Doodles of Marisole Monday Paper Doll Sets

On July 18th, the New York Times wrote a great obituary of Tom Tierney, who died on July 12th. I’ve been debating what to say about his passing for a week, because I feel very odd speaking of the death of a man I never knew, nor knew anyone who knew.

I guess what I can say with confidence is that I will miss his art and that my thoughts are with those who knew him. I can trace my love of paper dolls back to my mother, but Tierney’s historical research made his paper doll books wonderful resources for learning about fashion designers and historical figures and I learned a lot from them as a child. For that, I am very grateful.

Meanwhile, you might have noticed that this is not a paper doll post. Instead, I’m pleased to offer some doodles from my current “doodle/notebook” for two future and one past Marisole Monday paper doll sets.

So this set might look familair… it’s actually been finished. This was the doodle page that lead to the Margot in Wonderland set from last week. As you can see, very few of these pieces got made into the final set. The drop waisted dress and the pants with the tea cup patches both made it into the final paper doll set.

This set was inspired by 18th century design, but I’ve rather lost favor with it. I don’t know if I’ll actually draw a final of it, but that was the idea. The truth is that I don’t know how many huge skirted ball gowns I can do in any one period of time. I’d almost rather do a historical set than a fantasy set based on a historical period, I think for the 18th century.

So, I’ve been really into Qi Lolita and Wa Lolita lately. I want to do some over the top ball gowns based on those styles. Wa Lolita crosses traditional Japanese dress with victorian ruffled styles and Qi Lolita does the same thing with Chinese traditional dress. Personally, I just don’t know what I am going to do about hair for this set. I have to think about that. I’ve drawn the dresses, but I don’t know what to do about the hair. I’m thinking about it a lot.