stockings

And We Visit the Future! Paper Doll Coloring Page

logo-marisole-2014-cyberpunk-paper-dollToday’s Marisole Monday & Friends paper doll is a little futuristic and a little cyberpunk. She has a new face which I like I think, though I’m not sure about it. Drawing new faces for Marisole is a struggle for me. Drawing for Marisole at all right now is a struggle for me.

In fact, I kinda hate Marisole right now.

Don’t get me wrong…I’m proud of the 96 or so versions of Marisole I have drawn and I’m pleased she’s been a ninja, a fairy and an alien (not to mention plenty of other things), but lately I’ve been feeling uninspired when it comes to her. I think a big part of my frustration is that I drew this base doll over four years ago which is a long time to be drawing for the same doll. Working on her is like going back in time to a style I drew a long time ago and don’t anymore.

Some days, that feels very odd.


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Before anyone freaks out, I’m not saying I’m not going to continue with Marisole style dolls, I just feel very much in a slump. The wheel in spinning, as they say, but the gerbil may be dead.

Advice for getting out of slumps, anyone?

Geta’s Steampunk/Neo-Victorian Printable Paper Doll Trousseau… The First Part

greta-trousseau-set-1-imageThis is the first part of a multi-part paper doll project to create a neo-victorian or steampunk paper doll bride with a trousseau of outfits for every occasion. I feel like I’ve written before about my love of the idea of a trousseau. I remember as a child I was fascinated with the idea of having different dresses to do different activities. I wanted to tea dress and an afternoon dress and a morning dress. This all seemed very exciting to me. I’ve never given up my love of trousseaux or layettes or wardrobes and each time I do a paper doll, particularly a mix and match paper doll, I think about how each of the pieces can go or can’t go with each of the other pieces.

Several months ago, I hatched the idea of doing a steampunk paper doll with a trousseau, playing with the Victorian obsession with an “outfit for every activity”. I poured over old reports of trousseaux from major marriages of the guilded age, including Princess Beatrice whose style seems remarkably crisp and straight forward for such a frilly period. In the Ladies Book of Etiquette and Manuel of Politeness the following information about a proper bridal outfit, or trousseau, is offered, “In preparing a bridal outfit, it is best to furnish the wardrobe for at least two years, in under-clothes, and one year in dresses, though the bonnet and cloak, suitable for the coming season, are all that are necessary, as the fashions in these articles change so rapidly. If you are going to travel, have a neat dress and cloak of some plain color, and a close bonnet and veil.”

Clearly, this is going to be a larger project than just this post. This is the first of what I suspect will be several pages of trousseau for Greta. We’re starting with her wedding dress, with a jacket, a dinner dress and a house dress.


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The wedding dress could become a ballgown quite easily and that wasn’t an uncommon practice, because wedding dresses were often simply a women’s best dress. The dinner dress is more of a semi-formal dress, a step below a ballgown and right around the world of an opera toilette (don’t worry, she’ll get one of those two). Her house dress is, of course, the least formal with a book to read while she spends time at home. Ever stylish paper dolls need to relax sometimes.

All of Greta’s Trousseau posts are gathered together under the tag “Greta’s Trousseau.”

Zippers, Ruffles and a New Paper Friend

ruffles-zippers-outfit-optionsToday, we have our printable paper doll showing off her slightly girly wardrobe of ruffles in purples and pinks. As you may recall, last week this printable paper doll was in black and white for coloring.

For those of you who play Shadowrun, the little iphone looking device she wears strapped to her arm is her commlink (she’s a technomancer, so she mostly wears one for show) and the glasses are her AR vision glasses. You may need to extend the tabs and paste them together to slip them over her head. For those of you who don’t play Shadowrun, then she’s just a chick with some crazy glasses, a teddy bear and some really ruffled skirts that she likes to wear.

On the left, you can see some of the outfit options. There are actually fifty-two outfit combinations here. (I’ve posted before about how to do paper doll clothing combination math) since everything is mix and matchable. I think there are actually a few more since two of the tops can be worn either over the tanks, as I tend to imagine them, or as separate pieces. If you include the two sweaters as layer pieces than you have 76 outfit options. Not bad for a wardrobe of 13 clothing pieces, not including the gloves or the glasses or the commlink.

Also, apparently I’m not the only one whose ever been possessed to make paper dolls out of Shadowrun races. Personally, I think they’re wonderful paper dolls, but not really my style. My style is much more girly.

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Thoughts? Comments? Things you’d like to tell me? Drop me a comment.

Zippers & Ruffles: Paper Doll With Clothes to Color

logo-ruffles-zippers-marisole-bwSo… this is what you might call a paper doll that got to have an evolution. I originally planned on drawing a more typical cyberpunk set, but um…. I was bored at a thing and I started doodling and the outcome was a drawing of one of my Shadowrun character’s named Claudia.

As I’ve mentioned in the past, one of my hobbies is playing table top RPGs. I have several favorites, but one of them is Shadowrun, which just came out with a fifth edition rule set. Today’s paper doll is based on my last Shadowrun character, a technomancer named Claudia and her best-friend, an AI inside a teddy-bear named Douglas. (Technically, Douglas should have a suit and a carving knife, but um… that would be creepy.)

By the way, at this point, you might be wondering if its possible that I have any more socially awkward hobbies and the answer is no, I’m just your normal board-game playing, paper doll drawing special collections librarian who sometimes pretends to be an elf (except not really, because I pretty much dislike elves in general. Don’t ask).

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I did a few things differently with this paper doll. I redid the face to be a little more like I imagined Claudia looking. It’s not a Marisole face and it’s not a Margot face. I realize this is unusual which is why I have started a new category in Marisole Monday called Other Friends. I have no idea if I’ll do more “unusual” Marisole Monday & Friends paper dolls, but odder things have happened on this blog.

She’ll be up in color next week. 🙂

And Happy Sixth Night of Hanukkah everyone.

Primrose, A New Poppet Printable Paper Doll Series

logo-poppet-primrose-in-tealHave I mentioned recently how happy alliteration makes me?

Also, I am really pleased with this new printable paper doll series. Poppet’s have turned out to be very fun to draw which I confess I wasn’t totally expecting. I mean, I thought they would be fun to draw, but it’s nice when “fantasy” and “reality” actually mesh properly.

For this set of poppet printable paper dolls (Yay! Alliteration), I chose to do a romantic regency inspired look with lots of ruching and a wide ribbon sash.

There’s a little Kate Greenway action going on here, I won’t lie.

Since this is only my second Poppet and it’s my second poppet in a pretty short period of time, you might be wondering… What’s up with all the poppets?

Well, I am glad you asked.

Hannukah began on November 27 and runs until the 5th of December. I decided for each night of Hanukkah it would be fun to post a paper doll. There will be a Marisole on Monday, my new Curvy series debuting and a few other things, but there’s going to be a lot of Poppets. Why?

Because they are cute and lovable. (Also I went through a Poppet drawing spasm and I have a lot of them done.)

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PS: Happy Thanksgiving to everyone who celebrates it here in the United States. 🙂

Marisole Monday & Friends: Mia as a Fairy in the Garden

logo-paper-doll-flower-fairy-mia-2013-bwFirst things first… I forgot to write on the wings that they’re meant to be pasted to the back of the doll. My bad… Sorry.

Secondly, Happy Veteran’s Day. One of these days, I will remember this holiday far enough in advance to do something thematic. Still, I think Veteran’s day is one of the more important US holidays, so I want to thank any of members or former members of our armed services today.

Meanwhile, I’ve had several requests for fairies over the years. I’ve never done one, except for a Halloween set where I did a fairy costume, but other than that I haven’t done many fairy paper dolls.

It’s a rather out of season. I seem to think of flowers and gardens in the summer when they bloom, but I live in Alabama now where the flowers cling on long after the normal times that flowers are supposed to bloom.

(Pansies in January are freakish. That’s all I have to say on that subject.)

Oh, there are some pixie paper dolls which fairy themes, now that I think of it. I did Fleur, Belladonna and Flora. Of course, I suppose having done 3.5 of them is not a bad statistic over the years.


A paper doll coloring page featuring a fairy and her extensive wardrobe. From paperthinpersonas.com

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Anyway, feel free to comment on the printable paper doll if you wish. I’m pretty pleased at how she came out.

Vivid Victoriana Printable Steampunk Paper Doll in Color

logo-vivid-victoriana-marisole-monday-steampunk-paper-dollSomething about the fall makes me introspective. Maybe it’s the grey days or the excuse to pull out my favorite tweed trousers again or the fact that I can feel the end of the year looming, but even here in Alabama where it’s hardly cool enough to feel like fall- I can see the leaves changing colors and I know that fall has arrived.

Fall introspection takes different forms for different people, but for me it usually focuses on the blog. It’s a little terrifying to think the blog might be turning four in January. If it was a child, it would be in pre-school.

Meanwhile… here’s a new printable paper doll. And who doesn’t want that?

Last week, we got to see today’s paper doll in black and white and here she is now in color. I wanted to go with a shabby chic color scheme and a break from the usual “Steampunk=Brown” mentality. As I always say when I post a paper doll like this, I’m not really sure how one decides if something is steampunk. Never the less, I’m very pleased with how she came out. She’s a Margot paper doll, because I thought Margot needed some love.

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Thoughts on where the blog is? Where the blog is going? How it should get there? Please let me know. I know I don’t always respond to comments as quickly as I would like, but I do read every one and I love getting them.

Vivid Victoriana Steampunk Printable Paper Doll

logo-vivid-victoriana-marisole-monday-steampunk-paper-doll-bwWell… I can say what this isn’t pretty quickly. This isn’t a Halloween printable paper doll. I wanted it to be, but sometimes life doesn’t cooperate.

Instead of a Halloween printable paper doll and her clothes, we’ve got a steampunk inspired neo-victorian Margot paper doll and her clothes. I think the paper doll is just as nice as something more themeatic, but it always seems to me like I should try to follow the seasons on the blog, even though I rarely succeed.

This year nothing really Halloween oriented has happened on the blog. I do hope to get a vampire Pixie paper doll I drew an embarrassingly long time ago finally finished and posted, but the truth is that September was such an insane month for me (wedding & flooded apartment) that I didn’t get any of my Halloween plans finished.

However, if you want a Halloween Marisole Monday & Friends paper doll, I have done several.. I did a vampire one year, a Gothic Mia paper doll, and then a Marisole with costumes. Last year, I teamed up with Liana, Toria and Boots and we created a collaborative paper doll and clothes.

That paper doll collaboration was so much fun that I keep telling myself I’ll get up the energy to organize another one. I just haven’t seemed to have the time. Hmm… this post got a bit more whiny than it started. I do apologize.

Still… part of me is kicking myself for not finishing the flower fairy paper doll I was working on. I’ve had a lot of requests for that and I wanted to have it done for Halloween.


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And you might have noticed a new format with this post. It’s something I’m trying out, because I was feeling like the posts on the first page of the blog were all getting a little bit too long. I’m not sure I am going to stick with it. As always, I’d love to hear what you think. Speaking of what people think… there’s a new poll in the sidebar.

East of the Sun, West of the Moon… Flock Fairy Tales Magnetic Paper Doll

This magnetic paper doll set has the honor of being the least well known, I suspect, of the fairy tales I wanted to do, but it also happens to be my favorite fairytale, or at least one of my favorites.

East of the Sun, West of the Moon is a Norwegian tale which I like because the protagonist is not a princess and she largely saves her prince, rather than the other way around. I love the idea of the mythical castle that lies, “East of the Sun, West of the Moon” and when I was a child, I owned a lavishly illustrated edition. This posted ended up really long, so I put a break into it.

east-west-samplesThe story goes something like this:

One day, a white bear who offers the poor farmer a huge dowry for his lovely daughter. The daughter is reluctant, but eventually agrees. The bear takes her off to a fancy castle where she lives with him. At night, he takes off his bear form in order to come to her bed as a man, but she never sees him.

After a while, she gets homesick and the bear says she can go home as long as she agrees that she won’t speak with her mother alone. Of course, there wouldn’t be much of a story if she didn’t speak with her mother alone. Her mother, worried the Bear is really a troll, gives her daughter a candle so she can see what he looks like at night.

The daughter lights the candle, finds out he’s a hot prince, but spills three drops of the melted tallow on him. Waking up, he tells her that he has been cursed and now must go marry a hideous troll who lives in a castle East of the Sun, West of the Moon.

In the morning, the castle has vanished and the daughter sets out to get her man back.

More Here

Snow-White and Rose-Red: Magnetic Paper Dolls

Snow-White and Rose-Red (Schneeweißchen und Rosenrot) is a German fairy tale collected by the Brother’s Grimm. It’s not the same as Snow White (Schneewittchen), though a lot of comics and stories do connect the two, like Fables (which is wonderful, by the way, if you like comics).

I know Snow White and Rose Red is not the most well known story, but basically it’s your standard girls meet bear, girls meet evil dwarf, girls cut off evil dwarf’s beard, bear kills dwarf, bear becomes prince sort of affair.

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The moral of the story probably has something to do with being nice to bears and/or dwarfs, but that all seems rather unimportant.

I decided to draw a new Flock doll to go along with Dove for this story, so everyone can meet Swan. Swan, here with blond hair in ringlet curls, is the latest member of the Flock family and the second Asian doll (or at least my attempt at it). I was going to do a fairytale from the Asian continent, but I don’t know much about Asian fairy tales (and even sticking and entire continent’s culture into one block is totally painful to me, but I digress).

Before someone suggests Mulan, I should say that Mulan is not, technically, a fairy tale, but rather it is a legend. Fairy tales, generally, are defined by folklorists as containing magic, mystical creatures and generally not being perceived by the tellers as being true. In other words, no one ever through Rose-Red and Snow-White actually happened.

Legends, generally, at some point in their history, were perceived to be true. King Arthur and the Holy Grail is a legend.

Anyway, enjoy Snow White and Rose Red. I certainly had fun drawing them.

 

Fairytale Flock: Dove & Swan as Rose Red & Snow White Set PDF Downloads
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Swan as Snow White PDF Download Dove as Rose Red PDF Download Snow White & Rose Red Clothing PDF Download