I usually save Holiday paper dolls for the actual date of the holiday. The Saint’s Day for St. Patrick is March 17th, which is a few days from now. But the more I thought about it, the more I realized that folks might want these paper dolls early. That way they can print them and actually give them kids on St. Patrick’s Day. So, it makes more sense to post it early, I think.
Plus, I can post on social media on the day of the actual holiday, because that’s how social media works. (I’m still learning how social media works.)
St. Patrick’s Day is the feast day for St. Patrick, patron Saint of Ireland. From what I’ve seen it is mostly celebrated in the United States by parades, dying the Chicago river green, and drinking green dyed beer. Now, you might be wondering why I like drawing St. Patrick’s Day paper dolls when I am neither Irish nor Catholic, and don’t drink beer (green or otherwise). The thing is I studied in Illinois and became friends with many very Irish-Catholic people and I started drawing St. Patrick’s Day paper dolls.
And then I got requests for more of them when I missed a few years, so there you have it.
Since I don’t know enough (read: anything) about the actual traditions of St. Patrick’s Day from a religious perspective, I keep my St. Patrick’s Day paper dolls strictly secular. I chose rainbows and clovers as the primary motifs.
By the way, my favorite St. Patrick’s Day paper doll ever was this one, where I drew clothing from historical eras that connected to the holiday. I should really re-draw that one… I think I’d have fun with it. Well, there’s always next year.
I worked on this printable paper doll while I was visiting my family for a week. My niece helped me pick out the colors for her and I was happy to create a printable brunette paper doll for her.
My niece’s choice of this color scheme from my Pinterest board injected a splash of vibrancy into the project, particularly with her love for the color purple. I found that I needed more than the four colors of the scheme, so added the pink in for coordination. Like many kids, she loves bright colors with strong contrast. She also asked for brown hair and blue eyes.
Any time spent with my niece and nephew are highlights of my trips. We played paper dolls, went swimming, and went to the theater.
While I thought of this paper doll as being autumnal when I drew her, I suppose she could also be a spring paper doll- transitional clothing for the warming weather. I did give her a rather autumn themed title. Anyway, she’s here and she can share clothing with all the other Ensemble Eclectica paper dolls.
The weather is warming where I live, but it’s still very cold. However, it’s above zero and that’s something to celebrate.
Today’s paper doll with her gothic wardrobe was inspired by a lot of different things from my my gothic fashion pinterest board, including this corset, this top and this dress. I really wanted to do a take on Morticia Addam’s famous dress, but I added a bit of a puff sleeve, as those are very popular right now. Of course, Morticia Addams is timeless, but I didn’t want to copy the gown in all the details, in part, because I don’t love the bottom of the skirt. It reminds me a little too much of tentacles (true to the comic, but still.)
Lastly, I wanted to make a gothic baby doll dress which was 65% just a chance to play around with lace and a new procreate brush set. My first plan was to do see through lace sleeves, but then I couldn’t seem to get a version of that which I liked, so I ended up abandoning that idea. I did keep the lace around the neckline with the openings for some detail.
I can’t claim that I meticulously assembled my gothic wardrobe paper doll, because really this was not that organized (am I ever that organized?). I do think of all the pieces of the Ensemble Eclectica: Gothic Glamor Collection as sort of. mixing and matching together. I think the ruffled skirt from Dark Demigoddess, for example, would go well with any of the tops in this collection.
Anyway, stay tuned for more gothic paper doll fun Friday and Tuesday of next week.
Not sure what to wear to a graveyard? Need something to carefully cut the roses off a bouquet? Consider this gothic fashion paper doll printable, because even if I think swaning around a graveyard would just get my skirts dirty, I can at least pretend. (Seriously, graveyards are muddy.)
Sources of inspiration for this gothic fashion paper doll printable include Evangeline Ghastly (a Tonner doll I used to want when it first came out and I was broke college student who never could have afforded it.) There’s not a lot about Evangeline Ghastly online, so I used the Evangeline Ghastly Archive. There’s also a nice detailed review of the doll on Toy Box Philosopher. Also, things on my gothic fashion pinterest board, particularly photos of fantasy headdresses like this one and this one.
This all started with me wanting to draw something for Halloween. I had this idea in my head that I would get this done earlier in the month, but that clearly didn’t happen. Anyway, since I work best in “groups” there’s actually four of these dolls which are all part of the Ensemble Eclectica: Gothic Glamor Collection. The librarian in me really values linking together sets that people might correlate with other sets. It’s a little bit Dr. S.R. Ranganathan’s fourth law-Save the time of the reader.
(For the non-librarians among my readers, Dr. Ranganathan’s 5 Laws are core to the mission of libraries and still apply almost 100 years after he created them. Soap Box Moment: Libraries are really under attack right now in the USA, and if you value your public library and the librarians there, please pay attention. It’s a scary time to be a librarian.)
Anyway, not that we’ve had a quick diversion into library science 101, we can return to paper dolls!
The Gothic Glamor Collection was originally planned to contain three dolls, but I ended up with enough content to expand out to 4. Originally, I planned for a “skirts and corsets”, “fancy gowns”, “modern goth fashion” as my themes. So, much fun was being had drawing the various pieces that I ended up with a fourth set.
What can I say? I like drawing corsets and fishtail skirts.
A few thoughts on today’s Asian girl paper doll and her romantic wardrobe – I wanted to do a paper doll that would have a pearl feeling color scheme, but I also wanted her to not use pink. I really love pink, but I wanted to get away from pink for this set. Pink just feels like the “easy” way to make things feel feminine. So, instead, I decided to lean into mauve, cream and shades of leaf green. This Design Seeds color palette inspired me.
Honestly, I love all these colors, but I think the clothing is a little too feminine for me. However, I am hardly the most fashionable person on the planet. I went back and forth about the hair style. On one hand, putting a bob on an Asian paper doll feels a little cliche. On the other hand, I really liked the smooth hard lines of the hair in contrast with the hyper-feminine fashions.
Much like Retro Spring some of this paper doll’s clothing comes from the same set Hearts Denims and Bows. I really liked the bow graphic t-shirt in that set and I used it as a jumping off point for the rest of the clothing in this set. With 7 tops and 4 bottoms, there are 28 different outfit combinations here. I guess if I really wanted to maximize my clothing combos, I would draw nothing but crop tops, shorts, and shoes. However, I am trying to be a little more diverse then that.
Personally, I’d really love to get to 100 different pieces of mix and match contemporary paper doll clothing. I think that would be a nice round number for this series, plus I think then I could put together a book or something with all those pieces. I’ll get there eventually, but in the mean time, enjoy this latest addition to the Ensemble Eclectica series.
By the way, if there is a contemporary clothing theme you’d really like to see for these little ladies, let me know in a comment. Right now, I am thinking about a gothic set (because drawing skulls is a good challenge and also October seems the right month for that) and something sci-fi with cute little aliens.
Today’s member of the Ensemble Eclectica is a cute little redhead with a retro paper doll clothes vibe. She’s not from any specific decade, but there’s something that feels 1970s about the color scheme to me.
I’m having a bit of artists block over the last few weeks. I wanted to draw, but I had no idea what to draw and the idea of trying to think of something to draw just made me sort freeze. So, instead of torturing myself with indecision, I decided to go back to my own archives and draw some things inspired by pervious sets I’ve created.
This set was inspired by Hearts Denims and Bows, a set I first drew a decade ago. One thing I did miss while I was drawing this set was having a paper doll with a side facing foot, so I could really have more fun with shoes. I like drawing shoes. Anyway, given that I have over a thousand paper dolls on this site, I might as well use my own work to feed new work.
Part of the purpose of Ensemble Eclectica is to try out color schemes. So, I turned a little retro for these paper doll clothes.
One of the things I’ve been trying to mimic is the printing styles of vintage materials and since I’ve been trying to play with that and what better way to do that than with some vintage color inspiration. I was heavily influenced when coloring this set by the shades of the 1970s- mustard and coral and a little avocado (though not too much, I leaned into teal instead, which is also a color I associate with that decade.)
Anyway, a fun part of the continuing Ensemble Eclectica series has been color. I love picking out color schemes for my paper doll and trying them out. I’m always fascinated at how color really changes the feel of a paper doll set.
This weekend was Rosh Hashanah, so I spent some time in synagogue, made challah, heard the shofar, and ate apples and honey. Rosh Hashanah is the Jewish New Year, so it is now the year 5784. I often get introspective this time of year, but I don’t know that I’m ready to share any of those thoughts.
I wanted to do something a little romantic and with a darker color scheme, but fairer skin, so I could see how the contrast worked with the dark linework and the added texture. I think it works well.
All this paper dolls clothing sort of reminds me of the clothing of Regina/Evil Queen in Once Upon a Time when not in the fairytale world. I never got through season 3 last time I watched this, so hopefully I’ll be more engaged this time. I honestly think the show works better when you can binge it and don’t so easily loose track of all the threads (there’s a lot of them.) I do really enjoy most of the costuming. Everytime I argue at the TV that there’s more ethical nuance than the show allows, my husband is like, “It’s fairy tales.”
And I am like, “Okay, fair.”
So, if you look closely at this set, you might notice one of the neat things about working digitally. Two of the blouses (the red sleeveless one and the purple button up) became the templates from which I drew the two other blouses- the cream and black one and the teal cropped one. This adaptation is much more possible, because of the digital nature of the art. It’s not something I’ll probably do all the time- because I honestly like drawing- but the possibility excites me.
Also, like how many ways are there to draw a pair of skinny jeans before it gets absurd? Really?
Oh, and I messed around a little with the layout to facilitate printing and getting more clothing onto the page. Not sure I love the thicker gray line, so that might change.
Let me know what you think in a comment! I love hearing from folks.
All right, so I spent sometime this week coloring my favorite of the July Project which was this rose ballgown.
One thing Procreate does really poorly is color management. It’s really frustrating. I keep thinking there’s a trick to it that I am missing, but after watching several tutorials and such, I am increasingly convinced that Procreate is just bad at color management. That’s it.
I’m still experimenting with texture as well and clearly experimenting with shadow, as well. My favorite artists don’t tend to do a lot with shadow… I dunno. I remain unconvinced that it works. More experimenting is clearly needed. But you don’t know if you don’t try, I always say, so trying matters.
Long story short: I’m not in love with Procreate for coloring things. I’m pretty happy with how this turned out, but I think I want more texture or maybe slightly different texture or something.
So, I decided to dip my toes into color in Procreate with this paper doll. I also did some experimentation with noise and backgrounds and other things.
While I wouldn’t recommend home printing for this one, because the ink usage will be through the roof, I have added a link to the PDF if you feel the urge to try to see what happens if you do.
East of the sun and West of the Moon illustrated by Kay Nielsen in 1913.
You do you!
And if you do print it, it is scaled to mix and match with the 365 paper dolls.
I’ve been trying to sort out how to get texture. Of course, I think the effect doesn’t work super well unless you zoom in at which point, like maybe it doesn’t work at all?
Hmm….
So, here’s what I was trying to mimic…
One of the things I love very much is the illustrations of the turn of the century. Generally done with a trichromatic printing process (sometimes black was added and sometimes green was added, which is fascinating in it’s own right), the screens used result in a very specific texture to the solid colors in the prints. You can see it in classic illustrators like Arthur Rackham, Kay Nielsen, or fashion illustrations from things like Bon Ton. You can see the texture I’m talking about here and here.
Anyway, trying to archive that effect digitally is not as simple as you might think. So I have been experimenting with noise and other texture effects in Photoshop and Procreate. The result, however, is probably not “strong” enough to be obvious. This is one of the problems of working digitally- you are zoomed in or zoomed out or… whatever. It’s actually super hard to tell what the finished product is going to look like at true scale.
The other factor is that digital printing introduces a bit of noise and I don’t like how it looks, but only because it feels unintentional and I really really value being intentional in my work. I want control, or an active lack of control (hello ceramics, I’m looking at you.)
As I keep saying on these posts, Julie has been a huge help in referring me to tools to try to get this effect.
There are many tools and brushes and things for Procreate that it is super overwhelming. There’s a million different tools and things you can do with those. But I suspect I’ll eventually find 3 or 4 I like and use them 90% of the time. That tends to be how I roll.
But you can’t find the three or four you like without trying out a few dozen, so that’s been the current challenge.
Next up, I’ll be sharing an experiment using a less smooth brush and seeing what happens when I have a “rough” line texture. More on that one next week.
I’m going to keep this brief, since I wrote a lot of this up in the newsletter already (subscribe here) and I just don’t know if I want to repeat myself (or if anyone wants to read me repeating myself).
One of the weird/interesting things about creating the newsletter has been grappling with the transient/permanent nature of it. I’ve always thought of this blog as both an archive of my work and as a place where if I make a typo and notice three months later (which has 100% happened), I can fix it. However, the newsletters don’t work that way. Once they are sent, they are done.
And while there is an archive, they don’t feel as permanent as a series of blog posts.
Since the whole newsletter thing is an experiment to begin with, I am still trying to grapple with how I feel about all that.
Anyway, let’s talk paper dolls. So, her underwear is a generic set of short stays over a shift with stockings a shoes. My goal here wasn’t to reproduce anything specific, but to get to the basic idea of “generic underwear of this era” rather than getting into specifics. Her hair is a combination of portraits like this one and this one. I wanted a hairstyle that could easily be covered in bonnets or hats, which I knew I was going to be drawing with nearly every dress.
To start with the morning dress is from this November 1813 plate from La Belle Assemblee which, despite a very French sounding name, was published in London and aimed at the fashionable set. People thought all things French were more sophisitcated than all things English. Interestingly, a lot of places will credit La Belle Assemblee fashioj plates to France on the name alone. While many of the plates in the magazine are copies of French fashion plates, the publication was definitely English.
The morning walking dress is really just a gown with a pelisse over it. The pelisse and bonnet were inspired by this September 1813 plate from La Belle Assemblee, again. A pelisse was a coat that was cut the same style as the dress. They came in all different styles like this one or this one. Some were made from very lightweight fabrics, but others were warm and designed as coats. Sometimes it’s hard to tell from an illustration if you’re looking at a pelisse or a gown or something in between.
The first gown on the second page (working left to right, top to bottom) is a ballgown. Ballgowns were the most formal gowns women wore with the exception of court dress and court dress has never been a big interest of mine. Court dress was governed by all sort of rules and regulations- a realm I have never wanted to dive into. The ball gown is based on this one from the Museum at FIT. The turban is from this 1815 fashion plate. Turbans were super popular in the 1810s.
The dress with the spencer is basically a walking costume. The Spencer was a jacket version of the pelisse. Both were cut to follow the lines of the dress. Spencers come in all different styles. A few that inspired this one include this 1815 yellow silk version and this March 1812 version from Ladies’ Magazine.
The Ladies’ Magazine was published in London starting in August of 1770. If I am remembering my fashion history correctly, it was the first magazine to publish a fashion plate, though the idea was quickly copied by French and German publications. My understanding is that Ladies’ Magazine was less expensive than some of the other fashion magazines of the era and the quality of the fashion plates shows this difference. Still, it’s a pretty amazing document. I have digressed a lot from our paper doll, so let’s finish up with the dinner dress.
And that’s it! More, I am certain, than you wanted to know about Regency fashion and inspiration for this regency paper doll set. Tomorrow, I’ll share Vivian’s steampunk traveling suit for my Patrons.