Full Color

And yet more clothing for the Ms Mannequin Printable Paper Dolls

logo-ms-mannequin-2Paper doll blogs are odd creatures. I think all craft blogs are odd creatures, but I don’t do a general craft blog, I do a paper doll blog, so I don’t think I’m qualified to talk about all craft blogs.

The thing about paper doll blogs (and all craft blogs, I suppose) is that you, the author, is creating all the content. It’s not a matter of reviewing something which exists or responding to the latest news story, it’s a matter of producing work. Work production takes time, energy and inspiration, but mostly work. Hard work.

And I tend to work in spurts. So, I would be lying if I said that I drew these dresses this month. I didn’t. I drew them… I don’t even remember when. At least one sketchbook ago. They’ve been sitting, finished, on my computer waiting to go up until I had something coherent to say about them.

Well… I don’t have anything coherent to say about today’s printable paper doll clothes, but I knew if I didn’t get them up than I would regret it. I don’t have anything else to post today and I wanted to get a post up this week.

I’m not ashamed of that and I’m not ashamed of the paper doll clothes. I think they’re pretty darn cute.

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Happy Halloween! A Vampire Printable Paper Doll!

logo-pixie-vampireHappy Halloween!

So, confession time: I’m totally excited at the prospect of getting to sit at home tonight and possibly give candy to trick or treaters. I don’t know if there will be any, but I’m hopeful there might be. I have a small bag of candy at the ready. I know I won’t get very many, but I do love tricker treaters.

Little kids are so cute dressed up in costume and I have fond memories of my own tricker treating days.

To go along with the holiday spirit, we have a possitively fablous, if somewhat skanky, vampiress paper doll. She’s got her black dress, her miniskirt and her corsets. All very 1980s gothic.

There’s something very sexual about vampires. I could get into the sexual imagery rampant in Dracula or Carmilla, but I never got a graduate degree in English for a good reason and it had a lot to do with having low patience for analyzing literature, but I digress.

 

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I’ve done vampire paper dolls before.

In 2010, Marisole got to be a vampire with a questionable hairstyle. My only other foray into the world of the undead was a zombie paper doll which I drew as a joke after abandoning the blog for a while. I still feel bad when I leave the blog, but I don’t usually draw zombie apology paper dolls.

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By the way, if you want your vampire paper doll to wear something a little more… lady like, shall we say… than remember she can share the clothes of all the other Pixie paper dolls or find a victim friend among the Pucks. Unless we take a page out of Carmilla, and then she’ll be getting her victim from the Pixies.

In the meantime, enjoy the paper doll and have a wonderful Halloween. 🙂

Marisole Monday & Friends: Flowers and Jewels in Full Color!

So, we had the black and white version of this paper doll set last week. Sometimes, I feel like I don’t do a good enough job linking the full color versions of the paper dolls with the black and white versions of the same paper doll, but then… I also sort of figure that people are smart enough to figure it out. I don’t like treating my readers as though they’re stupid.

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Anyway… I had a lot of fun with today’s paper doll.

Her underwear is the same color as the site’s base color which is Hex Code 990033. Her skin is the warmer of my two medium brown colors that I like to use Hex Code d29569 from the Skintone Pallette. It’s got more orange in it than some of the colors I use more often, so I tend to be careful what colors I pair it with. The dresses are a range of colors whose Hex Codes, I can’t remember at present. I wanted to use Jeweltones, but not get too dark. Autumnal without getting into the orange, yellow, red, brown combination.

Anyway, I think I’ve run out of things to say about the paper doll. Enjoy her.

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.

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Flowers and Jewels: Paper Doll Coloring Page

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I always have high hopes for October. I mean… it’s Halloween. Could there be a better holiday to celebrate with paper dolls? Any yet despite my idea that I’m really going to be festive, I hardly ever am.

I think I’ve done one Marisole Halloween set (which I didn’t feel like digging around the archives for). I remember fondly Liana’s wonderful Octobers with fantastic costumes and I always think I’m going to do something like that.

Clearly, once again, that didn’t happen.

But hey… here’s some pretty prom dresses/evening wear and it’ll be in color next week. I could say I planned on using halloween colors… but I don’t. I plan on using a lot of teal and maybe some purple.

Another sheet of paper doll clothing for Ms. Mannequin

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{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}

So, I actually drew this, colored it and re-sized it before I left for Alaska and before my apartment flooded. It feels weird to be posting it now, but also very nice to be getting back to the blog a little. A tiny moment of normal in what has been a very insane few weeks.

I normally tend to be someone who carefully considers options, procrastinates, gets distracted, gets bored and then, after much dawdling, finally does something. If my parents are reading this, then they are saying… Yeah, that’s about right.

Except my apartment flooded.

So, suddenly all of my procrastination habits went out the window and I found myself having to just get things done.

Finally, I’m sitting at my tiny dining room table in my new place feeling good, dislocated, confused, frustrated, but…. at least not homeless. And not homeless is a pretty impressive state at the moment.

I’m still unpacking, organizing, looking for things that got thrown into boxes. I am pleased to say that none of my sketchbooks were ruined (a few were damaged) and none of my journals were ruined (a few were damaged). I still have my master copies of all my paper dolls (thank the heavens for plastic containers). I’m pleased and thankful for all of this and for the kind words I’ve received from readers.

I don’t know if I’ll get a Marisole up next week or when the next post will happen, but hang in here with me guys. I’m trying my best.

Meet Kira… An African American Paper Doll

I decided my Tanya paper doll was lonely and needed a new paper doll friend. So, I created Kira, a stylish African American paper doll sporting a retro look. Her hair was inspired by the 1930s. Her shoes are very modern though and she can wear any clothing from the Ms. Mannequin paper doll series. If she needs more friends, eventually I do plan to draw more Ms. Mannequin dolls. These things take time, so be patient with me.

I’m traveling at the moment, back in Alaska for a little while. I really love my home state and it’s great to be able to be home and see the beautiful mountains and things…

Of course, I’ll have to return to Alabama, which is lovely as well, soon, but in the mean time, I’ve been thinking a lot about how much I love and miss Alaska.

An african-american paper doll in color with two pairs of shoes. She can wear any clothing from the Ms. Mannequin paper doll series. Free to print from paperthinpersonas.com. An african-american paper doll coloring page with two pairs of shoes. She can wear any clothing from the Ms. Mannequin paper doll series. Free to print from paperthinpersonas.com.

{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}{More Paper Dolls Like this}{Clothes for This Paper Doll}

Anyway… I think of Kira as a vintage inspired sort of elegant lady. Her style is distinctly art deco, in my head. How much of this resembles reality? That’s hard to say really… there’s nothing terribly vintage about her shoes. Still… she’s elegant and put together and that’s what I’m going with.

Have I mentioned I’m a little sleep deprived from the traveling thing? Well… I am.

Hearts, Denim and Bows: Paper Doll in Color

marisole-hearts-denim-bows-paper-doll{Click Here for a PDF to Print} {Click Here for a PNG to Print} {Click Here for the rest of this series}

So, I thought I hated this color scheme. I really did.

Except when I opened the file late last night to check on it and make sure it would go up today, I discovered (to my own shock) that I actually rather liked the paper doll set all of a sudden. I’d planned to write a whiny post about how muddy it all looked…

And now I feel like she has a sort of funky 1970s vibe to her. (That might just be the little afro talking…)

Speaking of afros, there was this woman at the local Target yesterday who had the most amazing afro and I wanted to ask her to stand still so I could draw it, but I decided that would just be creepily stalker-ish, so I simply admired it from a distance.

One of the things people sometimes ask is where I get my color ideas. I’d love to say I create them all from scratch, but the truth is that I create a lot of them from scratch, but I also use Color Lovers. I mention this, because I just discovered a wonderful new site for color pallettes called Design Seeds. I haven’t used Design Seeds much yet, but I think I will soon.

Meet Fiona: Printable Paper Dolls

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Brights are on display today.

I haven’t really anything remarkable to say about Fiona except that I am rather in love with her floral dress. I’ll be traveling a bit in the middle of this month, I don’t think anything should fall apart here, but things might slow a little.

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Should be a lot of fun, I think.

So, as I said, not much to say. Enjoy the paper doll.

Look! Clothes for Ms Mannequinn Paper Dolls

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Ms Mannequin has some clothing, because without clothing a mannequin has no real purpose in life and the last thing you need are paper dolls having existential crises.

I’m not very comfortable sharing private stuff on the blog. I’ve never been much for public confessions and I have no desire to gain notoriety, but as Rosh Hashanah approaches, I always find myself getting introspective.

I’m a pretty secular Jew, but it’s the new year and I think it’s a good time to pause and think about things. Truth be told, as I sat down to write this post, I was expecting to say negative things, because lately I’ve been feeling a little overwhelmed by the blog, but in truth I have no real bad news to share.

Here we are on the eve of 5774, and really… there’s nothing to moan about. Now, don’t get me wrong, I can always find something to complain about, but the truth is the blog has been more regular this year than last year. I’ve managed to sell a few pieces to various museums and I’ve managed to pretty much do what I’ve wanted to get done.

I am, in fact, fairly happy and content with the blog. I wish I could post more, but I know that unrealistic. I wish I had more readers, but then I always wish that. I do need to get some sort of child paper doll up, since that was the winner of the poll at the usual New Year.

So, all in all… not a bad 5773. Bring on 5774, I say.

Marisole Monday & Friends: Mia with Seagulls and Seaside In Color


seagulls_seaside_mia_paper_doll_color{Click Here for a PDF to Print} {Click Here for a PNG to Print} {Click Here for the rest of this series}

The colors on this Mia paper doll set were inspired by the Pantone 2013 Spring color report and by signal flags for nautical ships. When I was a kid, I remember my father was practicing for his captains license from the US coast guard and I would quiz him on signal flags. It was also the first time I ever heard Morse code in person.

Remarkable stuff, Morse code.

Anyway, I’m rather pleased with how the color scheme came out. Mia will be quite stylish at the yacht club in this set of costumes. I have complete faith in her sense of decorum and style.

So, normally I have no problem coming up with ideas, but lately, I’ve been feeling a little stumped on the Marisole paper doll front. So, I am open to suggestions. Anyone got something they desperately want to see?

I’ve recently had requests for cowgirls, ballerinas (probably not going to happen since tutus sort of freak me out), saris, swimsuits and opera (though I confess I don’t know a THING about opera).

Marisole Monday & Friends: Late Summer Flowers in Full Color

summer-flowers-margot-color{Click Here for a PDF to Print} {Click Here for a PNG to Print} {Click Here for the rest of this series}

Full color version of last week’s paper doll. I wanted the colors to be a little unexpected and I really like how the patterned shorts came out.

I don’t do very many blond paper dolls, so here is one, though in hindsight, I think she’d be cuter as a brunette. I could change her, but we all know that won’t be happening, because I hate re-doing old work.

Speaking of redoing old work, there might be some black and white versions of old Marisole’s showing up on the blog in the next few weeks. It’s related to a project that’s in the works. If anyone has requests, drop me a comment. This might be the only time I ever do this.

I find I tend to work in spurts. I realized I hadn’t done a paper doll with glasses in a really long time and now I’ve done two in a row. Chances are that I won’t do another one for six months now. Funny how that works.

By the way, the summer heat of Alabama is pretty bad. I sort of wish I was living somewhere colder, like my home of Alaska, but I’m learning to survive the 90 degree weather.