Dolls

Patterns & Grace: A Black & White Fantasy Paper Doll

This printable paper doll set began as a chance to experiment and practice drawing pattern. It ended as an experience best summed up as… “Why did I ever decide I wanted to draw that stupid scrawling floral pattern and it’s a total pain to ink and it’s a total pain to color and I hate my life…”

Not shockingly, this set took me longer to finish than it should have. The full-color version goes up next week and you can all decide if it was worth the agony of the floral pattern from the pits of Hell.

Seriously, my hatred for that floral pattern is still fresh and warm.

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Moving rapidly along, the paper doll that was supposed to go up with week was going to be Halloween themed, but since she didn’t get finished, we have a back up fantasy paper doll set instead.

Also, can I add, that from this paper doll’s accessories she leads a really surreal life- a sword for fighting, a letter for writing, a book for reading, yarn for knitting and a pitcher for… I don’t know… recreational water pouring? There’s no glass so I guess… she drinks from the pitcher? Hmm…

Clearly someone (and that means me) didn’t think this through. She wasn’t going to have a sword, but I had an extra from Silk and Steel and I figured that she could share the love.

By the way, if you have an opinion on the fate of the Dictionary Girls let me know.

In the 1940s… Printable Historic Paper Doll

So, as usual the back and white version of this printable paper doll happened last week and this week we have the full color version. Somehow, in color, the paper doll looks less angry to me. Interesting how that works, isn’t it?

Marisole-1940-paper-doll-color

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On a totally unrelated note, a reader posted some images of Little Pixie colored in a garden on a French forum. I think she did a fantastic job and she has a blog, so check that out. Sometimes when I see my paper dolls colored by someone else, I sort of forget that they are my work.

I am thinking of putting up a page to show off some of the work other artists have done based on my work, like Toria’s Showcase. Are there people out there with photos or scans who would be willing to contribute?

In the 1940s… Paper Doll Coloring Page

As I mentioned last month, I have been very interested in the 1940s lately. It’s not a period that I’ve been interested in normally, but watching a rather lot of Foyle’s War has infected me, I suppose.

The thing about the 1940s, which makes it a little difficult, is that in the middle of the decade there’s a rather important event known as World War II (though I tend to share the view of scholars who argue there weren’t two wars, but rather one war with a twenty year cease fire in the middle). The full skirted suit is of the style that came out of the war in 1947, thanks to Dior’s New Look. The other suit jacket and skirt are both based on the short lived fabric restrictions known as “Uility clothing” in England. In fact, these restrictions are one of the reasons vest for men fell out of fashion in the United States and England.

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I’m pleased about this set, though her hair isn’t quite right. I have trouble with hair and I think something about the style makes her look somewhat… angry.

Irma asked: How much time in a week do you spend drawing paper dolls?

I tend to work in bursts. Some weeks I do lots and lots of drawing and inking and other weeks I can go and never touch them. My goal is always to have the images, at least, ready far enough ahead that I don’t have to play catch up too much. I know there is no way I could possibly draw, ink, scan, color and post a set all in one evening. It just wouldn’t happen. I don’t have that kinda time, so I work in sections. For example, I already have the rest of this week’s paper dolls ready to post and, though I haven’t written the blogs yet, the images are prepped and uploaded to my server.

I tried to keep track of how long this set took me to get ready from scan to prep, so I could at least tell Irma that much, and I found that it took me four hours from the scanning to the posting, granting that I was watching an episode of the West Wing at the time and took a few breaks.

By the way, if you haven’t been to it, Irma’s blog is fantastic. I love her black and white paper dolls.

Dead Roses: Gothic Paper Doll

I feel a little weird saying this is in color when the color is mostly black…

Not the most cheerful color scheme ever developed for a paper doll. I almost made it all black, but that seemed a bit much, even for Gothic Marisole. If you look closely, you’ll see one of my usual tricks for keeping things from looking totally “flat” is to use shades of the same color. So while everything is “black” there is still some definition between the various parts of the garments. I actually did this Marisole in four shades of very very dark grey which look black, but still allow the line work to be seen.

It’s all an illusion.

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So, Meredith asked: I think a ballerina paper doll would be cool or mabey a pool / summer themed doll also for some ting tiffrent you could do dolls theamed ot colors of the rainbow

how long have you been drawing paper dolls for?
could you do a cow girl paper doll that would be cool and diffrent

To answer the easiest question, I have been drawing paper dolls for as long as I can really remember. It began when my mother would draw me a doll as a bribe for cleaning my room or other activity and then I had to draw the clothing. Eventually, that evolved into drawing my own paper dolls, though I still prefer clothing to the dolls.

As for your requests, I have added them to my list of ideas. I usually keep a running list of ideas, but since most paper dolls are drawn weeks (sometimes months) before they eventually get posted, I can’t promise anything as far as doing any of those ideas. And I probably won’t to the ballerina, because tutu’s scare me.

To answer a related question, Tawny asked: What is your favorite sort of paper doll to draw? I mean… I think eeery thing you do is great, but what do you like to do the most?

I like drawing everything. I do find I tend to return to certain themes a lot. I like things that are a little alt-fashion inspired and a little fantasy inspired. I often draw from fashion magazines, because it makes deciding what to draw simpler. I always fear that I will fall into a rut and draw the same thing over and over again. I try to keep things interesting using reference images and other materials.

Got a question you want me to answer on the blog?Ask me here.

Dead Roses: Gothic Fashion Paper Doll

There are paper doll sets that go together all smooth and easy and I’m like, wow… this was so simple. And then… then there are sets like this one. It took me four tries to get everything to fit on one page and when it finally came together properly, I found myself thinking- “Why was this so easy? It as hard the last three times I tried it…”

Seriously… ugh…

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On the upside, I have here, in honor of Halloween and October and things, a traditional Gothic paper doll. When I was in high school, a longer time ago than I like to admit, the big trends were Gothic and Punk, now both seem to have given way to Steampunk and various forms of Gothic Lolita sort of styles.

And yes, I am using capitalization in the proceeding paragraph for emphasis, because I Like doing that.

Clearly spending a Sunday afternoon trying to get little paper pieces of clothing to fit on a page puts me in a grouchy feisty mood… so I shall go away now and work on the rest of this weeks posts.

I don’t think its too much of a spoiler to say that the color version will feature a lot of black. She is Gothic after all.

Silk and Steel: Printable Paper Doll with Armor

Color schemes are always challenging. I wanted to keep the colors simple, since so much of it was going to be “silver grey”. As I see it, the “leather” can either be brown or black, but I think it looks off when there is a mix. After some debate, I settled on black and then decided to use white as a contrast color, rather than the more traditional dark shade. The rich red color has a lot of blue into it which keeps it from feeling too “blood red” and softens it against the black and the white.

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Okay, so a question…

Dreamed asked: If you could travel to any time era, in any part of the world, when and where would you go? Why?

Wow… hard question. I have no idea… not very helpful is it?

I guess if I had to go somewhere and visit a period of history, I would want to visit Mainz in Germany when Gutenberg was printing his bible in the mid-1400’s, just so that I could see the press. A little odd, but as a rare books person, I just really want to see it.

I would not want to have to wear the clothing of the early 1400s… that just does nothing for me.

On an utterly unrelated note, I found this beautiful Valentine paper doll on Flickr. I love the way water color looks when it’s well done. Makes me almost want to try traditional media… almost.

Silk and Steel: Paper Doll in Black and White

Marisole has been a lot of things over the years… She’s been a zombie and a pirate and a ninja and a member of Star Fleet, but she’s never just been a warrior chick and I thought she should be, plus I have a friend whose really into Xena and she was remarking that Marisole has been a lot of princesses, but she hadn’t ever really been ready for a fight.

So, here she is, ready for a fight. Though… I confess her armor isn’t really very… practical. Still, she’ll look cute and that’s half the battle.

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Toni Cross

    asked: Did you like playing with dolls as a kid? As in, the non-paper kind? If so, what doll was your favorite? If not, what toy was your favorite and why?

I love dolls as a kid. I still love dolls, though over the years, I have come to realize what I really loved was miniature clothing and things. I loved all the tiny clothing and accessories more than I loved the dolls themselves.

My favorite dolls were Ginny dolls by Vogue. My Ginny’s had all sorts of adventures, but my fondest memories of the Ginny dolls are when my Grandmother came to visit and she would knit and sew them clothing. I still own all the tiny outfits my grandmother made for them and the wooden furniture my grandfather made.

I should mention, Toni has a blog of her own where she has posted a few beautiful paper dolls, I particularly like her baby paper doll named Sammi.

Roccoco Fantasy- Printable Princess Paper Dolls

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Just for Boots, I didn’t make anything pink in this set. 🙂

Originally, there was pink in it, but I do use a lot of pink… which is odd, because I don’t like pink that much in the real world… So, I decided to be anti-pink for a while. Plus I think these dresses are fro-froo enough without adding pink into the mix.

Not that I have anything against pink, mind you… just a thought, really.

And now for a question:

Julie asked: What advice would you give an aspiring paper doll artist? Are there Fashion Illustration books you recommend? How about Figure Drawing books?

To aspiring paper doll artists (and I’m not sure I’m not that far from ‘aspiring’ myself), I’d say the following:

    Draw a lot
    Look at paper dolls you like and try to figure out what you like about them
    Don’t be afraid to copy a style you like- imitation is the sincerest form of flattery
    Reference images are your friend
    Draw what you like and what you love, not what you think is popular or other people will like
    Have fun and stretch yourself… even though that’s scary a lot of the time

As for books, I would recommend… I think that’s worthy of it’s own blog post. So, I will work on putting together a list. If i had to name one, it would be Drawing the Head and Figure by Jack Hamm. It’s old, but it’s solid and I still use my copy when I need to draw a face in profile. (You might notice, I don’t do that much… cause I suck at it, but I use Hamm whenever I think I want to try again.)

Here’s a question for my readers, would you be interested in knowing what books I use and/or recommend about historical costume or figure drawing?

Roccoco Fantasy: Paper Doll in Black and White

marisole-printable-paper-doll-fantasy-9-3-12{Click Here for a PDF to Print} {Click Here for a PNG to Print} {Click Here for the rest of this series}

First of all, Happy Labor Day to those in the USA who get the holiday off. Had I realized it was going to be Labor Day when I posted this paper doll, I would have come up with something thematic… but instead we have crazy Rococo dresses. This is what happens when I work several weeks a head.

Though not Labor Day thematic, I love the 18th century… not historically speaking (I really don’t care much about the French revolution or the American revolution or… I digress), but the period is full of wonderful over the top dresses and wigs. I love the wigs.

Not that I would have wanted to wear them, since they were nearly impossible to clean and made of human hair or sheep’s wool…. and that gets gross fast. There are even reports of rats living in women’s wigs…. All I can say to that is “ewww”

Still, crazy wigs are cool in theory, if not in reality.

Now, for a question:

Dorothy D Lafferty asked: So when will you do a “librarian” paper doll?

Probably not anytime soon… though I do seem to draw a lot of books as accessory items for my paper dolls… so that might say something about me.

I suppose I should eventually do a librarian paper doll, but I don’t know what she would wear. What does a stylish librarian wear?

Unless she’s Batgirl…. Because Batgirl was a librarian… and then I would need a paper Batgirl costume and I don’t know if I’m up for that.

On the other hand, I got to say, Yvonne Craig is pretty darn hot as Batgirl.

And I do have one friend for whom the idea of a Batgirl paper doll would make absurdly happy.

What do you all think a librarian paper doll (Batgirl or not) ought to wear?

On the Board Walk in Color: A Neo-Victorian Paper Doll Set

It is rare that I have the plan for a color scheme in mind before I start drawing, but I knew I wanted this set of paper dolls to be done in a red white and blue color scheme with a nautical twist.

I was playing around with my Photoshop settings on this one and I am not totally pleased with how the line-work came out on the color version. I shall have to look into what I did and think about it a bit more. I didn’t notice it as much on my smaller laptop screen, but working on it on a larger screen it has become very obvious.

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So, I think it’s now question time…

Gillian asked: when did you start drawing paper dolls? and how did you learn to draw?

Well…. I started drawing paper dolls… I don’t even remember when I started drawing paper dolls. My mother used to draw dolls for me and my sister when we were kids. She’d draw the doll as a bribe to get us to clean our rooms or do the dishes and then we would have to draw the clothing. So, that’s when the paper doll thing got started.

I learned to draw mostly by doing a lot of it. I took art classes in high school and middle school, but mostly I am self taught. I’d love to have some time in the future to take some figure drawing classes. I don’t think I do a very good job on my figures. I nearly always draw from a reference image. I don’t really have the ability to draw well without one.

I hope that answers your question Gillian.

By the way, I was trying to do a darker, maybe Latino skin tone here, but I think she came out looking sickly. Too much yellow in the skin, perhaps.

Marisole Monday: On the Boardwalk in Black and White

Somehow, this Marisole paper doll reminded me of trips to the seashore. When I was a child, I remember my family went to Atlantic city for a few weeks one summer. My father’s family is from the East Coast, so the whole group met there. While I remember only vague things from the trip, I recall distinctly walking down the boardwalk with my father and eating black cherry frozen custard which my father would buy for me from a stand on the boardwalk. I still remember how the purple custard was rolled in rainbow sprinkles until they covered it completely.

Every time I eat frozen custard, I think of my father.

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And now, for a question:

Ana asked “how many drafts of any one finished doll do you go through?”

The short answer is that it depends the doll. Dolls are drawn off templates which have seven to twelve drafts. Clothing is lightly penciled and than inked. I don’t usually draft the clothing full-size unless I am having trouble with something and then I do.

There’s also a more detailed long answer. If you want to read it, continue below.

Okay, so here is the detailed version:

I draw paper dolls in stages. The first stage is a doll template. Doll templates evolve over many drafts. Those drafts begin as very very rough and eventually become fairly smooth and detailed. When I was working on the Dictionary Girls, I posted a post where I showed bad scans of the stages of there development.

So, once I have a template, I trace the template and lightly draw it. Than I do a detailed pencil version over than a light penciled version and than I ink that. I took some photos of this a while ago with a set of dresses and you can see them here.

If I screw up a doll, and I often do, it’s in the inking stage usually. So I am always careful not to draw any clothing or anything else until I’ve inked the doll. I draw from templates, so that if I end up hating the doll, I can draw her over again without needed to redraw the body which is the hardest part for me. Plus I can fix things through the power of Photoshop.

I hope that answers the question. 🙂

Marisole Monday: Fantasy gowns in…vibrant colors

Today’s printable paper doll is so bright, you might find yourself thinking “Good god, it’s radioactive” and you wouldn’t be wrong. She’s extremely a little eye-watering, I confess, but I had a lot of fun. Like Kandi, I wanted to play with the contrast of bright color to dark skin. Also, once I colored all the clothing and I looked at my Marisole skin tone color palette, I realized that most of them clashed with that obnoxious delightful green color.

Seriously, if there was ever a good post to do in black and white and in color… this was it. I doubt I would have had the gumption to go this bright if I wasn’t going to also post her in black and white.

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And now to answer a question….

So, B asked: Are you going to make another set of Flock dolls? It’d be pretty cool to see fairy tales, or maybe cyberpunk!

The short answer is: Yes.

The longer answer is that the next set of Flock paper dolls will be modern and will consist of the six dolls and a over a hundred pieces of clothing. After that I want to do smaller sets, because seriously the whole “hundred” pieces of clothing was a bit much. I have a “noir punk” set in process and a sort of futuristic set as well. Neither is close to being done though and the casual set is very close. As in, I hoping sometime this week or next, close.

I have to say I love the idea of doing something fairy tale inspired… sort of a bad ass Red Ridinghood and Cinderella set… I shall have to think about that more.

Speaking of the Questions, Tuesday is the last day to enter my drawing. I know I said yesterday that I would draw a name on Tuesday, but I realized for it to be open for two weeks it was going to have to go until Tuesday until midnight. I’ll announce the winner Wednesday. Hopefully along with a Dictionary Girls update, but since I don’t have one yet… well… we’ll see.

I’ve been thinking about doing a series of posts about things I wish I knew about paper doll blogging back when I started paper doll blogging… is that something people would be interested in? I mean, it’s not terribly paper doll related.