short hair

Curves 2.0 Welcome Elena

This paper doll is named in honor of a good friend, as many of my paper dolls are. The moment I drew her, I thought she looked Hispanic, so I decided to make her Elena and I gave her more coral colored lips since I’ve done a lot of red lipped pin-up dolls. Someday I need to draw her a bull fighter costume in order to forefill a complicated inside joke, but until then she has some darn sexy underwear.

dictionary-girls-paper-dolls-elena

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She’s up a little late tonight, because I spent the evening baking rather then working on blog things. I am part of a club at my University and we’re having a bakesale. I promised to make stuff for it, so tonight I found myself putting together cookies. Tomorrow will be brownies and rice crispy treats- both easy enough to make though I confess I haven’t made rice crispy treats since I was about ten. Still, how complicated can they possibly be?

I forget sometimes how much I like baking until I get back into the kitchen to do it. I rarely bake for myself, because I live alone and it would be dangerous to have cookies around the house. Stuff like this is an excuse to pull out my grandmothers chocolate chip cookie recipe and use it, though I don’t make them as crispy as she always did.

And that, my friends, is more then I can imagine anyone wanted to know about my cooking habits. I am thinking now though that a series of aprons would be a fun thing to draw for Curves 2.0. I should get on that… but not until I finish my cookies.

Shadow and Light 4: Black and White Paper Doll

The best thing about the Shadow and Light paper dolls is that I decided to number them rather then title them. Perfect solution to my natural problem of coming up with titles.

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I’m always excited when I stumble across paper dolls in while I’m not actually looking for them. Final Fashion is a great fashion illustrators blog which features lots of beautiful fashion paper dolls. They are available for purchase, but every one can also be seen to just gaze longingly at. One of my pet peeves is when people have paper dolls for sale, but you can’t really see each page of the paper doll or the clothing. There’s a few artists I will buy on faith, but generally I like to see what I am getting. My favorite is her Vionnet paper dolls. Madame Vionnet is a somewhat under appreciated designer from the early 20th century who introduced the world to the bias cut dress. Unfortunately, her style was very much of its time and hasn’t really survived to be present which is a pity.

On a semi-related note to the Madame Vionnet ramble, I am curious if people would be interested in knowing which fashion books I use when I’m doing research. I’ve been on this Japanese kimono book kick for a few weeks (literally, my table is covered in them) and I’m trying to decide if fashion/costume book reviews are something people would like to see. Thoughts from the masses?

Curves 2.0 Meet Chiharu

I debated long and hard what to name this paper doll. I had a friend in high-school who was Japanese American named Claire, and I almost named the paper doll (with whom she shares really no resemblance) Claire, but then I decided I wanted to actually try to find a name with Asian origins which started with C. I wanted it to be a fairly common name and I didn’t care if it was Chinese or Korean or Japanese or really from anywhere else.

Being as I know nothing about traditional naming practices of pretty much any Asian country and being as I didn’t really feel like learning them, I ended up pawing around baby name sites looking for something I could pronounce and which was not hyper unusual. I don’t know how common this name is, but based on the fact that several actresses in Hong Kong have it, I think it can’t be that unusual. (Thank you, Wikipedia.)

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There will be another paper doll next week and then some costumes to dress them both in. Once I have a few more dolls, I’ll do more clothing. I just wanted to have a range of different dolls for dressing up. I’ve written before about the large number of child development studies which have been done about the need for children to see themselves reflected in their toys. While I don’t usually think much about children when I’m working on paper dolls, I do try to have many different skin tones and hair colors and combinations, so that almost any child could be given a paper doll that looked like them. Plus it keeps me amused. I’m always divided between the desire to have a bunch of different skin tones and the practical need to create mix and match clothing options. The biggest issue is shoes which often show some skin and then can only be worn by paper dolls who have the same color skin as the skin shown in the shoes.

Some people worry about world hunger, I worry about paper doll shoes.

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.

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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.

Shadow & Light 2: Printable Paper Doll

I love contrast of heavy structured pieces with light draped pieces. So, I wanted to sort of play with that and draw nifty harness looking things. See… I was trying to justify my wacky-ness with some sort of artistic statement, but I don’t really take myself that seriously.

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On a semi-unrelated note, I’ve become rather obsessed with Blythe dolls lately. At first, I thought they were creepy- all big eyes and weird mouths, but lately I’ve come to actually think they are sort of cute. Mostly I like their little tiny clothing. Not surprising to anyone who knows me, I’ve always been more of a doll clothing, then a doll sort of person. The same is true for paper dolls. As a child, I was just as happy to have just one paper doll and lots of dresses (if not more happy) then to have a lot of dolls.

I’d like to do some sort of Blythe paper doll, but I’m still working on keeping up with what I’ve committed too and I don’t think I’m ready for that quite yet. If I do decide, it might not be serial which brings back the “What to do with non-serial” paper dolls problem.

On an utterly non-related note, I am now going to walk away from my laptop and curl up on my couch with fresh sweet corn and Harry Potter movies. Summer classes are over and life is good.

Shadow and Light: Sci-Fi Printable Paper Doll

I did a few different things over the weekend and during the week of blog neglecting (actually, I wasn’t neglecting the blog, I was just busy with a lot of other things for the blog, that weren’t ready to be posted). So, I have a few things to talk about today. I have rewritten my FAQ. I’ve added a few more blogs, not paper doll specific, and removed a few dead links from the Links page. Obviously, the menus have been reorganized. One of these days I will over-haul the Gallery page. I don’t like it. I don’t know what to do with it. It seemed like a good idea at the time, but now I’m dissatisfied with it. I need to think about it.

I’d kill the Gallery if I knew what the heck to do with the content already posted there. Decisions decisions.

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So, I should say that this new paper doll series evolved out of the number of comments I had from people who really liked the shadowed style of paper dolls. I was surprised by the interest in them since I’d always thought I was the only one who liked those paper dolls. How wrong I was.

The truth is that I began this series a long time ago, but never posted it since I didn’t know how to fit it into the schedule and then recently when I looked at the bulging folder full of drawings and the ones in my sketchbook I was really quite proud of, I thought, “I’m bored with Flora. I avoid drawing for her. Just got for it.”

And here we are today with a new paper doll series. I’m excited and pleased (and have songs from the musical Into the Woods stuck in my head, but that’s got nothing to do with this post) and I’d love to hear what people think, as always.

Boldly Going… A Star Trek Paper Doll

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Blame my mother.

This is all her fault.

She is the reason I love Star Trek and part of the reason I love paper dolls. When I was a child, I was allowed to stay up half an hour later with her to finish watching Star Trek: The Next Generation if my teeth were brushed and I was in my nightgown. When I was in middle school, I started watching Star Trek: Deep Space Nine. Recently, I have begun to watch the original series on DVD from the library. In short, I am a bit of a Trekkie- though I like to think a fairly harmless one.

I am sure true die-hard Trekkies could tell me everything that I got wrong on these paper dolls, but I can’t really be bothered to care. I will say this though- finding a decent reference photograph for the shoes worn by those characters was a pain in the behind and I’m still not sure I got them right. Oh well, you win some and you lose some. Feet are not often shown in television episodes.

I heard somewhere (trustworthy source that) that there was a rule in Star Trek that you weren’t supposed to show any fasteners. I don’t really get why. I mean, lacing up clothing has been done for centuries, not to mention buttons. I figure people would hard pressed to invent a better system, but I suppose it does subtly convey the sense of “futuristic” in an interesting way.

Curves: Fur Trimmed Gothic

So, this is a stupidly titled paper doll, but her sleeves are fuzzy, so that should be worth something. 🙂

Curves is a complicated series for me, in part because it fore fills two goals. I began it when I did all my paper dolls for the blog in the heavily shadowed style of Curves, but I wanted to do a full figured paper doll since the ones I had seen online were not very attractive and I thought I could do better.

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Two years later, Curves is my only regularly updating paper doll in the heavily shadowed style I developed in college and still often use for non-paper doll drawing. I like the style, because I believe it doesn’t need to be colored, it has a strong enough graphic presence without adding color. A lot of people color them, and that’s fine with me, but my goal was to make a black and white paper doll that didn’t need to be colored.

There were some side effects of this. The heavy shadows, strongly influenced by Frank Miller’s graphic novels, make for a fairly “dark” paper doll. In several ways, the details are often obscured and lost while the tone is also distinctly heavy. Being a bit of a noir movie lover, I don’t mind the tonal shift, but I do think it lends its self to some styles better then others. Gothic, vintage, and some fantasy clothing comes out looking wonderful, but the average jeans and t-shirt leave something to be desired.

I don’t want to give up my heavily shadowed dolls, because I do like them. I also don’t want to stop drawing a full figured paper doll since I think its important. Unfortunately, I also getting somewhat bored with Curves after two years. I think there needs to be a Curves 2.0. I just haven’t figured out yet how to pull that off or what it’ll look like when I do.

Progress reports and thoughts on the subject will be forth coming. Until then, enjoy the furry Gothic costumes for this new Curves doll and anyone’s thoughts on the matter are welcome.

Curves: Spots & Dots

When I don’t know what to draw, I tend to fall back on casual contemporary clothing. It’s easy. I usually have plenty of references by looking outside the window or drawing from fashion magazines. Since I didn’t know what to draw tonight, and I was tired after a long day at work, I decided to go with my casual fall back position.

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I have to confess to not being totally happy with them. There is an argument to be made for only ever putting out your very best work, but I’ve never believed it. Part of the point of this blog is to make myself drawn more, so if I only posted my best work, I wouldn’t be posting much. I’ve been drawing for Curves for over two years now and I wonder if perhaps I’m just becoming tired of them. I love the heavily shadowed style and I think its important to have fuller figured paper dolls on the blog, but I won’t deny that they frustrating at times.

Perhaps its time for a Curves version 2.0… I shall have to give it some thought.

Pixie & Puck: Cyborg

Obviously, I have been playing around with shiny a bit lately. I did it for the Marisole Superhero post. I have another shiny post in the early stages of work. I rather like the shiny effect, though there should be a more effective way of doing it then what I have been doing. I just don’t know what that might be at the moment.

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I am really lucky to have supportive friends. When I sit around while we watch movies or hang out and draw paper dolls their reactions are usually, “That’s neat.” Rather than making fun of me for being a mid-twenties graduate student whose drawing paper dolls.

When I was in high school and through most of college and I drew paper dolls, it was a tightly kept secret I shared with only a few people. I did say I collected, but it was always- because I have since I was a child… I never wanted to confess I really did still enjoy paper dolls.

I’ve gotten over it. Maybe it’s time or maturity or something else, but I no longer get nervous telling people about my weird hobby… most of the time. It’s still not something I advertise.