pink hair

Among the Waves: Amethyst is a Mermaid

I didn’t really love mermaids as a child. I was never really a mermaid person, so to speak. The Little Mermaid movie scared me. However, I really have found there’s a lot of fun to be had drawing mermaid tails and that’s where today’s mermaid doll came from.

She’s made up from some of the different mermaids I drew last year and this year. Along with her tails, I thought one dress for land based adventures would be useful and a trident for defense. After all, there are predators in the ocean. I chose Amethyst to show off these tails.

A beautiful mermaid doll coloring page with interchangeable tails. Printable paper fun for all ages.

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One of the wild things about tropical fish is that even though I think of them as being blue, they are actually super not blue. Anyway, I had a lot of fun looking at tropical fish photos and then picking out colors for the mermaid doll’s tails. This is certainly a tropical mermaid.

A beautiful mermaid doll with interchangeable tails. Printable paper fun for all ages.

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I had so much fun with these mermaid tails. I think mermaids are always fun, don’t you? I’ve done a few other mermaids like these.

Remember, if you enjoy the blog and would like to get even more paper dolls, check out Patreon. I’ve got fun things from 2 dollars and up including two other paper doll collections and more Jewels and Gemstones content.

Space Princess: Jade & Her Space Gowns

I know I’ve told this story before on this blog, but for those of you who are new, I shall tell it again. When I was a child, my grandmother sent a space princess paper doll card to either me or my sister. Our birthdays are within just a few days of each other. Anyway, I don’t remember much about that era, but I darn well remember that card.

In honor of that, I have a history of creating space princess original paper dolls from this one to this one to today’s, which is made up of my favorite gowns from my Space Princess Week last year. Like most of my Friday paper dolls these days, this paper doll is a “reboot” of older materials, except I’m posting her on Monday, because she’s finished.

Original paper dolls of a space princess and her gowns to color. Beautiful curvy fantasy paper doll.

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Back in 2019, my patrons voted for this space princess paper doll over many other options. I seem to recall I was a little surprised that this was the winner. Space princesses not being typical paper doll topics, but I like letting my patrons have input.

Designing my original paper dolls is always fun, but this one was particularly joyful. Guo Pei’s collections were a big influence on all these gowns. She has a wonderful, almost fantastical style with a strong traditional Chinese influence. A nice article on her work- Guo Pei: Couture Beyond.

A few more inspirations this hair, this gown, this gown both from Dior 2006. Space princess paper dolls need over the top clothing. I recently bought this book on Star Trek Costumes. I keep thinking about what makes something feel futuristic.

Original paper dolls of a space princess and her gowns to print. Beautiful brown curvy fantasy paper doll.

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I associate purples and gold with futuristic space clothing. So, they made sense as the color scheme for the space princess and her space princess gowns. I don’t entirely know why purple always feels futuristic to me. It’s a very old dye color.

What do you think of today’s space princess? Are you into sci-fi paper dolls? I love them, but they aren’t very common. Let me know what you think in a comment.

A link to the exclusive Friday paper doll content on Patreon

Topaz as a Woodland Fairy

A curvy fairy paper doll in color with pink hair and a cute dress.A curvy fairy paper doll in black and white with short hair and a cute dress.

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I find I go through periods where I am drawing a lot on a similar theme. So, I created this woodland fairy paper doll during a period when I was drawing a lot of mermaids and fairy outfits. Most of them ended up on Patreon, but I try to split things pretty evenly, so I wanted something to share here on the same theme.

Additionally, I think fairies are a playful theme and kinda fun to play around with. I always like to think about drape when I’m drawing woodland fairy clothing, sort of a dress made from cloth being wrapped around the body rather than tailored together.

Inspiration for Today’s Paper Doll

As I said above, I really was on a sort of “fairy kick” when I created this paper doll. I go through phases, after all. Despite my personal preference for darker fairy tales, I never know how to illustrate those. So, instead I tend to lean towards Victorian flower fairies (like this card from 1905) for this one.

Learn and See More

On the Blog: More Jewels & Gemstones paper dolls & more Fairy Paper Dolls
Around the Internet: My Fairy & Fauns Pinterest Board & This fascinating article on the Cottingley Fairy Hoax

Last Thoughts on Today’s Fairy Paper Doll

If you’ve never read about the Cottingley Fairy Hoax, than I would highly recommend a read. It’s a fascinating story about how smart people can be blind to things and the strange Edwardian obsession with spiritualism. There’s something really telling about the desperate desire to believe even in the face of extreme mounting evidence to the contrary.

On Friday, I post extra paper dolls on Patreon and I’ve shared a lot more fairy stuff there for my patrons whose support I am super grateful for.

Also, there’s some new pieces up in my Etsy store if you haven’t checked it out recently head over there.

Aisha in Two Different Styles

A pair of paper dolls to print from paperthinpersonas.com. Free to print in black and white or in color.

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I think of these paper dolls as the- No-Nonsense Hair Aisha (left) and the Cotton Candy Retro Aisha (right). I went back and forth and back and forth about the color of Cotton Candy Retro Aisha (right) eyebrows. I mean, most people don’t dye their eyebrows to match their hair, but the black eyebrows just didn’t look right with the pink hair and brown eyebrows didn’t have enough contrast and… so, I went with pink eyebrows. Maybe she’s from some sci-fi universe and genetically engineered to have pink eyebrows.

I have some retro-space suits I have been working on, so maybe that’s the cause of her pink eyebrows.

Meanwhile, I designed two different pairs of shoes to go with these paper dolls. The blue shoes are scalloped which is a really popular design feature right now and the black and white sandals are dressed up flip-flops. I love slip on sandals in the summer time. I’d like to say because I go to the beach or something else “fun,” but really because it’s easier to slip into them when checking my mail or taking out the trash.

My life is not that exciting.

Meanwhile, enjoy the paper dolls! We’ll be back to outfits next week (with a Collaboration 2018 Paper Doll on Friday) and then it’ll be September. Don’t worry about other Dames. They have double sets too! I’m just feeling like I want to go back to some clothing for a few posts. All the new dolls need things to wear after all, but the rest of the girls will get up here soon.

Time has flown this year!  Meanwhile, if you’re feeling clothing design neglected, hop over to Instagram where I’m on dress 93 of the #100dressesproject. I’m so close to the end! I have no idea what I’ll post to Instagram when it’s all over. I need to come up with something… Thoughts? Let me know in a comment or let me know what you think of today’s paper doll!

Need a clothing for today’s paper dolls? All the A Pose Dolls & Clothing

A Pink Haired, Green Skinned, Butterfly Winged Fairy Poppet Paper Doll

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Today’s Printable Paper Doll Inspirations: Unisex Children’s Clothing, Fig & Me Dolls, Untied Shoes, and Twig & Tale Sewing Patterns

A pink haired, pale green skinned, printable fairy paper doll. Part of the Poppet series and free to print in color or black and white.

A printable fairy paper doll. Part of the Poppet series and free to print in color or black and white.

One of my Patron requests for 2017 was more fantasy creatures like mermaids and fairies. So, today’s fairy Poppet paper doll in my response to that request from Cathy W and I thought someone else, but I couldn’t verify that. So, other person who I couldn’t verify, if you exist outside my head, this is also for you.

Who doesn’t want an excuse to draw a printable fairy paper doll?

Seriously for a moment though, I was sort of surprised by the request for more fairies. One of the oddities of my brain is that I assume everyone has the same knowledge of my archive as me. So, sometimes when someone says, “Hey, could you draw…”

I think- “But I did draw that.”

Except sometimes it turns out that paper doll was like four years ago and I’m the only person who remembers that I drew it. So my first reaction to being asked for fairies was to think, “But I’ve done fairies.”

And then I paused and looked at my Archives and I was like, “Oh. Not as much as I thought.”

Also, just because I have done something once, doesn’t mean I can’t do it again. There’s not like statute of limitations on paper doll production, you know?

Anyhow, this is all a convoluted way of saying that I plan to do more mermaids and fairies in 2017. (In fact, come back February 21st, that’s all I’m saying…)

The wings are meant to be glued to the back of the paper doll along the white section. Last time I posted a fairy with wings, there was some confusion about this.

Meanwhile, if you want to support the blog, then think about becoming a Patron or liking it on facebook.

Mostly, I am using Facebook to share stuff from the Archives, because I expect no one to really go through nearly 1,000 posts. Not quote 1,000. I should do something cool when I hit 1,000.

Need a paper doll to wear today’s outfit? Pick a Poppet Paper Doll Here.

Marisole Monday & Friends Masquerade: Marisole as a Flamingo

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Today’s Printable Paper Doll Inspirations:  Flamingos, 1980’s Prom Dresses, and Spiky Hair Cuts

A paper doll masquerade ballgown based on a flamingo available in black and white or in color from paperthinpersonas.com

There is something really silly looking about flamingos. Still, I love their color and I wanted to do something a little playful for one of the masquerade gowns, and who doesn’t want to dress their paper doll up like a flamingo?

I was trying to research flamingo folklore and I didn’t find much. I did however find a great history of the pink plastic lawn flamingo, should anyone be curious. I also learned, though I haven’t been able to confirm this through a really reputable source, that in Ancient Egypt Flamingos were considered sacred to the sun god, Ra.

The over-skirt of the gown is meant to mirror the fuller body of the flamingo. Originally, I had a very narrow skirt attached to the bottom, but later I altered it to fit in better with the rest of the gowns. Due to the very low neckline and decorate edging, I think the dress will work best with floating tabs, so I positioned two on the page. You may need to add some longer floating tabs for the skirt.

Our printable model for the flamingo costume is Marisole. I thought her light brown skin-tone would be set off really beautifully by the pink gown.

If you’re not sure how the wig works, here are instructions. Also, I would recommend adding some additional tabs to the skirt as needed. It is a very wide skirt.

Read the blog regularly? Than help it continue by supporting it on Patreon.

Need a more outfits for today’s Marisole Monday & Friends Paper Doll? Find More Clothing Here. 

Yumiko- Digital Girl: A Cyberpunk Paper Doll

Yumiko- Digital Girl is a cyberpunk paper doll with a 12 piece wardrobe in black and white to color or in full color from paperthinpersonas.com. One of the rules of long term blogging (or anything really) is build with the assumption of growth. So, while I feel kinda absurd referring to the Sprites as a series, because this is only the second one and so it’s more like a sequel situation, I also recognize that in two years when I look back on this post (or more likely, when someone else does), it still needs to have all the links and make sense.

Speaking of building with the assumption of growth, I am currently converting from using my server to host my image files to using WordPress’ native image management tools. This is prep for a larger shift in the blog infrastructure. If I do my job right, y’all shouldn’t notice a thing; however, if you do find some posts those images are screwy, just drop me a note and I’ll look at it.

There are over 756 posts on this blog, so converting all those images over is going to take a bit of time and I wouldn’t be surprised if I miss something accidentally.

All right, so about today’s paper doll. Yumiko is a Japanese name. Again, there aren’t a lot of names for women that start with Y. I almost went with Yasmine, before I remember I already have a Yasmine paper doll. One of the problems of having drawn over 500 paper dolls for this blog is that at some point, you kinda run low on names.

Yumiko- Digital Girl is a cyberpunk paper doll with a 12 piece wardrobe in black and white to color from paperthinpersonas.com {Download a PDF to Print and Color} {Download a PNG to Print and Color}{More Sprite Printable Paper Dolls}

Anyway, Yumiko is the first Asian Sprite paper doll, though I confess that’s a little meaningless. I mean, there’s only two Sprite paper dolls right now. I also started the Pixie series off with an Asian paper doll named Zoe. I’d say there was something intentional with my starting series off with Asian paper dolls, but I’ll be darned if I know what it is.

Yumiko’s theme this week is cyberpunk, just like Zachary’s cyberpunk set last week.

Yumiko- Digital Girl is a cyberpunk paper doll with a 12 piece wardrobe in color. Free to print from paperthinpersonas.com{Download a PDF to Print and Color} {Download a PNG to Print and Color}{More Sprite Printable Paper Dolls}

I chose a very different color scheme for Yumiko-Digital Girl. I knew from the start that I wanted to give her pink hair and black lips (it felt sufficiently cyberpunk), so than it was a matter of selecting colors that I thought would coordinate with those two colors. I really like how she came out.

Thoughts on the new series? Feel free to drop me a comment.

And if you’d like to support the blog in 2016, consider becoming a patron.

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.

space-princess-paper-doll-color

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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.

Sweet & Saucy in Color: A printable paper doll

logo-sweet-saucy-colorLast week, I talked about where this paper doll set was inspired from. This week, I want to talk a bit about color choices.

Color scares a lot of people. It scares me too. Truthfully, I use a lot of tools to help me develop color schemes. Some are as simple as searching Colour Lovers for a theme, but other times I use tools from ColourLovers to calculate diferent types of color schemes. My other favorite color scheme website is Design Seeds.

Normally, I try to keep my color schemes to five or six colors. There just aren’t enough pieces in the average paper doll set to justify more colors then than that. Even today’s set with all the pattern has only seven different colors, not including the warm soft brown of her skin tone. Choosing a skintone color is actually just as important as selecting a color scheme, because depending on the surrounding colors, all colors look different. I tend to think of the skintone choice as part of the color scheme selection, just as much as I am picking out colors for clothing, but I do try to keep to my palette, except with Asian skintones that generally have a strong yellow undertone. That can be very hard to not look jaundiced, so there’s often trial and error when I am coloring those paper dolls.

sweet-saucy-printable-paper-doll
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In today’s paper doll, I knew I wanted a rainbow scheme and I wanted it to feel a little bit like candy- bright and sweet colors. Pink stands in for my red, but other then that I have a purple, a blue, a yellow, an orange and a green. White acts as a neutral, rather than black, and that keeps the set feeling light and bright. The only black appears as the soles of her boots. Her nails are multicolored as are her hair ties to keep the sense of mismatched style.

I really am quite pleased with how she turned out.

Country Time: A Plus-Sized Paper Doll in Color or Black and White

B&B Logo. Country Time paper doll. The name of this paper doll set is “Country Time” and it might be a reference to the fact that her hair is the same color as Country Time lemonade. I hate coming up with titles and refuse to be shamed over where this one came from.

To be entirely honest, this week has been rough. I had to replace my computer’s RAM which was a good thing, since my computer is faster, but taking it into the shop always makes me nervous. I took my baby (aka MacbookPro) to a locally owned Apple place close to my work and, while I ate lunch at a nearby sandwich shop, they replaced my 4 gigs of RAM with a beautiful shiny new 8 gigs of RAM. It literally took less then 30 minutes and now Photoshop doesn’t hate me anymore.

Seriously, Photoshop is the canary in the coal mine of RAM problems.

So, if you were wondering why there wasn’t a Monday paper doll, the answer is “RAM issues”.

But we’re not hear to talk about my computer woes- We’re here to talk about a fabulous curvy, plus-sized paper doll from the Bodacious & Buxom collection.

Country Time: A black and white printable plu-sized paper doll with a seven piece mix and match wardrobe. Free from paperthinpersonas.com {Download a PDF of this paper doll to Color} {View a 150 dpi PNG of this Paper Doll to Color}
Country Time is part of my B&B series of curvy paper dolls. Her mix and match wardrobe is designed for layering. The leggings are meant to be worn under the skirts or the dress, so there are about 10 outfit options (12 if you consider the leggings wearable without skirts, but I don’t like to wear leggings bare). I was thinking of woods and country and sort of sweet foresty things when I designed these dresses. I also wanted to stick to a pretty constrained wardrobe of neutral colors to play off her pink hair.

Country Time: A pink haired printable plu-sized paper doll with a seven piece mix and match wardrobe. Free from paperthinpersonas.com {Download a PDF of this paper doll in Full Color} {View a 150 dpi PNG of this Paper Doll in Full Color} {More Bodacious and Buxom Printable Paper Dolls}
While pink hair was chosen to counter balance the brown and cream color scheme, I was divided between pink hair and pale blue hair, but in the end I decided I liked how the pink hair looked better. I do have a slight “thing” for pink and blue hair, so I have to fight my natural tendency to prefer those two choices over all other strange hair colors.

I really do hope to have another paper doll up this week, so I can keep up with my two paper dolls a week tendency even though I missed Monday.