boots

Lillies & Birds: Fantasy Printable Paper Doll

lilliesandbirds-logo-colorEvery paper doll set tells a story. As a kid, I remember I would tell all sorts of stories with my paper dolls. Some of them were the actual stories of the paper dolls- like Little Women or Cinderella. Far more often, I would design my own stories to be told with the paper dolls.

Now that I’m an adult, or so people tell me, my paper dolls don’t have the same sorts of stories. They do, however, often have worlds that I imagine they come from. In the case of today’s Margot paper doll, I imagine she comes from a pseudo-victorian world with her button up boots and her hats.

Speaking of hats, it was really important to me that either hat could be worn with either dress. Don’t get me wrong- the feathered hat was designed to match the bird-dress and the lily hat goes with the lily dress, but if you were feeling rebellious and wanted to put the feathered hat with the lily dress than I won’t stop you.

Live dangerously.

Anyway, as for her blue hair, I confess that as a total whim. I was coloring her and I thought, I should give her blue hair. So, I did.lilliesandbirds-princess-paper-doll-color

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I am actually quite pleased how the blue hair came out. I think it’s fun and unexpected.

I’ve always wanted to dye my hair blue, but I fear I am long past the point in my work life where I could get away with blue hair. Plus my hair goes down to my waist, so if I dye it than I have to live with it for a long long time.

So, we are cruising into December (so exciting!), there’s going to be fun things on the horizon and some announcements. The Pixie paper doll series is retiring and will be replaced by a new series. Lots of fun & crazy stuff.

Thoughts? As usual, I love to hear what you think about the paper doll or anything else in the comments.

Lillies & Birds: A Printable Paper Doll Coloring Page

lilliesandbirds-logo-bwThe trouble of posting from paper doll backlog, is that sometimes I get to the point where I’ve drawn something so many weeks ago that I have no real recollection of what I was thinking or planning when I designed whatever it is. This is one of those sets. I remember drawing it, but I don’t remember much about this set except worrying about drawing the lily flowers on her skirt and hat.

I decided I tend to always draw the same flowers and I wanted to try something different.

Beyond that, I feel like I can’t say much.

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Margot is showing off this set. I feel rather bad for Margot, since she hasn’t gotten a set since April when she was a Tudor lady. I think it is just that she got a LOT of love at the beginning of the year and then very little for the rest of the year.

Anyway, this is the last Margot set for 2015. The year is wrapping up my friends. 🙂

As always, if you have thoughts, please share them in the comments and if you like the paper dolls than consider supporting them through Patreon.

Also, there’s going to be a really fun Q&A on Wednesday with a special guest from Dover publishing. I’ve been waiting to publish this for weeks. 🙂

Maiden of the North: Printable Paper Doll Page to Color

nordic-viking-logo-bwVikings… Vikings… Vikings… Okay, not really. I mean, these are totally fantasy Viking outfits, but I have had Vikings on the mind ever since I did my historically accurate (for the given value of accurate) Viking paper doll and I found myself returning to the Viking look.

So, what makes these Viking inspired or Norse inspired, as I tend to call it. Well, the big thing are those dwarf-brooches. You can read all about the actual drawf brooches in my Viking article, but I wanted to include them here. Her shoes are also based on actual Viking finds in York, so they’re also a nod to the whole Norse/Viking thing.

I added fur trim to her gowns and did a lot of pattern. I wanted to get to use multiple colors in these gowns, so the patterns help with that.

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Our model today is Meaghan of the Marisole Monday & Friend’s family. This is the fifth Meaghan set and probably the last one of the year. I’m getting to that point where I start planning for 2016. Thinking about 2016 and making sure I have enough backlog to get me through the Holidays. I always travel mid-December to visit family, so I tend to try to have things ready before I depart.

That means… backlog, backlog, backlog!

(It helps if you say it three times in an increasingly cheery voice. That’s how the backlog fairies know you really need their help.)

As always, I love to hear for you guys, so feel free to ask questions or leave thoughts in the comments.

A Little Retro Style: Printable Paper Doll

retro-contemporary-logo-colorLike any good printable paper doll should, today Marisole is showing off her full color autumn paper wardrobe complete with some sassy boots. The colors I chose are rich jewel tones for these paper doll clothes. I wanted something that said autumn to me and nothing says autumn like jewel tones.

There are color schemes I come back to over and over again in various forms and one of those is teal, dark pink, and green. I just love these colors together. I do confess that I sometimes I tell myself I can’t use “pink” or I must use “green” and that forces me out of color scheme ruts.

I confess this is a color scheme that I have done before, or at least, I feel like I have done it before. Maybe I’m wrong… anyway, it feels awfully familiar to me.

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Every once in a while, I return to things in the deluded belief they are going to come out better. Like red hair and dark skin, I return to it even though I feel that I have yet to actually get it right.

There’s a term for doing the same thing over again expecting different results. They call that, “insanity.”

Anyway, I once again tried red hair and dark skin. I think this attempt was better than several of my other attempts (Mint and Roses, I am looking at you).

There’s a big announcement coming up Wednesday, so stay tuned for that.

Poppet Pirate: Printable Paper Doll

poppets-logo-pirateLast week I posted a fairy costume for the Poppet paper dolls. This week, we’ve got a pirate costume for the Poppet paper dolls.

Some people had store bought costumes, but in my family that was strictly out. All of our costumes were always homemade. When I was designing this pirate costume for the Poppet paper dolls, I imagined a little girl getting one of her father’s shirts, perhaps and a scarf from her mother’s drawer and a pair of old pants that got cut off and patched and a plastic sword and getting to be a pirate. I have distinct and fond memories of brainstorming with my mother what I wanted to be for each Halloween.

One year, my best friend went as a girl in a poodle skirt and I went as a poodle.

Another year, I was a head of garlic. Yes, I wanted to be a head of garlic and bless my mother, she didn’t even blink. She came up with a way to use white garbage bags to make a head of garlic costume for her very odd first-grade daughter.

It should come as no shock that I was an odd child.

I imagine therefore that this costume is homemade. Pirates are always a fun easy homemade costume to go with.

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I hope everyone has a safe and happy Halloween on Saturday. Julie, Boots, and I will be sharing our Collaborative paper doll! I can’t wait for everyone to see her. She came out great.

A Little Retro Style: Printable Paper Doll Coloring Page

retro-contemporary-logo-bwEvery once in a while, I imagine totally re-doing this blog. Abandoning my printable paper doll sheet format and switching to an outfit a day or something else totally different.

I doubt I’ll ever have the nerve to do that, but once in a while it does occur to me that it might be interesting to just “start over”. I had no choice back in 2010 when the site crashed, but it was also rather cathartic to be able to think about clean slating things.

(Don’t worry, the site is not destined for radical change at the moment.)

Today’s printable paper doll is Marisole, of the Marisole Monday & Friends Family, showing off her dynamic autumn wardrobe. It has been a while since Marisole has gotten any love which is funny considering she is the oldest of the Marisole Monday & Friends collection.

I love autumn. I love the turning leaves and the crispness in the air and the excuse to wear boots. I also love that the fashion magazines come out in September and provide a wealth of fun and interesting fashions for paper dolls. This is the time of year when I often draw a bunch of fashionable paper doll ladies, but this year I found between moving and a few other things, I just didn’t have the time to devote to my contemporary paper doll drawing habit.

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For this printable paper doll set I actually drew a crop top which I confess I pretty much NEVER do, but I have had requests and I have noticed they are coming back in style. As someone who remembers the 90s, I would rather crop tops not come back. Still, can’t fight the tide forever.

I was going through some of my childhood paper dolls lately and I kept seeing crop tops and miniskirts. I was a little obsessed at age 12, clearly. I’ll have more about childhood paper dolls to share in the beginning of November.

As always, comment if you want and I hope everyone enjoys the paper doll!

A Fairy Paper Doll Costume for Halloween

poppets-logo-fairyFor the next two Friday’s I’ll be giving the Poppet’s some Halloween costumes. Today, we have a fairy and next week, there will be a pirate for these printable paper dolls.

So, when I draw things like fairy paper dolls they fall into one of two categories- “Real Fairies” or “Fairy Costumes.” Sometimes I am creating a printable paper doll of a fantasy creature like a mermaid or a fairy and that is a different idea than creating a Halloween costume of that creature.

So when I created this fairy costume, I was thinking strictly of it as a costume sort of experience, rather than an actual creature. I hope that makes sense.

Despite this the wings are intended to be glued to the back of the paper doll or you could use double sided tape. I realize this means they are non-removable, but over the years I have come to conclude that this is the best way to attach wings. I have tried other methods, but they don’t seem to really work very well. Plus there is nothing stopping you from printing several of the Poppets and having “winged” and “normal” versions. After all, that’s part of the power of printable paper dolls. They can always be re-printed.

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Modeling the fairy costume is Petal, one of the Poppet paper dolls. Of course, any of the Poppet dolls can wear the costume.

Halloween is my most consistent paper doll holiday. I’ve done Halloween paper dolls every year starting in 2010. In no real order, they have been a vampire, a costume set, a ghost, another vampire, and a collab between me, Boots, Liana and Toria.

Tomorrow at midnight EST our Paper Doll Round Robin closes. The guidelines are all explained here. Please join us! We’ve had some great contributions so far and we hope for more.

Beauty in Bloomers: A Steampunk Paper Doll inspired by Amelia Bloomer

Once in a while, I host little drawings for custom paper dolls. I do them rarely, because frankly they are time consuming.

Anyway, last June I held one. People submitted custom paper doll suggestions. You can see all of them on the original contest post. The winner of the drawing was Lina, but I added all the ideas to my paper doll ideas list. Today’s paper doll comes from an idea submitted back then. (See, I do sometimes draw things people request.)

Erin Winslow proposed a steampunk set based on Amelia Bloomer’s women’s dress reform movement costume. My first thought was, “No Way!”

Because, honestly, I really didn’t like the Bloomer Dress. I’ve always thought it was both unflattering and kinda ugly. Why would I want to draw something I thought was ugly?

And then… rather unexpectedly, I found myself thinking… I should draw it because I find it ugly. I should tackle a style I dislike for a paper doll set. I should stretch. Plus I recently read a this book on Victorian dress reform movements.

First, I had to gather sources and ideas. You can see a collage of these below.

I remembered somewhere I had seen a photo of a female doctor wearing a Bloomer costume. That was where I started thinking about doctors cases and I found that Pat Stall, one of my favorite paper doll artists ever, had done an Amelia Bloomer paper doll set. I found some wonderful modern pieces and then a few great cartoons from various Victorian periodicals. I felt like I was on my way towards a set I might actually like.

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I decided to cast Hazel as my bloomer wearing steampunk Doctor. I gave her glasses and some doctor bag inspired accessories. She has three dresses to go over the two pairs of bloomers. Her vest, shirt and skirt can be worn over any of the bloomers as well. I did not make my bloomers quite as full as those worn by Amelia Bloomer. Despite creating this paper doll set, I still find the look to be astonishingly unflattering. Never the less, here is my foray into the world of steampunk bloomer costumes.

Plus, I got to draw Victorian glasses and that was fun. 🙂

As most of my readers have figured out by now, I’m currently conducting a survey about developing products to open a Paper Thin Personas store in the next year and some other stuff. It’ll only take about 15 minutes and I’ll send you a thank you paper doll if you leave me your email at the end. (The emails are deleted out of the survey results immediately to keep things as anonymous as possible. So, no worries about that.)

Check out the Survey Here!

Thanks again to everyone whose already done the survey! I’m closing it on Saturday, so I can begin to analyze the results. I’ll share some of my discoveries sometime in the next few weeks.

Space Princess: An Alien Princess Paper Doll

logo-space-princess-colorI am so excited about this week… there are going to be a Vikings on Friday and a post about historical Viking dress on Wednesday and, of course, today we have an alien paper doll in color. What could be more fun than aliens and Vikings? (Maybe pirates and aliens and vikings, but lets not be greedy.)

Anyway, I am super-pleased to be showing off this little alien. I choose blue for her skin as I have a soft place in my heart for blue skinned aliens. I don’t know why. It is always the first color that comes to mind. It does occur to me though, I have done another blue skinned alien recently.

When you are dealing with a skin-tones not in the range of human normal, than the skin-tone does not act as a neutral. Therefore, the paper dolls skin-tone becomes part of the color palette in a way that is rarely something I worry about. So, I wanted bright cheerful colors that would accent and no compete with my little alien’s blue skin.

That was why I settled on a magenta, line green, dark teal and bright yellow color palette.

I went back and forth about how to color the gowns. My first thought was that they were all one color. Later, I decided it would be more interesting to make them multicolored. You can see the results of my multicolored experimentation below.

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Both jump-suit were colored in the same color scheme as the dresses and I made sure the boots would match the jumpsuits. I do admit that while I do think of my alien was a leader in war and a diplomat, I’m not sure going to war in platform boots makes a lot of sense.

Maybe in space, your foot wear doesn’t matter. After all, gravity might not be around, so you could wear whatever shoes you want? Maybe? I really don’t know, but I do love me a good pair of platform boots.

Ragamuffin Girl: Steampunk Paper Doll

logo-ragamuffin-bwI previewed this paper doll back in April, but even when I previewed it, the paper doll set had been sitting in my sketchbook for a month or more. I was dreading work on it, not because I didn’t like the paper doll, but because the idea of coloring all the detail was terrifying.

So, last week, when I was finally out of everything else I had drawn for Marisole Monday & Friends that I could feed the blog, I found myself finally tackling this paper doll set. Sometimes I have to be forced into these things.

All right, so inspirations for today’s paper doll set include the film Newsies and that’s really about it. Though I confess I do rather see today’s version of Mia hanging out with my airship mechanic Marcus. I mean they both have tools and newsboy caps.

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I try to create for all my Marisole Monday & Friend’s paper dolls somewhat evenly. Currently though, this is only Mia’s second set this year. That puts her behind well… everyone else. So, she’ll get some more love soon though since I’ve got a ballerina set in the works for her and Monica. (Yes, I tackled my fear of tutus.)

Today’s paper doll set will, of course, be up in color next week and then… I have no idea what’s next, actually. Probably ballerinas.