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Shadow & Light 14: Paper Doll to Print

Embracing the gothic once more, we have another Shadow and Light paper doll. There’s something very saucy about both her outfits. Also today is Friday the 13th, so it seems only fitting we do something suitably gothic here in paper doll land. It’s finally started snowing here and I wish it would stop all ready. Not to say I don’t like the snow…. I do, but I walked through it quite a bit today padding from and to work and getting things sorted before my classes start next week.

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I am not really ready for classes to start, but I am working on getting my schedule sorted out as I need to do that before classes begin. I have a big order of textbooks which I am waiting to come in from Amazon (along with a paper doll or two, I confess) and that’s taking what feels like forever.

Still, here we have a shadow and light paper doll and on Sunday there will be a Pixie and then Monday there will be Marisole and we’ll be off and running. In the mean time, vote in the poll if you haven’t and tell me what you’d like to see new for the blog in the coming year. It seems a male paper doll it getting the majority of the interest, so I might have to do what Boots suggested.

Shadow & Light 13: Black and White Paper Doll

And here we have the first Shadow and Light paper doll of the new year. And we are here going into the third year of the blog, technically the fourth if you count the total collapse the site suffered after its first year. Anyway, I’m pleased with how I’ve done and pleased with how things went.

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It’s been a good year for the blog and while I disappeared a bit, I was much better about posting this year than last year. We had a few contests, put up about 140 printable paper dolls (not inculding my magnetic ones), started two new series (Dictionary Girls and Shadow and Light) and retired two series (Flora of the Regency and Curves).

In the coming year, I would like to draw a male paper doll- a challenge from Boots of 19th Century Paper dolls and maybe try to post more sketchbook things. I’d also like to do some child paper dolls. Perhaps as erratically updating series rather then my weekly ones… would that bother people? Having both? Or should I just focus on doing more of what I’ve already committed too.

Shadow & Light 11: Black and White Paper Doll

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Today’s paper doll reminds me of Marlyn Monroe… a dark gothic Marlyin Monroe, I suppose. For those of you who want a far less gothic paper doll- something a little lighter, Lily & Thistle has this darling little girl printable paper doll with two dresses. There’s versions you can pay for as well, but the free version is enough for me. 🙂

I hope everyone is having a great holiday for this lovely time of the year. I’m visiting family, so things might be a little erratic around here. I’ve been thinking a lot about goals for next year for the blog- what I would like to improve and do better at and have more of. The list is long and expensive, but I have high hopes for things going well here in paper doll blog land.

Shadow & Light 10: Black and White Printable Paper Doll

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Today, I had my last finals and my paper due. Classes for the last semester are officially over and I am extremely happy. If you haven’t spent time on Teri’s Paper Doll Scans, I can’t recommend it enough. It’s a wonderful collection of paper dolls.

Shadow and Light 4: Black and White Paper Doll

The best thing about the Shadow and Light paper dolls is that I decided to number them rather then title them. Perfect solution to my natural problem of coming up with titles.

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I’m always excited when I stumble across paper dolls in while I’m not actually looking for them. Final Fashion is a great fashion illustrators blog which features lots of beautiful fashion paper dolls. They are available for purchase, but every one can also be seen to just gaze longingly at. One of my pet peeves is when people have paper dolls for sale, but you can’t really see each page of the paper doll or the clothing. There’s a few artists I will buy on faith, but generally I like to see what I am getting. My favorite is her Vionnet paper dolls. Madame Vionnet is a somewhat under appreciated designer from the early 20th century who introduced the world to the bias cut dress. Unfortunately, her style was very much of its time and hasn’t really survived to be present which is a pity.

On a semi-related note to the Madame Vionnet ramble, I am curious if people would be interested in knowing which fashion books I use when I’m doing research. I’ve been on this Japanese kimono book kick for a few weeks (literally, my table is covered in them) and I’m trying to decide if fashion/costume book reviews are something people would like to see. Thoughts from the masses?

Shadow & Light 2: Printable Paper Doll

I love contrast of heavy structured pieces with light draped pieces. So, I wanted to sort of play with that and draw nifty harness looking things. See… I was trying to justify my wacky-ness with some sort of artistic statement, but I don’t really take myself that seriously.

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On a semi-unrelated note, I’ve become rather obsessed with Blythe dolls lately. At first, I thought they were creepy- all big eyes and weird mouths, but lately I’ve come to actually think they are sort of cute. Mostly I like their little tiny clothing. Not surprising to anyone who knows me, I’ve always been more of a doll clothing, then a doll sort of person. The same is true for paper dolls. As a child, I was just as happy to have just one paper doll and lots of dresses (if not more happy) then to have a lot of dolls.

I’d like to do some sort of Blythe paper doll, but I’m still working on keeping up with what I’ve committed too and I don’t think I’m ready for that quite yet. If I do decide, it might not be serial which brings back the “What to do with non-serial” paper dolls problem.

On an utterly non-related note, I am now going to walk away from my laptop and curl up on my couch with fresh sweet corn and Harry Potter movies. Summer classes are over and life is good.

Pixie & Puck: Thorne

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I sort of think of Thorne (named after a friend from high school who looked nothing like this, but that is not here nor there) as perhaps the boyfriend of Jay or at least that they come from the same world. It’s the same world I tend to assume my Cyborg and Vera come from. Perhaps a futuristic place with lots of neon and flying cars.

Sort of Fifth Element meets Mad Max. Of the two, I’d take the visual style of the Fifth Element over Mad Max pretty much any day.

Curves: Fur Trimmed Gothic

So, this is a stupidly titled paper doll, but her sleeves are fuzzy, so that should be worth something. 🙂

Curves is a complicated series for me, in part because it fore fills two goals. I began it when I did all my paper dolls for the blog in the heavily shadowed style of Curves, but I wanted to do a full figured paper doll since the ones I had seen online were not very attractive and I thought I could do better.

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Two years later, Curves is my only regularly updating paper doll in the heavily shadowed style I developed in college and still often use for non-paper doll drawing. I like the style, because I believe it doesn’t need to be colored, it has a strong enough graphic presence without adding color. A lot of people color them, and that’s fine with me, but my goal was to make a black and white paper doll that didn’t need to be colored.

There were some side effects of this. The heavy shadows, strongly influenced by Frank Miller’s graphic novels, make for a fairly “dark” paper doll. In several ways, the details are often obscured and lost while the tone is also distinctly heavy. Being a bit of a noir movie lover, I don’t mind the tonal shift, but I do think it lends its self to some styles better then others. Gothic, vintage, and some fantasy clothing comes out looking wonderful, but the average jeans and t-shirt leave something to be desired.

I don’t want to give up my heavily shadowed dolls, because I do like them. I also don’t want to stop drawing a full figured paper doll since I think its important. Unfortunately, I also getting somewhat bored with Curves after two years. I think there needs to be a Curves 2.0. I just haven’t figured out yet how to pull that off or what it’ll look like when I do.

Progress reports and thoughts on the subject will be forth coming. Until then, enjoy the furry Gothic costumes for this new Curves doll and anyone’s thoughts on the matter are welcome.

Pixie & Puck: Jay

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Obviously, I have been watching to much of Demolition Man while practicing my shiny textures. Actually, on Friday, I did just that. A girlfriend and I got together for pizza, a cupcake each from the bakery and movies.

First we watched Demolition Man which is basically everything good about a Sylvester Stallone movies distilled down in to a thick glorious syrup. After Demolition Man (I kinda want to draw the police uniforms from the future now, but I need to make more notes before I try), we watched My Fair Lady.

Yes, a bit of a change of pace but there’s dancing and singing and Rex Harrison in tweed. How can Rex Harrison in tweed ever be a bad thing?

I might have a thing for tweed.

Moving gracefully away from my thing for tweed, I have a poll right now up about the blog schedule. People should vote. Its more for my information then for any major site changes.

Pixie & Puck: Cyborg

Obviously, I have been playing around with shiny a bit lately. I did it for the Marisole Superhero post. I have another shiny post in the early stages of work. I rather like the shiny effect, though there should be a more effective way of doing it then what I have been doing. I just don’t know what that might be at the moment.

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I am really lucky to have supportive friends. When I sit around while we watch movies or hang out and draw paper dolls their reactions are usually, “That’s neat.” Rather than making fun of me for being a mid-twenties graduate student whose drawing paper dolls.

When I was in high school and through most of college and I drew paper dolls, it was a tightly kept secret I shared with only a few people. I did say I collected, but it was always- because I have since I was a child… I never wanted to confess I really did still enjoy paper dolls.

I’ve gotten over it. Maybe it’s time or maturity or something else, but I no longer get nervous telling people about my weird hobby… most of the time. It’s still not something I advertise.