ballgowns

Fashion Doll Friday: Flora’s French Ballgown from 1812

I usually don’t go for Rose Ballgowns but I liked the grace of this costume and I really liked the sleeves. I didn’t mimic the plate exactly and I sort of invented the front of the dress since I only saw the back of the dress. I included gloves, which were needed since the sleeves of this era were so short, shoes to match and a wig styled with roses. So, it’s pretty much a whole Flora outfit.

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{Click Here for a PDF to Print} {Click Here for a 150 dpi PNG to Print} {Click Here for The Rest of this Series} {Click Here for the Doll to Dress}

Really this outfit happened because I have wonderful friends. As I wrote before, I have supportive friends who seem to be fairly relaxed when I say things like “Yeah, I’m thinking about buying Instyle so I have some paper doll fodder.” And they nod as though this is a normal thing to say while standing in a drug store at 10 pm on a light night chips run. In fact, sometimes they go through it with me telling me what I should draw though usually their picks are more hilarious than practical.

(I don’t really fancy the idea of drawing nine million sequins. Sorry guys.)

But when one of them told me this was the dress I should draw of a set of dresses I was looking at, I decided to go for it. It was the right period and fun, if a little fancier then what I usually draw

Fashion Doll Friday: Flora’s Promenade Dress and Ballgown

So, we’re a little late today and I am sorry about that, but as I’ve said a few times around here. School comes first. Flora’s costumes are often challenging, because I like to have lots of reference images before I try to draw anything. I’m always looking for more information on the right era of costumes for the paper doll.

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{Click Here for a PDF to Print} {Click Here for a 150 dpi PNG to Print} {Click Here for The Rest of this Series} {Click Here for the Doll to Dress}

The ballgown on the left is based on a plate from 1812. It is one of the costumes I have wanted to draw for a long time, but it was a challenge for me. I love the yellow trim. Her promenade costume is based on a different plate from 1814. The popularity of the ruffs around the necks of costumes in this era are very interesting. I don’t know if I like the look, but I feel like I have to include them as a matter of keeping things accurate.

Curves: Winter Diversions

So, it’s nearly spring here and I thought I should post this before it becomes totally inappropriate, because of the weather. I didn’t wear a jacket today, though it was a little chilly for that I still enjoyed having the sun on my face. I don’t have a lot to say about these costumes except that they were fun to draw. I really like ice skating costumes even if I don’t ice skate much.

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{Click Here for a PDF to Print} {Click Here for a PNG to Print} {Click Here For the Rest of the Series}

I do a little, but I wouldn’t call myself skilled… let’s say that I have, in the past, ice skated and leave it at that.

Beyond that, I don’t have anything really intelligent to say tonight. Sometimes, I feel like my posts are afterthoughts and that’s a little bothersome. I should work on it.

Marisole Monday: Valentines Day

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.

Now, onto the paper dolls…

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{Click Here for a PDF of the dark haired paper doll to Print} {Click Here for a PNG of the dark haired paper doll to Print} {Click Here for the rest of this series}

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.

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{Click Here for a PNG of the blond paper doll to Print} {Click Here for a PDF of the blond paper doll to Print} {Click Here for the rest of this series}

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.

Teri Pettit’s Paper Doll Scans is a great site full of scans of paper dolls. She has a fantastic selection of greeting cards with paper dolls. Of course there are Valentine’s Day paper doll cards and paper doll cut outs. I distinctly recall that my sister got this paper doll for Valentine’s Day and I was totally jealous. I also seem to recall one of us (I don’t remember which one) got this paper doll card for something. Oh, the memories…

I think it’s a sad commentary on my mind that I can recall paper doll cards from years ago, but I can seem to keep my Latin declinations straight.

Marisole Monday: Tokyo Meets Georgia

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.

marisole-tokyo-georgia-150 {Click Here for a PDF to Print} {Click Here for a PNG to Print} {Click Here for the rest of this series}

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.

Pixie: Yasmine

When I don’t know what to draw for printable paper dolls, I tend to draw formal dresses. I think because formal dresses take up space (I don’t need a lot of them) and I can just kinda be random (which is nice). So, here we have a formal gown sort of post.

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{Click Here for a PDF to Print} {Click Here for a 150 dpi PNG to Print} {Click Here for The Rest of this Series}

The name “Yasmine” is Arabic/Persian and was later adapted into Jasmine. I’ve always liked it. She’s kinda inspired by this Bollywood film Dil To Pagal Hai (The heart is Crazy) which stars the beautiful Karisma Kapoor who (like our paper doll) has the most amazing green eyes. That’s all I got about that. The only relation to the film, by the way, is that the paper doll and one of the actresses both have green eyes. Anything deeper is just… um… not there.

Curves: Flowers & Ruffles

I’ve always been interested in and concerned with proportion of printed fabric. I blame it on years of making real life doll clothing. I always am concerned my prints are too big to fit my paper dolls properly. Of course, the size of the dolls and the thinness of my pens limit how detailed I can really be (thank goodness), so I am always somewhat limited.

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{Click Here for a PDF to Print} {Click Here for a PNG to Print} {Click Here For the Rest of the Series}

Recently, I was pawing through fashion shows on style.com (a wonderful source for contemporary designer fashion) and thinking about what I wanted to draw when I cam across Christian Dior’s spring 2009 collection. They were designed by John Galliano, with 17th century Dutch painters serving as the major inspiration. Some of his formal dresses were some of my favorites.

I fell in love with the huge prints on the dresses. The distorted proportions were fascinating and while I don’t think I want to wear a dress covered in tulips the size of my head, I loved that one existed. So, I decided to draw some dresses with giant floral patterns for Curves. After all, why should the skinny models on the runways get to have all the fun?

Among the other things I did for this paper doll was redesign her underwear. While Curves has an illustrious history of wearing her strapless bra and panties (selected mostly because they can easily layered over), I do love undergarments of all eras and I wanted to draw something which might look like it really could support this absurdity of these skirts. Enjoy.

Cogs & Gears: Steampunk Printable Paper Doll

So, if this paper doll seems vaguely familiar, that’s likely because I have done steampunk things before for Marisole and for Curves. I openly admit I think William Gibson’s Difference Engine is among the boringest books I have ever tried to read; however, I do love anything which lets me play with Victorian fashion and not have my natural need to research to overwhelm me. There might be better steampunk books out there. Suggestions anyone?

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{Click Here for a PDF to Print} {Click Here for a PNG to Print} {Click Here for the rest of this series}

So, if this paper doll seems vaguely familiar, that’s likely because I have done steampunk things before for Marisole and for Curves. I openly admit I think William Gibson’s Difference Engine is among the boringest books I have ever tried to read; however, I do love anything which lets me play with Victorian fashion and not have my natural need to research to overwhelm me. There might be better steampunk books out there. Suggestions anyone?

I feel I should add, I love many of Gibson’s other books including the fantastic art work Agrippa which the librarian in me both loves and hates. Seriously, a mind-blowing piece of artistic work.

Okay, I’m done gushing now about digital poetics which technically have no place on this blog. This blog is about more important things like paper dolls.

So, speaking of paper dolls, today’s Marisole is considerably more brightly colored then my last foray into Steampunk. I like the brighter colors and though I tend to think of the Victorian era as sepia toned, I know the reality is that it was a horribly gaudy era of fashion since chemical dyes had just been invented.

Truly Trudy 2: Inspired by 1950s Comic Paper Dolls

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{Click Here for a PDF to Print} {Click Here for a 150 dpi PNG to Print} {Click Here for The Rest of this Set}

The first Truly Trudy post talks a lot about where to find other comic paper dolls, so I don’t see much need to go over it again. The jacket is meant to be cut out and then put over the dress and is copied from a similar style I saw on one of the Katy Keene comics I looked at. I would say which one, but frankly I don’t remember. One thing I did notice is that Katy Keene has a lot of evening gowns and so do her friends. I adore the red and black dress in this set, but I’m pretty sure Gloria was supposed to be Katy’s rival. Having not read the comic, I can’t be sure but the speech bubble does suggest some malice.

Perhaps I should actually track down some comics and read them… though I suspect if I had read them as a child it really would have been for the paper dolls.

Red Carpet Elegance: A Pretty Paper Doll with Fancy Dresses

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{Click Here for a PDF to Print} {Click Here for a PNG to Print} {Click Here for the rest of this series}

I really have very little to say about this paper doll and her clothing except that I am trying to do more skin tones with Marisole and I draw formal gowns when I can’t think of what else to draw. I have nothing witty nor intelligent to say about the paper doll beyond that. Enjoy her.