contemporary

Prudence: Paper Doll with an Afro

I really am quite pleased with my paper doll Prudence. Her skin tone, like Kadeem’s and Gabriel’s skin tones, was based on my recent searching around for skin tones on the web.

After a few weeks of looking and collecting, I have over 50 different swatches, but I am working on narrowing that down to a manageable number- probably 10 to 15. The truth is that a lot of them are so close in color, I don’t think there would be a visible difference once they were printed anyway.

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It’s rare I produce a paper doll that I can’t find anything wrong with, but Prudence is pretty close. I lover her glasses and her vintage wardrobe and the color scheme turned out better then I imagined it would. Her hair didn’t come out quite as I had planned it (afro’s are hard to draw), but I’m still pleased with how it looks.

Personally, I would pop her into her cream dress and put her on a date with Kadeem or Gabriel for a night on the town. Or maybe slip her into something more fancy and have her strut down the red carpet (I’m sure Roxanne or Yasmine would be happy to share). In fact, if you don’t like any of those options, there’s a black and white version of Roxanne and you can color any color dress for Prudence that you think she needs.

Commercial Fisher: Printable Paper Doll

Technically, it’s just past midnight here in Illinois, but its still Monday in Alaska, so I think she still counts as on time.

When I was a child, the we’d go out for a few weeks each summer and commercially fish for salmon and halibut, so I wanted it to be accurate beyond my own memories. Commercial fishing is some of the most back breaking labor I have ever done. It’s hard work, but you can’t beat the views. When I was 16, I was offered the choice of working for the summer fishing or finding a job.

I found a job.

marisole-commercial-fisher-paper-doll

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My mom actually requested this paper doll a few months ago and it took me a while to decide what exactly to include on the sheet (Hi mom!). So, we have Marisole, with coloring as close to a self portrait of me as you’ll ever get on this blog, and she has a wardrobe of proper fishing clothing from her heavy duty dark green rain gear (overalls and a jacket) to her bright orange rubber gloves for baiting hooks and cutting fish. She comes with a small Pacific Halibut (slime not included) and a King Salmon, though neither looks as good as I wanted it too. She also has a gaffhook, a gutting knife and a little green tin of bag balm to wear under her gloves.

The cold storage we sold our fish too was in Hoonah, Alaska and it gave away baseball caps. I still remember my father walking around in his jeans with his bright pink Hoonah Cold Storage cap on his head. I had one for years, but I don’t know what happened to it. So, Marisole has one of those too along with some t-shirts, jeans and long underwear. Most importantly, Marisole has her Xtratuff boots which are a required part of any fisherperson’s wardrobe.

Personally, I think she’s prepared for her adventure.

Edit 3/28/2016: There is now a black and white version of this paper doll. Find it here.

Curvy Printable Paper Doll Cocktail Dresses

This beautiful sent of cocktail dresses was meant to show off ruching which I have been practicing. I love the combination of the apple green and the strawberry pink, but also wanted to have a more sedate color scheme for the less adventurous among the Dictionary Girls. I am pleased with how both dresses came out, but I sometimes admire the work of other paper doll artists and know I need more practice.

dictionary-ruching-cocktaildresses

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Lately, I have been very impressed by Siyi Lin an artist from Taiwan, I think. Her work is beautiful and often featured in Haute Doll Magazine. She has both a webpage and a Picasa album which I confess to staring at for far too long. I love her colors and her drape and her faces. I think her paper dolls are done with vectors and that is something I really want to learn how to do. Someday, I’ll have the time to take a class on vector drawing. Yes… I’ll fit that in between my classes, work and job hunting. Not any time soon, I fear, but someday.

But I’m really inspired by her paper dolls of Ann Estelle and Betsy Mccall and I wonder about doing a child paper doll. I’ve played around with them in the past. It would certainly be a paper doll of a doll rather then a real child.

But this brings up a deeper more complicated issue of what should I do with paper dolls that aren’t part of my standard series, and I don’t have an answer. I don’t like the Gallery, but I don’t know what to do with the content I have there and the Short Run dolls were fine, but I haven’t used them in a while. I need to somehow consolidate the paper dolls that are not part of a series under a sort of umbrella category somehow… What do people like more? A gallery approach or something else? Does anyone, but me care? Possibly not.

Kadeem and Gabriel: Boy Paper Dolls with Suits

So, a few weeks ago before I dropped off the face of the earth, before I ended up sick, and before I discovered what fascinating colors old chicken curry can turn, I had a little drawing to celebrate the 65th Marisole paper doll ever. A wonderful reader known as Kat won by drawing and was so kind as to send me the following guidelines for what sort of paper doll she would like to see for her prize.

I was wondering if I could request a Puck doll. If so, I’d very much like to see him in a suit, so that he can take the gussied up Pixies to their soirees :). No real preference on the colors but I would like a boutonniere.

Now, I’ve never been pleased with the Puck paper dolls, but I was willing to try to make some dapper Pucks for her, so I set to work and it took a lot longer then I thought it should, but sometimes these things do.

punk-kadeem-suits

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It might be a few weeks late, but I am proud to provide two puck paper dolls in stylish suits. The first is Kadeem who I think of as a modern young man heading out for a date, though I suppose in his clean cut suits he could also be heading to work or something else. He has two different boutonnieres and a corsage for his date.

punk-gabriel-suits

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He’s joined by his good friend Gabriel, a slightly old fashioned gentleman, with a pair of black suits with red ties. Something about double breasted suits always makes me think of the noir movies, so I gave Gabriel an old fashioned hair style and shoes to go with it. Gabriel, Gabe to his friends, also has two boutonnieres and a corsage. If you slit along the dotted line on the suit jackets, the gentleman can wear their boutonniere.

I hope these guys were worth the wait, Kat and now any of the Puck paper dolls are ready for dates. Love maybe in the air.

Mint and Roses: A Printable Paper Doll

I am so happy to announce that Kat’s comment, number seven was the number which random.org decided was to be the winner of my drawing. Congratulations Kat and please email me [paperthinpersonas (at) gmail (dot) com] with a description and reference photos of what sort of paper doll you would like. And your paper doll doesn’t have to be a Marisole, it can be any of the paper doll series I draw (Pixie, Dictionary Girls, or Shadow and Light.)

marisole-mint-roses-paper-doll

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Today’s Marisole paper doll has what I think of as my medium brown with cool undertones skin color and orange hair. It seemed like a good idea at the time… (mind you, “the time” was nearly midnight). I do love her muted, spring soft color palette, I’m just unsure about her hair/skintone combo. What do other people think?

In other news, I have had so much fun reading people’s comments and they have all made me smile. I thought I would post my favorite ten (okay, eleven) Marisole paper dolls in reverse chronological order. If you’re interested keep reading below. If you’re Kat, please email me. Otherwise, have a fantastic Monday and enjoy the paper doll.

More Here

A Walk in the Woods- Paper Doll to Print

So, I barely got this done on time. It’s nearly midnight on Monday and my brain is a little fried. I spent the day cleaning and doing some homework. I have nearly fiftly library books piled on my table and I think I need to sort through them and maybe return a few, but that’s a project for another night.

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Today Marisole has gone out hiking. Being from Alaska, long walks in the woods were always a big part of my life. There’s a bottle of sunscreen for her and a water bottle, based on the one I carried all through college. I have no idea what happened to that water bottle. She also has a practical pair of hiking shoes and pants with lots of pockets. The thing I am most pleased with is how the colors came out, I think they feel softer and less intense then computer color often looks. It adds the right “organic” feel to the clothing.

Edit 4/6/2014: This set is now available here in black and white for coloring. Yay!

Marisole Monday: Sporty Girl

Lately, I’ve been thinking about children (or, as I think of them, proto-people) and paper dolls. Recently, a friend, upon finding out I drew paper dolls as a hobby, remarked that children must like them.

There was a beat as I thought about this and then I said, « Yeah, I guess. » But truth be told, I don’t think much about children when I’m drawing my paper dolls.

marisole-sporty-girl

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I think about play-ability a fair bit- will these pieces go together and could someone really play with this paper doll. And I think about color and shape and a bit about skin tone (ie: I don’t want all my paper dolls to be white skinned blond Babarbie-esque creatures), but I don’t think a lot about message.

Except a friend has decided she would like to turn some of my paper dolls into magnets for when she is working as a school librarian to have at a play table for the kids. And while I have assisted her by removing tabs and resizing the dolls (instructions and versions of printable magnetic Marisole). I still haven’t quite gotten over the idea that children will be playing with them.

I know just enough about toys and modeling behaviors to feel like its important that I draw some versions of Marisole as something other then a ninja or a pirate. So, I decided to draw some sporty clothing (from a basketball uniform to a tennis dress), because I figured it was a good thing to show Marisole as a sporty girl as well as a girly girl, but I also think this sense of obligation is one of the reasons the paper doll sort of fails. I don’t know much about sports wear and outside of my erratic yoga class, I don’t do a lot of sports. I think it’s pretty clear I wasn’t committed to the set when I drew it. So, while I don’t think it’s the worst set of Marisole stuff I’ve ever drawn, it’s not at the top for me. But, I do like all the neat little sport balls and the tennis racquet, so it’s not a complete loss.

Edit 1/6/2014: Get a colorable version of this paper doll to print here.

Roxanne and Irene 2 Paper Dolls in Black and White

I’ve never done a black and white Pixie paper doll before, that I recall and I must confess I’m only doing one now because I’m busy and I needed something to post. I felt a little guilty just posting paper dolls I had already posted in black and white, so I did two of them to make myself feel a little less guilty about recycling material. Besides, sometimes the choice is between something or nothing and I’d rather post something.

pixie-irene-black-white

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I’ve been terribly busy this weekend prepping for classes that start next week and preparing to travel to Pennsylvania for a wedding. I’ll be out of town for a few days. The blog should post on it’s own without me (assuming I get done what I need to get done to make that happen), but there might be a slight hiatus while I travel.

pixie-roxanne-black-white

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I enjoy weddings, though I was never one of those people who dreamed about my own wedding day. I never caught the “wedding fever” so common to young girls. I did have a wedding Barbie doll, as I recall, but I think she spent most of her time either fighting monsters or going to balls in her pretty white dress.

Pixie & Puck: Roxanne

The purple paper doll dress was based on Natalie Portman’s Oscar gown, though truth be told I don’t think I did a very good job on it. I was drawing it without reference images which always means I’m a little less accurate then I would like. Liana did a wonderful version during the night of the Oscars. I recommend it highly. It’s looks much better then mine.

pixie-roxanne

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I’ve mentioned in the past that I can always tell when I’m drawing on auto-pilot and this is a set I drew when I wasn’t really prepped for. I didn’t have any reference images, or thumbnails, I was just kinda winging it. Personally, I think it’s weaker for the lack of prep work. I always draw better when I have something (thumbnail doodle or photo reference) to work from.

On a semi-unrelated note, I love paper dolls with fronts and backs like these ones from 1935. I wish I had the paper engineering skills to draw some of them on my own.

Also, I have a poll in the sidebar. The future of Curves 2.0 is in your hands.

Pixie & Puck: Irene

Writing is hard. Drawing is hard too, but somehow less hard then writing. I think it’s because I draw in stages- pencil and then ink and then shade and then scan and then re-size and then color and then add tabs and then do layout and then re-size again and then post. Sometimes those events occur in a slightly different order, but I always have multiple pieces in multiple stages of work (at least I do when I’m on the ball and things are going well). Yet, writing I find I stare at a white screen and have to think of something to say.

pixie-irene

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Ideally, something intelligent and nuanced to say… Okay, maybe not nuanced, but at least intelligent. Or coherent. I think I at least get coherent. Most of the time.

All I can really say about this paper doll is that I am pleased with how she came out. I really love the muted color tones- achieved by using a mostly transparent wash of grey over all of the clothing after it was colored. I find getting muted tones is a lot harder then getting obnoxiously bright tones on a paper doll and everything looks different on different screens of course. Her toenails in her sandals are another little favorite of mine-rainbow toes.