step 5: Color Begins…

Selecting the Colorwork layer, I run the Multifill Filter as before. Every section should be a different color, than I run the Flatten filter.

The Flatten filter expands the Multifill until the color covers the line work. I now have a layer without line work and a layer with line work. At this point, I usually make sure to save my file and take a break.

Step 6: Setting up the Layers

I move my Colorwork layer to below my Linework layer. I change the Linework layer settings to Multiply. This makes all the white on the Linework layer transparent. Than I lock down the layer from further editing. The settings are at the top of the layers list in Photoshop CS3.

Step 7: Creating a Palette Layer

I like having the colors I want to use on a separate layer, so I can use the Eyedropper tool to select them. So, I create a layer name Palette and put on it all the colors I think I need for the paper doll set. Here they are. Clearly, I’m using Coastal Princess as my example.

Step 8: Coloring…

Now, I select the Colorwork layer and begin color. I like to do all the white parts first.

Once all the white parts are done, than I begin to use the Eyedropper tool and select the colors from the Palette layer to color all my dresses. It’s a pretty slow process, but also fun because I get to see the colors on the clothing.

And there is the set partway finished. So, I work until everything is colored and than I smooth up the line work on the Linework layer, merge everything, reduce it all in size, add tabs, add a black frame, and reformat it before posting.

Okay, so maybe the post processing could use a tutorial as well…

Questions? Comments? Let me know. And stay tuned for the finished Coastal Princess posting next week.

Today, we have Margot rocking a fantasy look. I know the title seems of today’s paper doll seems a little odd. There’s nothing obviously seafaring about this paper doll, but I already knew that I wanted an ocean color scheme for her before I posted today’s Margot. On Saturday, I went to my favorite game shop to pick up some new dice and met a nice art student with whom I chatted for a while. He spoke so vividly about the colors of the entertainment sea that I knew I wanted to use them in my next paper doll set. You’ll have to wait to next week to see her colored, but I think she’s going to look wonderful.

Spring has come to Alabama and with it pollen. I never used to have allergies and now I am sniffling and sneezing up a storm. No one warned me about this problem when I moved here… It’s beautiful. The trees are blooming. The birds are singing. And I have forgotten what it feels like to have both nostrils working. People keep saying it will be over soon, but I wonder what “soon” actually means.

Back on the paper doll front, I always have trouble coming up with accessory items for the paper dolls. Does anyone have ideas for medieval fantasy-ish sets like this one? I seem to draw a lot of books and boxes and scrolls and swords. I suppose more jewelry would be an option… I need to think on it. Though this might be the last fantasy paper doll set for a while. I’m feeling a little restless with the style.

So, I made her additional dolls. Since she does not use the internet, I feel completely safe posting these here. The originals have been cut out and, along with more clothing from the other Marisole Magnetic sets, been sent off for her to enjoy. I am thinking of them as an early Mother’s day present for her. I’m working on something for my Mother as well, but since she actually reads this blog, I have to be tight lipped about the whole affair.

Please note that these girl’s can wear anything that the Magnetic Marisole’s can wear, so feel free to make them pirates or something.

You can get directions for making magnetic paper dolls, if you need them.

Vintage Styled Paper Doll

Vintage Paper Doll Download	Vintage Paper Doll’s Friends