Black & White Archives • Page 74 of 93 • Paper Thin Personas

The Court Alchemist Gets Some Extra Printable Paper Doll Dresses

May 22, 2020October 8, 2014

Last week, as you may recall, I posted my Court Alchemist paper doll. This week I am posting three more printable paper doll dresses and two pairs of shoes which gives her five outfits in total. I really do think the clothing makes the paper doll. I was always that kid who would have rather have had dozens of outfits over dozens of paper dolls.

In fact, I remember when American Girl magazine published paper dolls and I used to get so annoyed that the dolls were “almost” in the exact same pose, but not quite. So, they couldn’t perfectly share clothing. Drove me just nuts as a kid. Here is a picture of one of the paper dolls.

Are there any children’s magazines left that still publish paper dolls?

I recall with much fondness the feeling to getting to check the mail for my American Girl magazine and it’s promised paper doll. In fact, if you want a similar experience (and you have an HP web enabled printer), then you might consider my HP Paper Thin Personas Printer Ap which prints a full color or black and white paper doll every Monday, automatically. You can also print the paper dolls on demand directly from the printer which is, I have to confess, pretty neat.

{Download a PDF of this paper doll to Color} {View a 150 dpi PNG of this Paper Doll to Color}So, there are three dresses in this set. In my head, these are all fairly informal dresses. And who doesn’t need socks held up by some odd sock suspenders? (There is something inherently hilarious to me about sock suspenders… I might have a problem.)

I went back and forth about the patterned dress. I wanted it to look like a pattern that could be woven on a simple loom, but it ended up looking sort of like abstract eyes and now all I can think is, “The dress is staring at me…”

{Download a PDF of this paper doll in Full Color} {View a 150 dpi PNG of this Paper Doll in Full Color} {More Bodacious and Buxom Printable Paper Dolls}As for tools, along with last week’s tool collection, this set adds a sextant, which is a tool for measuring the angle between any two visible objects, most often the horizon and stars. It was crucial for navigating back in the days before high levels of technology. As a girl with NO sense of direction, I am totally grateful to whoever invented GPS. If I had to navigate via sextant, I think I would end up lost way more often than I already am.

So, Friday there will be another page of Her Ladyship and Monday there will be an elf.

Meanwhile, you can follow me on twitter @paperpersonas for blog updates, random paper doll thoughts, and a smattering of librarianship.

Introducing Her Ladyship: A Paper Doll Mini-Series

May 22, 2020October 3, 2014

In life, there are certain rules, like stopping at red lights and not stealing library books. One of my rules is: Don’t waste blog content.

In that vein, I’ve decided to make my new fantasy set, Her Ladyship, a mini-series. There will be a new page every Friday until sometime in December. (I haven’t decided if I am going to skip Halloween to post something more festive.)

My plan (though we all know about the best laid plans of mice and men) is that I will post these Friday paper doll updates in addition to my regular two posts a week. For those keeping score, that means three paper doll updates a week.

Pretty good deal, no?

{Click Here for a PDF to Print} {Click Here for a PNG to Print} {Click Here for More Gowns}

Also for those keeping score, Her Ladyship is the update of the Lady of the Manor paper doll set that I have mentioning for the last several weeks. You can see some of the early doodles and a sketchbook page. This is what she turned into, though there’s nine more pages to share.

She’s not a princess, though she may yet marry a prince. Rather, I imagine she is a noble women and she may or may not be married. Her dresses are all based on fantasy versions of Italian renaissance dress and, of course, she has wigs. Only one wig today, but I promise in later pages there are a lot more wigs to be had. Most of the wigs have floating tabs to help keep them on the paper doll’s head.

Thoughts? Opinions? Feelings about my ten week plan? Feel free to let me know.

Fantasy Alchemist Printable Paper Doll

May 22, 2020October 1, 2014

Obviously, I am embracing the fantasy options for my paper dolls today. Actaully, I have been really paper doll productive over the last few weeks and have managed to get a lot done as far as wrapping up old projects. This set is actually the first thing I drew in my current sketchbook and I am now, finally, getting it posted live on the blog, several months later.

Next week there will be a page two of this set with three more dresses, two more pairs of shoes and some other accessories. Sometimes, I get into something and draw more than I mean too. Also, I am still learning with B&B paper dolls how many pieces I can fit on one page.

{Download a PDF of this paper doll to Color} {View a 150 dpi PNG of this Paper Doll to Color}To give credit where credit is due, I was inspired by this gown from Armstreet which is entitled The Alchemist’s Daughter; however, why be the daughter when you could be the alchemist? I would way rather be the alchemist than be the daughter of the Alchemist.

Oddly enough, Alchemy was considered serious business for hundreds of years. Newton, for example, was an alchemist (he was also a bit of a crazy dude and stuck needles in his eyes to test various optics theories, but that’s a whole different issue.) Probably the earliest attempt to clarify chemistry from alchemy was Robert Boyle‘s Skeptical Chemist (1661) and we can either thank or blame Boyle for helping found modern chemistry. As someone who hated chemistry in high school, I confess to mostly blame Boyle. Never the less… important chap.

{Download a PDF of this paper doll in Full Color} {View a 150 dpi PNG of this Paper Doll in Full Color} {More Bodacious and Buxom Printable Paper Dolls}My favorite part of drawing this paper doll set was getting to draw the accessories. I imagine this alchemist is also the court astrologer. Astrology, mythology and religion were all wrapped up in alchemy theories. Our alchemist has an astrolabe, a tool for predicting the star and planet movements, a falcon, a tool for hunting small mammals, and an armillary sphere, a tool for modeling the planet’s movements. Most of the symbols on her bottles are actual alchemical symbols. So, that was fun to research.

The dress on the left is more of a work dress with a heavy leather apron for protecting her gown from spills and the dress on the right is more of a formal costume with the fancy chain belt. Also, she has some closed toe boots in case of spills of mercury and other things.

Next week I will show off her other three dresses, also more tools and some other rocking shoes. On that note, I am going to go to bed. 🙂

Southwestern Boho Paper Doll Set to Print and Color

May 22, 2020September 29, 2014

According to one of the fashion magazines I bought in September, Southwestern is the new Boho.

Personally, I sill like Boho better and a lot of Southerwestern inspired fashion gets dangerously close to worrying cultural appropriation of the area’s Native peoples and that kinda bothers to me.

Never the less, I wanted to get to play around with some of the geometric patterns that are common in the style while steering clear of directly borrowing anything, because there’s a lot of Pendelton blanket patterning in this trend and that gets complicated.

Pendelton woolen mills, their blankets, and their relationship to Native peoples is written about eloquently by Beyond Buckskin, Slate (posted on Beyond Buckskin, I couldn’t find the article on Slate) and Native Appropriations. I am not even going to get into that conversation, but I think consideration should be made when dealing with anything “tribal” and fashion related.

Anyway, these were all things on my mind as I stepped lightly into the Southwest Boho trend of fall 2014.

southwest-boho-mia-paper-doll-black-white

{Click Here for a PDF to Print} {Click Here for a PNG to Print} {Click Here for More Marisole Monday & Friends Printable Paper Dolls}Mia’s modeling these costumes, because I drew three sets of contemporary fashion at once. There’s going to eventually be a brights set for Margot, a girly set for Monica and then this set which got assigned to Mia. Had someone asked me which of these I was going to finish first, this would not have been the winner, and yet here we are.

Sometimes my paper dolling works in mysterious ways.

Circus Paper Doll for Coloring

December 6, 2020September 15, 2014

Marisole’s gone to the circus this monday, complete with makeup.

I have mixed feelings about circuses truth be told. Sometimes I like them and sometimes I find them deeply creepy. I’m not afraid of clowns or anything, but there is something slightly off dark and strange that runs through the whole idea of circuses and carnivals.

So, I’ve been drawing paper dolls for a long time and I always expect to run out of the ideas, but then I run into new things on a fairly regular basis that I want to do or try out. I don’t know that I’ve ever really done anything like this set. I started collecting circus images that I liked on Dark Circus Pinterest board and then eventually those images evolved into this set of doodles which evolved into this paper doll set.

{Click Here for a PDF to Print} {Click Here for a PNG to Print} {Click Here for More Marisole Monday & Friends Printable Paper Dolls}I was going for fashion as much as reality with these outfits. I can’t imagine a clown wearing such insane high heels, for example. My Dark Circus board where I was collecting images evolved into being as much about fashion as it was about circuses.

I’m nervous about coloring this set. I was going to go strictly black and red, but then I really want her to have pink hair.

Problem, will the pink hair clash with the red and black? I just don’t know. Guess the only way to find out is to start coloring.

Poppet’s Visit the 18th Century… Historical Paper Doll Clothes

May 19, 2020September 12, 2014

So, today the Poppets paper doll series is traveling to the 18th century and rocking some beautiful clothes. One of the great myths of historical costume is that children in the 18th century were dressed “just like adults” and while there is some truth to the fact that children wore very similar clothing to adults, it was rarely identical. Skirt length is a common way to tell that a dress was intended for a child, rather than an adult, along with simpler lines and decorations.

Today’s 18th century outfit is based on a a gown from the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Her shoes come from a painting by Carl-Ludwig Christine in 1772 of two sisters. Her pocket is based on these pockets from America. Her cap is an amalgamation of about a dozen different caps from portraits and is, I confess, a little odd looking. I am not entirely pleased with it.

{Download a PDF in Color} {View a 150 dpi PNG in Color}{Download a PDF to Color} {View a 150 dpi PNG to Color} {More Poppet Printable Paper Dolls}One thing I do not have is a Poppet doll with proper hair for the 18th century, so I am letting Poppy model the historical dress.

Lastly, a bit of the site layout has changed. Mostly just colors, honestly, but I would love to hear what people think of the new design.

Steampunk Paper Doll Clothes for the Ms. Mannequinn Series

May 22, 2020September 5, 2014

Over the years, I have done a fair number of steampunk or neo-victorian inspired sets of paper doll clothing. I’d name them all, but I really don’t feel like digging through the blog’s massive archives to track them all down.

Generally, I see the whole steampunk thing as an version of the Arts and Crafts movement of the 19th century. A sort of call back to a fantasy of an analog time while ignoring major issues of the actual 19th century like lack of labor protection, colonization, and treatment of the mentally ill (to name a few), just as the Arts and Craft movement exalted the medieval and gothic periods while ignoring the plague. Within reason, I don’t find this troubling though sometimes I do worry that when we exalt certain periods of history, than it is far to easy to ignore their horrors.

And every period of history, including our own, has a few horrors.

Still, I have always found alternative fashion movement fascinating, be it goth, punk, steampunk or the dress reform movement and therefore have every intention of continuing to draw neo-victorian clothing for the blog.

{Click Here for a PDF in Color} {Click Here for a 150 dpi PNG in Color}{Click Here for a PDF of Black and White} {Click Here for a 150 dpi PNG in Black and White}{Click Here for Clothes for Her}{Click Here for Dolls to Dress}

Somehow today’s set got awfully Christmas looking with the red and the green color scheme. I was thinking more burgundy and olive while I started, but it came out a bit brighter than I’d intended it to be. Despite the small number of pieces in this set, there’s actually 18 outfit options and more if you include the shoes each of the Ms. mannequin paper dolls come with.

Okay, quick question to my readers. I’m debating working on Flock stuff this coming weekend or working on Pixies. Anyone want to express a preference?

Pseudo-Renaissance Fantasy Gowns for Marisole

May 22, 2020September 1, 2014

First things first- Happy Labor Day to those in the United States who, like me, get it off from work.

Yay for holidays!!

Marisole is getting all fantasy today in some elegant dresses. I had originally planned on doing some patterns on her dresses, but in the end I just decided to leave them plain. After working on my new Lady of the Manor set, I’ve had these pseudo-renaissance styles of dresses on my mind as of late. Though, I confess, there is not much very renaissance about the dresses, unless you look really hard.

Still, I suppose a somewhat classic set of fantasy dresses and some shoes are nothing to be ashamed of.

{Click Here for a PDF to Print} {Click Here for a PNG to Print} {Click Here for More Marisole Monday & Friends Printable Paper Dolls}I do really like all her accessories. Over the years, I’ve drawn a lot of books for paper dolls (and I don’t plan on stopping… I love books and I wish they still had clasps on them…), but I did want to give her some unique accessories. I am particularly pleased with how the fan came out.

I guess in the end I’d say that she’s not the best Marisole fantasy paper doll I have ever drawn, but she is pretty good and I am still trying to get back into my patterns after taking a bit of break to deal with less fun, back-end blog issues.

Speaking of backend blog issues, I am going to be changing up the way things look around here soon, so just be aware. 🙂

Medieval Fantasy Paper Doll to Print and Color

May 19, 2020August 27, 2014

This is the second Isadora paper doll and a member of the Mini-Maiden paper doll family. I haven’t done a fantasy Mini-Maiden before, so I thought I should and I have been in a psuedo-medieval mood as of late. Perhaps simply because I am wishing I was living somewhere cooler than Alabama which is having a humid hot August.

I can not wait for fall. Fall is full of wonderful things and I can start wearing tights and boots again.

I love both tights and boots.

Plus September brings the big fall fashion magazines and that will mean a spasm of paper doll drawing and a spate of contemporary styled paper dolls, as it always does.

Until then, of course, we have Isadora as a fantasy Mini-Maiden. I am hesitant to call her a princess, as she doesn’t have a crown, but she can still live in a castle, I think. Personally, I think it would have been dreadfully drafty and cold in castles, but I suppose at least it was better than living in a hovel.

{Download a PDF to Print} {View a 150 dpi PNG}{Check out some More Mini-Maiden Printable Paper Dolls}

Anyway, now Isadora can either be living in a castle or fighting radioactive zombies in the wastes of a destroyed civilization. Basically, she’s ready for whatever life might throw at her, though I think she also might want to raid another Mini-Maiden’s closet for some more… shall we say… normal clothing. I think she’d look awfully cute in Faye’s girly get up or Hazel’s vintage vibe or Greta’s I-couldn’t-come-up-with-anything-alliterative outfits.

There will be one more update this week (nothing major, just some sketchbook stuff) and then hopefully a new Marisole on Monday as I get myself back into the rhythm of things. For updates, you’re welcome to follow me on twitter @paperpersona, though you will also have to put up with other inane, unpaper-doll-related rambling about my life.

Victorian Ballerina Printable Paper Doll from the 1880s

December 6, 2020August 25, 2014

Oh man, what to say about the last few days…

Well, I have been working on backend server CPU issues with my shared hosting service. Nothing really serious, but stuff that has to be dealt with for the blog hosting to continue to be cheap enough for me to justify continuing to keeping it online and free.

Still, I owed a paper doll to my last drawing winner, Lina of Lina’s Historical Paper Dolls, and I was not about to put off finishing that for another week, because I would keep feeling guilty about it.

Lina requested an 1880s period Marisole Monday & Freinds paper doll with a ballet outfit and several other dresses. I had some trouble getting all the pieces to fit on a single page, so I omitted some shoes from the image.

Should you want proper shoes to go with this set, then I recommend checking out On the Board Walk in color or black and white or Mia Goes to the Bathing Place in color or black and white. Both of those sets both have button up style boots which, while not period, are close enough to not look totally awkward.

{Click Here for a PDF to Print} {Click Here for a PNG to Print}Lina was kind enough to send me reference photos and specific colors for the hair, skin and eyes of the paper doll, but left the color scheme mostly up to me. I wanted to use some rich colors, because by the 1880s chemical dyes were common and rich colors were very much instyle. There is a habit to think of the 19th century as sepia colored, because of sepia photos, but it was actually a rather garish era.

At least post, chemical dyes being invented.

{Click Here for a PDF to Print} {Click Here for a PNG to Print} {Click Here for More Marisole Monday & Friends Printable Paper Dolls}So, Lina also asked for a tutu based on this painting by Degas. The painting dates from 1871, a little earlier than the other costumes in the set. I omitted the sash, since I based the dress on the center figure. I don’t think the layers of the skirts really look like tulle, which bothers me. Liana has some great tulle on her blog.

The ballgown was based on this fashion plate. The gown was red, but I made it peacock blue based on a description in English Women’s Clothing in the 19th Century by Wilett-Cunnington that mentioned peacock blue ballgowns. I hate drawing lace, but it came out all right, I suppose.

The last two outfits are a swimming costume and a house dress. Old swimming costumes were extremely complicated and not very easy to swim in. Generally, I think of them as wadding costumes. Lina sent me this picture and I based it off that.

The house dress is classic 1880s style with bustle, drawn up skirt and long pleats. It’s a pretty typical gown for its period. Lina sent me this photo and I based the dress off of it. I omitted the pattern on the dress, because I knew it would reproduce poorly in the small scale of the paper doll set.

And that, as they say, is that.

If you haven’t ever checked out Lina’s blog, Lina’s Historical Paper Dolls than I recommend taking the time to do so. She makes wonderfully interesting historical paper dolls.

3 Black and White Fashion Paper Dolls Today!

May 28, 2020August 11, 2014

I get asked fairly often for various old paper dolls to be produced in black and white. Considering the number of paper dolls on the blog and the fact that files are not always saved in formats that makes extracting the line work simple. In fact, this might be one of the last sets of these I do for a long time, because I am running out of files that are simple to convert and ending up with sets for which I only have the full merged final PDF. Pulling the black and white out of those files and not ending up with a black and white paper doll of very dubious quality is a challenge.

{Click Here for a PDF to Print} {Click Here for a PNG to Print} {Click Here for the Full Color Version}

Nautical Girl was first posted in 2010. Despite being four years old, I still really like her hair and her dress, though I could take or leave her shoes.

{Click Here for a PDF to Print} {Click Here for a PNG to Print} {Click Here for the Full Color Version}

Sweater Style was originally conceived as one of four sets which were going to each be a seasonal set. I think this was the fall or winter set (I truly do not recall…). I never did get the series finished and so I just have posted a few of them. At the time, I was living in Illinois where it was very cold in the winters. I rather miss winters when it would actually freeze.

{Click Here for a PDF to Print} {Click Here for a PNG to Print}{Click Here for the Full Color Version}

Draw because I thought I really needed more jeans in my paper doll sets, Stylish in Denim was a lot of fun. It is one of the rare paper doll sets where I owned at the time a fair number of the actual clothing pieces. It was also an early experiment in purses.

Two quick things I mentioned on Friday, but I wanted to repeat. Email updates aren’t working at the moment. I’m looking for a new WordPress plugin. Also, you can follow me on Twitter @paperpersonas which will let you know when the blog updates, what I am working on and other rather inane details of my life.

Curvy Printable Fantasy Paper Doll Set In Color or Black and White

May 28, 2020August 8, 2014

I draw a lot more paper dolls than I post. This is why I sometimes am unsure about posting sketchbook images, because there are things which end up never migrating into the blog, or migrate onto the blog so much later than I meant them too.

And when I create a new series of paper dolls, as B&B is still in my mind, I often draw a lot and then lose interest for a while. This is my basic pattern of paper doll production. I am passionately fascinated with a series for a few weeks and then, after a while, I lose interest and move onto other things. One of the reasons I try to build a backlog is that if I didn’t have one, I would post nothing but say… Pixies for two months and then nothing but Flock for two months and… you get the idea.

Since, I’ve been struggling to get things finished over the last few weeks, I have devoted myself to digging through my folders and finding old things I haven’t finished and finishing them up. Truth is that I have a fair number of orphaned drawings which got scanned and then never got cleaned up and colored. This is one of those orphaned sets. I first drew this when I first drew B&B.

{Download a PDF of this paper doll to Color} {View a 150 dpi PNG of this Paper Doll to Color}I often go back to themes I’ve done before. Styles which have, for best or for ill, been used in previous paper doll experiments or have shown up in other forms on the blog. I think everyone does this. Whenever I think I am “always drawing the same thing”, than I am reminded that some of my favorite paper doll artists (like Boots and Liana) have themes they return to as well.

I mean, can I help that I have a love of corsets? And leggings tucked into boots.

So, the legging, boots and tops with swords have down up many times before like in this paper doll set and this paper doll set (the cape) and this paper doll set and this paper doll set (the leggings) and… I digress.

{Download a PDF of this paper doll in Color} {View a 150 dpi PNG of this Paper Doll in Color} {More Bodacious and Buxom Printable Paper Dolls}Also, I clearly have a thing for redheads. I have always had a thing for redheads. My grandmother was a redhead and I have always wished that I inherited that gene, sadly, I did not. Plus, I saw the movie Anne of Green Gables at a young and impressionable age.

Meanwhile, a few other announcements. Once again, my email system for mailing people with blog updates seems to be having trouble. I shall do my best to try to fix it.

And I have finally moved into the 21st century and am now on Twitter. You can follow me @paperpersonas though it’s not strictly blog related and there are plenty of comments about librarianship and my general life that happen as well.

Thoughts? Questions? Comments are always appreciated.