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Today’s Marisole paper doll started as an attempt to a modern take on some fun Mod clothes and then kinda turned into just a bright citrus based series of Marisole clothing. This is the sort of clothing I would never wear, but would admire and be glad other people wore it.
After all, I can live vicariously through my paper dolls.
They appear in many fairytales. A beautiful maiden, often daughter of a poor wood cutter, living in a cottage in the woods. She’s always sweet, kind, good and has the common sense of a brain damaged kitten.
I always did like fairy tales.
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So, I am sorry for disappearing like I did. I got busy and then I got lazy and then my computer died and I had to buy a new one. Then I left town for Thanksgiving. As you might imagine, life was nothing short of insane. Now things have settled down a bit and I hope to be back.
Plus, my Grandmother doesn’t have internet, so I spent my Thanksgiving time drawing a lot of paper dolls. It was fun and I’m excited to share the fruits of my labors. Of course, life might get in the way. It does tend to do that.
Edit 8/10/2013: There is now a a black and white version of this paper doll for coloring.
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It’s Marisole as a vampire for Halloween. That’s really all I got here. I also drew a set of costumes for her I should have posted last week, but didn’t. So… I think it’ll go up next Monday.
She does have fangs. You can’t really see them in the smaller version, but they are obvious in the larger PNG file of the paper doll.
There’s also a poll in the sidebar, if you feel like voting and haven’t already.
Normally, I try to be historical accurate as much as I can be. I think it’s important to research and think about things and try to cite my sources. (I am in library school, after all…) For this post though, I just wanted to draw some vaguely Medieval looking grab for Marisole after watching one to many episodes of the BBC show Cadfeal, which I confess I certain love of. So, these are research free costumes which I think is okay.
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 Liana apparently dedicates the whole of October to research free costumes. I kinda like the idea, but I don’t think I could stick too it. I like my research,
So, speaking of research, I am doing my own little survey on what I should to for my Fashion Doll Fridays for the next year or so. More information about the poll to create a new Fashion Doll for Fridays can be found on the last Florence post I did. The poll will be open until November 1st. I’ll have the polls on the posts for the rest of the week and then it’ll live in the sidebar for anyone who hasn’t voted.
I’ve been having some trouble with corruption of my PDF files when I save them. It’s not something I can easily test for, but I am working on a fix. Until I get it done, I’ll be correcting the problems with the paper doll files as I notice them. So, keep eyes open for answers. In the short run, there is a new PDF of the Curves paper doll post,Curves: Cute and Sassy for people to download if they want it.
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I almost didn’t get this up tonight. It’s actually like 15 minutes past midnight and I was about ready to say forget it, but if I keep letting myself not post than I start to feel guilty about not posting and then I just get more behind. It’s a cycle. Here’s to breaking it. I often wonder how other paper doll bloggers keep themselves from totally losing it over the amount of work involved in producing paper doll stuff every day.
Also, this is my first Marisole paper doll with glasses. So that’s kinda cool.
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I loved Greek mythology since I was a child. Ancient Greek costume is interesting as well. I should state as a very clear disclaimer that today’s paper doll has about as much in common with Ancient Greek costume as the average Chinese take out place has with actual Chinese food. However, there are some excellent Ancient Greek costume sources available on the web. The interest in all things Ancient in the Renaissance gave rise to a whole series of pottery and sculpture studies, many of which are available online for free since they fall before the 1923 US copyright cut off date.
The Ancient Greek Costume Bibliography was my primary source. Though her start date of 1784 cuts out a lot of very early works, many of the sources are available online. I like Greek dress from 1908 and Rehberg’s Drawings faithfully copied from nature at Naples and with permission dedicated to the Right Honourable Sir William Hamilton which is a book with an insane title, but is a collection of reproductions of Roman and Greek statuary. So, those are a couple good sources to start with. I should say Rehberg’s has been reproduced a few times under different titles, so make what you will of that.
Edit 4/6/2014: This set is now available here in black and white for coloring. Yay!
So, if this paper doll seems vaguely familiar, that’s likely because I have done steampunk things before for Marisole and for Curves. I openly admit I think William Gibson’s Difference Engine is among the boringest books I have ever tried to read; however, I do love anything which lets me play with Victorian fashion and not have my natural need to research to overwhelm me. There might be better steampunk books out there. Suggestions anyone?
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So, if this paper doll seems vaguely familiar, that’s likely because I have done steampunk things before for Marisole and for Curves. I openly admit I think William Gibson’s Difference Engine is among the boringest books I have ever tried to read; however, I do love anything which lets me play with Victorian fashion and not have my natural need to research to overwhelm me. There might be better steampunk books out there. Suggestions anyone?
I feel I should add, I love many of Gibson’s other books including the fantastic art work Agrippa which the librarian in me both loves and hates. Seriously, a mind-blowing piece of artistic work.
Okay, I’m done gushing now about digital poetics which technically have no place on this blog. This blog is about more important things like paper dolls.
So, speaking of paper dolls, today’s Marisole is considerably more brightly colored then my last foray into Steampunk. I like the brighter colors and though I tend to think of the Victorian era as sepia toned, I know the reality is that it was a horribly gaudy era of fashion since chemical dyes had just been invented.
ne of the challenges of drawing clothing for the Marisole paper doll is to make sure things seem to fit together thematically. It’s easy to do when the theme is zombie or fantasy or steampunk, but it is harder when I’m dealing with contemporary clothing. So, I try to do it with color. By making sure I use a consistant set of colors throughout the paper doll, I can make it look like an actual set of clothing that a person might own… if, you know, they were the most color organized person on the planet.
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Liana has written before about how when she is paper dolling everything seems to fall into “paper doll” form. I find the same thing is true for me. When I am in the midst of thinking in terms of paper dolls clothing, everything I see becomes me wondering if I could draw it. I love the fall and spring when the big name fashion houses are putting out their new collections. Magazines are always full of clothing, so I can pick up one or two and sit on my couch looking for ideas.
As with last week’s Marisole paper doll, I ended up playing with the paper doll a little. I shouldn’t make a habit of it, because it just creates more work for me. And more work is not what I need when I’m trying to keep this site up and running. Still, it is fun to play when I have time. I’m fairly excited about this Marisole paper doll, because I think I finally got a caucasian skin tone I like which is fairly exciting. Skin tones are very difficult. I want them to be the same, so the dolls can share shoes among each other, but I also want to like the skin-tones.
So, I don’t usually play with my paper dolls. I mean, I spend so much time drawing them and coloring them that I don’t often actually play with them. But I have this thing for the red boots in this printable paper doll. I saw them at a shoe store last winter and I wanted them. Of course, I have no idea what I would do with thigh high red patent leather boots except stare at them in awe and then put on my simple pumps. I wanted them anyway. So when I drew them for Marisole, I knew I wanted to see them on the paper doll and then… well…. things just sort of spiraled from there. It was kinda fun though.
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And of course, I had to share my hard work…
Marisole’s hair style comes from my own salon experience. I went to get my own hair cut and spent a while pouring through hair style magazines. I sort of love these hard, sharp spiky bobs that I could never wear in my own hair, but think look really cool.
On a totally unrelated note, I collect links to other paper doll blogs, always with the best of intentions. I tell myself I’m going to write a post about them and then I forget or get busy or have to go grocery shopping or stab myself in the arm with my pen and it never happens. I feel bad about this. Life is full of good intentions, I suppose. It’s just that when I find a new paper doll blog I want to do more then just add it to my links page. I want to actually say something about it. So, I’m going to cover a few paper doll centered blogs over this week.
A.R.T. Taylor’s Paper Doll Blog is a neat, fairly young blog. The paper dolls are very stylized and full color and is worth checking out when a few spare moments can be stolen from the chaos of life. On that pretentious statement, I think I’ll call it a night.
I ran a bunch of errands today and it took longer then it should have. I get lost a lot here in Illinois, though I am getting better at finding my way around. I used to hit soybean or corn fields whenever I was truly lost and then I knew I need to go back the other way. I swear that pretty much sums of my entire driving life. Somehow living somewhere flat “on a gird” is way more confusing to me than living in a place with hills and wacky streets. Never the less, it is home for the next few years- than onto something new.
