Black & White

Ensemble Electica: A 1938 Paper Doll

A fashionable lady 1938 paper doll with a four piece wardrobe to color and play with.
A fashionable black lady 1938 paper doll with a four piece wardrobe to print.

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Today’s creation is a 1938 paper doll with dresses from that year. I did a preview of these 1930s paper dolls a while ago. So, here we are, debuting the first member of that collection. I am super happy with how she came out.

In the late 1930s is the time, you begin to see some hints of what will come in the 1940s. Particularly, the strong shoulders that will be the big trend in the next decade. Skirts are also a bit shorter. It’s a fun time period, though the sleeves aren’t quite as wacky as they were earlier in the decade.

One new to me thing I tried out with these paper dolls was this jacket technique I’ve seen other do. Where the jacket can be a layering piece with the top of the dress as one piece. I’ve not really done that before. One thing I noticed when going through 1930s fashion magazines, was a lot of shrugs and jackets designed to match dresses. Bare arms were either a super casual or super formal- it’s like ballgown or tennis dress, but not afternoon shopping. Social rules are weird.

Most of the fashions in this paper doll were copied from Fashion Service Magazine‘s Summer 1938 Issue. This was the magazine of the Woman’s Institute. I picked up a digital version from Mrs. Depew. This magazines helped a home sewists create the latest fashions for herself or as a home business. I don’t know how popular it was, but it seems less trendy than some of others I have seen. I did use a few books from my own collection for hats and shoes, because the magazine was mostly about things people sew. Shoes not being known for being homemade, even in the 1930s.

Because planning projects fully isn’t really my jam (to the surprise of none of my long time readers), I had a few extra pieces that wouldn’t fit on this page for all my 1930s sets. So, those’ll be a paid patron exclusive while I post this series. My thank you for those folks who help support this little corner of the internet. I’ll probably post it on Friday, if I can (this is never a certainty.)

Today, a Hiking Paper Doll for Cut & Color Cotoure

A hiking paper doll printable coloring page with three shirts, a pair of hiking pants, a map and a water bottle. She can share clothing with the other paper dolls in the Cut and Color Couture collection.

Download Black and White PDF | More Paper Dolls from the Cut & Color Couture Series

Creating a hiking paper doll isn’t typically my go-to theme. I’ve got some other hiking themed paper doll things though like this steampunk one for my Patrons, this kids set with a super cute stuffed owl, and a marisole version called Walk in the Woods, but it’s not a theme I do back to that often.

Lately, I’ve been immersed in the world of hiking gear, particularly on the quest for the perfect pair of hiking pants. That search has led me through countless hiking clothing websites and caused no small amount of annoyance. While I’m much more of a- go for a walk for an hour or two- than a -hike up a mountain with switch backs all the way up for five hours- sort of person. I do like being outdoors and I like walking.

One thing I have learned about being out doors is how important is to wear the right clothing. Comfortable hiking clothes make a huge difference in the experience. No one wants to be cold or sweaty while also trundling through the woods.

So, in honor of the importance of hiking clothing and despite my somewhat frustrating shopping experience (I haven’t found those ideal hiking pants yet!), I’ve decided to channel my inspiration into creating a collection of paper doll outfits suitable for hiking.

Plus, our hiking paper doll is practicing good outdoor safety with her map and water-bottle. When I was in high school, Nalgene water bottles were super popular and very “cool” even though if you try to drink from them, you run a real risk of spilling water all over yourself. (When people complain about the current trend for whatever expensive water bottle, I think of the Nalgene I begged my parents for in high school.)

By the way, I am going to be at the 2024 Paper Doll Convention from August 15-18, 2024 in Indianapolis. I did some designs for the menus and I can’t wait to see how they turned out. If you’re planning to attend, please come way Hi! I love meeting PTP readers.

Cut & Color Couture: A Touch of Steampunk

A steampunk printable paper doll with outfits to color. There are five different clothing pieces.

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Today’s paper doll with outfits to color is the first of two steampunk designs I did for the Cut and Color Couture Series, which are totally interchangeable, should you wake up one morning and want to do that. That other paper doll isn’t quite ready for primetime yet though, so it maybe a few weeks before the steampunk wardrobe gets to expand. I drew these outfits from my Pinterest Board devoted to Steampunk Fashion. As happens often, I did not keep good notes on my sources here.

I have been trying to be more careful when I am designing paper doll with outfits to color. I spent some time coloring with my niece and it was harder than I’d thought to get into some of those tiny spaces. I still had fun, of course, but I was never a big “coloring” kid. I don’t have as much experience with coloring paper dolls as I do drawing them.

For today’s paper doll, I attempted to draw bandu knots (a protective style for natural hair, as I understand it). I think I needed to place the knots more forward on the head to get the right angle… Next time! That’s one of the fun things about paper dolls- I can always try again. Drawing hair is challenging for me (not as hard as hands, but it’s up there) and so I just think you have to keep practicing.

When people ask me how to learn to draw paper dolls, the only advice I have to just draw and then draw more. It’s not very helpful advice, so I usually just keep my mouth shut.

Cut & Color Couture: Fantasy Huntress

A printable paper doll coloring page of a paper doll with long wavy hair and a set of fantasy warrior clothing with vests and boots and a sword.

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Inspired heavily by Snow White’s costumes in Once Upon a Time, a TV show which I was watching since I’d never seen it before. However, I confess that I got to the 4th season and I just can’t seem to get up the motivation to finish it. This is partly because of a thing which I genuinely dislike and that is the Disneyification of fairy tales and classic stories. It is as though we can not as a culture engage with them without ending up back at Disney. Now, I realize the show is an ABC show and ABC is owned by Disney, but I think fairy tales and classic stories are such a rich text. I was far more fascinated by the show when it was working within a framework.

So, long story short, I’ve struggled to get motivation to continue watching.

But none of that has to do with this paper doll or the costume design, which has been overwhelmingly excellent.

To give a little backstory on this new paper doll series- I drew this doll for the newsletter before I realized that with all the things happening in my life (new job, house hunting, etc) that I really needed to strip back down to basics. And basics do not include the newsletter.

But I had so much fun coloring my Valentine’s paper doll with my niece that I wanted to do more. She colored the paper doll in a lot of reds and blues and then drew her swords and surrounded her with skulls and told me she was a “goddess of doom.”

And I could not be more proud of my niece.

Anyway, I decided to rename the series the Cut & Color Couture which I thought was a cute name. ChatGPT helped me brainstorm names for the series, so thank you AI for helping me come up with a name, which- while not very inspired- at least is simple and has alliteration.

I don’t want to promise anything in terms of future frequency of posts, but know that I am fine.

Chic Contrasts: Fun Color Blocking Paper Doll

Printable modern Asian paper doll coloring page with a 14 piece mix and match wardrobe.
Colorful printable modern Asian paper doll with a mix and match wardrobe.

Download Black and White PDF | Download Color PDF | More Paper Dolls from the Ensemble Eclectica Series

As I mentioned a while ago, learning to use Procreate (which I am now using for my paper dolls) has been a learning curve. One of the things I dislike about it is that it is not easy to draw a perfectly straight line between two points as I would like. Either way, I am coming around to it slowly.

When I first started using Procreate last year, I decided that learning to use the program was a large enough ask without adding “create totally original art every time” with it. So, I set about drawing paper dolls inspired by pervious paper dolls I’d created.

This set was inspired by Seagulls & Seaside, a set I first drew a decade ago. I still think that paper doll feels pretty modern, though color blocking is not as strong of a trend as it was at the time. I kind of think color blocking is never not in style. The original set’s color scheme was inspired by signal flag colors for ships. I really loved that inspiration. I hadn’t planned on matching the color scheme so closely, but I realized that it looked really good. So, I kept it.

I really do love nautical and ocean themed things. It’s probably because I grew up commercial fishing.

Enchanted Elegance: A Fantasy Paper Doll

A printable medieval princess paper doll coloring page with two fantasy gowns and accessories. She has braided hair and two fantasy gowns, along with other accessories.
A printable medieval princess paper doll with two fantasy gowns and accessories. She has long blond hair and two fantasy gowns.

Download Black and White PDF | Download Color PDF | More Paper Dolls from the Ensemble Eclectica Series

I don’t know why this paper doll looks Russian to me. I have no explanation for that one, but something about the hair just screamed “slavic fairytale” to me. Once I decided that, than she needed to be blond, because if I was going to go slavic fairy tale, I might as well lean into all the stereotypes.

For some reason, and I don’t know why, I’ve found that working digitally means I am less drawn to doing fantasy as I was in pencil. Again, I’m not sure why. I suppose I’ll figure it out.

Actually, I’ve been frightfully unproductive over the last few weeks/months. I mean, I’ve been very productive, but not paper doll related. I’ve been working on a million other things. I have some work to get done for the convention and so that’ll get me motivated I hope.

Meanwhile I do have lots of thing “in-progress”, but I am struggling quite a lot to get those things over the finish line. We’ll see where it all ends up, I suppose.

Retro Refinement: A Vintage Fashion Inspired Paper Doll for my Patrons

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A Purim Paper Doll for 2024!

A paper doll coloring page for purim kids activities!
A printable paper doll for purim kids activities!

Download Black and White PDF | Download Color PDF | More Paper Dolls from the Ensemble Eclectica Series

Today’s paper doll is a Purim themed paper doll. So, I historically have saved holiday paper dolls for the actual day of the holiday, which for Purim this year is March 24th. However, this year, I decided that if people were going to print these off and use them for any sort of Purim kids activities, posting them early made sense. So, I’m trying this out to see how it feels.

My niece loves purple. She inspired this color scheme. I had a much more sedate color scheme in mind and then I thought, “What would my niece like?”

And this where I ended up. A lot more bright and colorful than I tend to go under normal circumstances, but still a lot of fun.

I won’t recap the entire story of Esther here (because you can find that elsewhere). Our paper doll has most of the things I think you need to celebrate the holiday. There’s an Esther scroll. The Book of Esther is not in the Torah, so it is held on a separate scroll. There’s a grogger for making noise and a big plate of hamantaschen. Plus, an Esther costume for dressing up (which is traditional). Technically, you can dress up in any costume that suits you, but when I was kid the person everyone wanted to dress up as was Esther. So, there you go.

I’ll be dusting off my hamantaschen baking skills this week to make up some for work, because I love making them and the recipe I have from my grandmother makes a huge amount. Personally, I like poppy seed ones, but most people I know prefer apricot. I had such a hard time finding poppy seed filling last year, that I ordered extra from Amazon. It’s been quietly waiting since last year, so it’s time for it to get used.

Snowflake Sophistication: Winter Princess Paper Doll

A winter princess paper doll coloring page with two dresses and accessories.
A winter princess paper doll with two dresses and accessories.

Download Black and White PDF | Download Color PDF | More Paper Dolls from the Ensemble Eclectica Series

When I think of a winter princess paper doll, I think of elegance, but also quiet and soft colors. I like winter and I love bright colors, but this time of year where I live, everything feels muted. The mountains in the distance look pale blue and white and they seem to melt into the sky.

So, when designed a winter princess paper doll, I went for blues and soft purples and lots of layers.

I was inspired by this Winter Princess Dress from 2018. In my little paper doll world, “big gown” is my mental short hand for these 1860s inspired gowns that have bit skirts with lots of fancy layers. I realize that these gowns don’t have to be for princesses, but I watched a lot of Disney at an impressionable age and therefore I will always associate princesses with these big gowns.

In my head today’s winter princess gowns are the sort of thing a fairy tale princess might wear while wandering through a snow covered landscape. Possibly to meet a prince or possibly just because, she felt like it. Princes need not always be involved. 

In fact, princes never really were involved in my princess games as a child. They were not needed. Princess could do everything they needed to do.

So, I will admit that I had to get pretty close to the edge to fit on these big skirted princess dresses, but since the images I made had a .5 inch border, they should still print just fine onto letter sized paper. I would strongly recommend adding floating tabs to the backs of these skirts to help hold them to the doll.

What do you think? Do you love winter?

Imperial Elegance: An Hanfu and Kimono Inspired Fantasy Paper Doll

Download Black and White PDF | Download Color PDF | More Paper Dolls from the Ensemble Eclectica Series

This pair of fantasy gowns were heavily inspired by hanfu, which are traditional Chinese clothing, specifically those of the Tang Dynasty (618–907 CE). However, this has about as much in common with actual historical Chinese clothing as this paper doll has in common with actual historical English clothing. That’s to say- not a whole heck of a lot.

Rarely have I had a set that I have more trouble with coloring. This gave me fits! I initially planned on the two dresses coordinating, but then decided that seemed boring, so broke out and did two very different color schemes inspired by seasonal Japanese colors. (Yes, I know hanfu are Chinese, not Japanese, but again- this is fantasy clothing.)

In Japan, traditional kimonos are styled with seasonal color schemes. So, I tried to base these color schemes on traditional seasonal colors of Japan. One dress uses February colors, crimson and purple. The other dress uses March colors which are peach and khaki. The Kimono Lady, a defunct blog, has a really detailed write up about March colors here. I had a little more trouble finding references for February colors, but this yukata influenced the colors I chose.

I love color, but I find my own eye attracted to specific color schemes. It’s really valuable to see how different cultures combine colors. I never would have used purple and crimson together in the way that I did, but once I did it- I really loved how graphic it made the dress.