Lady’s Clothing

Marisole Monday: Stylish in Denim

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I had realized I hadn’t done a blond Marisole paper doll in a while, so I thought I would do so. I’ve also been working on a Marisole side project which made me realize how few pairs of pants I had ever drawn for the paper doll. To solve both these problems, I offer up and pants wearing blond paper doll. I never said my justifications were entirely logical, I just said they existed.

Maybe it’s because I am in library school, or perhaps simply because I tend to be analytical by nature, but I think a lot about what I could do to improve PTP. So, I made a list and my goal is to try to do these things over the next few weeks months.

1. Post more regularly. (I do think I am improving on this one.)
2. More process content. (Things like the post about inspiration for Curves that I did.)
3. Links to museums and libraries in an organized fashion or maybe posts about historical costume. Is that something people would enjoy? I’m not sure…
4. Tutorials (?) I don’t know what I would do tutorials about, which is part of the problem.
5. Additional access points to the site. I’d like to do some sort of theme and subject based indexing, but I’m not yet quite sure how. Thoughts are ongoing.

That’s my list of things I think the site could use. What would other people ask for if they could?

Update 8/11/2014: This paper doll is now available in black and white for coloring. You can find her here.

Marisole Monday: Beneath the Waves

I was going to call this post Under the Sea, but I called my last mermaid paper doll Under the Sea. I didn’t think I could use the name twice, so I did the best I could with another, basically the same name. Synonyms… wonderful things.

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It took me a long time to decide to do a mermaid version of Marisole. It was requested by a few different people, but I put it off since I wasn’t sure how to make tails work with the paper doll’s leg pose. In the end, I drafted both tails in full size several times, before settling on these designs. I wanted to do one traditional green tail and one more tropical exotic tail in the colors of my pet beta fish, Levi. (His full name is Levithan, but I call him Levi for short.) He has more blue in him then the pink and gold of the tail, but I liked the bright colors and though the pale yellow looked wonderful with the pink.

I strongly recommend taking an exact-o knife, or a pair of scissors, and cutting up along the side of the paper doll’s body between her arm and stomach. That way the tops and tails will both fit much better. The placement of the right arm is one of my major frustrations with Marisole. She needs to be redesigned, but that isn’t going to happen anytime soon.

Edit: This paper doll is now available in black and white to be colored.

Marisole Monday: Enchanting Evening

It’s 90 degrees here today and while I’m enjoying my day off, I do wish it wasn’t quite so hot. I spent most of the day roasting in my apartment debating turning on my air conditioner- I am glad I eventually did- and working on this post.

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I could have done it yesterday and had it up by midnight, but I decided to go to a friend’s house and play board games and eat burgers. I do not regret this decision. I did have my sketch book with me which caused the following conversation.

Random guy: What are you drawing?
Me: Paper dolls.
Random guy: Long awkward pause.

I love that pause. 🙂

In other news, Paper Doll Garden is a new paper doll blog I found (Okay, new to me, it’s actually been around for a while) and the art is very good, plus there are males. Males, I tell you. This is highly exciting to me. I do wish she’d post in larger images as well as PDFs since I don’t usually print out, I just like to look. Though there was a time when I only had PDFs on the site, so I won’t judge too loudly.

I love her watercolor based style and I wish her much luck with her blog. The more paper doll bloggers the better, I say. Speaking of paper doll bloggers, if you have a blog of any kind, paper doll or otherwise, please comment and let me know. I’m always looking for new paper doll or paper doll related blogs.

Also, I have a poll as many of you know. It can be found on the sidebar. Is sticking a poll about my blog schedule on a late post ironic or just amusing?

Edit (10/7/2013): I just posted this paper doll set in black and white, so if you want to color her- now you can!

Marisole Monday: Gypsy Rose in Black and White

So… Yeah. I spent my weekend not working on paper dolls. I have many things sketched, but not many things any further along the process. The choice was between posting a black and white Marisole or posting a doodle.

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I settled on the black and white Marisole, a version of the Gypsy Rose paper doll, because at least it’s a paper doll- even if its not in color. And I know I have some readers who really like to color. Late posts like this make me wonder about the point of keeping a schedule when I continually fail to keep it. Does it help people? Do people care?

I suppose it rather helps me in so much as it gives me times when I should have things done, but I’m not sure how helpful that really is.

I will have to give the matter more thought. I have been thinking a lot about the site’s structure and layout recently. And even wondering if a blog is the right format for what I want to do with this site in the future… Considerations, considerations. But that’s thoughts for another day, I think.

Neapolitan Ice Cream: Steampunk Printable Paper Doll

I don’t normally start with a color scheme. I normally start with an idea and then worry about how to color it, but with this paper doll set I started with a color scheme. I knew I wanted to do something with browns and creams. The pink came from the desire to pick a contrasting color that was warm rather then cool.

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I decided to name this paper doll set after that ice cream with the vanilla, chocolate and strawberry stripes that I always used to think was called Napoleon Ice Cream, but I realized later that it actually had nothing to do with short militaristic Frenchmen and was actually called Neapolitan Ice Cream after the city of Naples. So, I’m glad I found that out before I wrote this post and sounded like a total ditz. I take some pride in only being a partial ditz.

I’m actually quite pleased with how this paper doll came out. I really like the contrast of the red hair with the brown and pink color scheme, though I confess I originally tried her out with every other hair color since I felt like I have done a lot of redheads and then I gave up and decided didn’t care. I’ve likes redheads ever since I saw Anne of Green Gables on TV as a child.

Gypsy Rose Printable Paper Doll

Oh, my poor neglected blog. The real world has been very busy (and I was really really ill), and so I don’t think I’ve pulled out my pens in a long time. Fortunately, I had some time last night and I got some work done. It seems a pity April has come and gone so fast.

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The challenge with mix and match pieces is not to repeat myself too often. I tend to draw the same sorts of things a lot. I realized I was drawing yet another pair of ankle boots and I made myself stop, though not soon enough to not have them in this set. I love shoes in the real world, but I hate drawing them for paper dolls. They never seem to come out right. So, I’ve been trying, also, to do more fantasy and I think these are pretty darn fantasy. but I had fun coloring and drawing them and that is the important bit.

This is not the most coherent post ever, so just enjoy the pretty paper doll. 🙂

Edit: This paper doll is now available in black and white for color. Exciting, no? 🙂

Marisole Monday: Streets of China

So, I hope you’ll forgive me Monica for the tardiness of this post. Monica won my last contest/drawing and asked for a Chinese girl paper doll wearing street-fashion from China. This caused a fairly long series of internet searches during which I attempted to figure out what the heck Chinese street fashion looked like anyhow. I feel rather bad because Monica was kind enough to send me some more reference images after her first set, but by that time I had already scanned and colored this paper doll, so they will have to wait for a sequel.

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So, the inspirational images for this post included these. The fluffy green skirt was inspired by a picture of a pink one. More obviously, the red coat was based on this image. And then I decided to make some obnoxiously bright pants which came from another image from flicker. Of course, since I didn’t bookmark all the images I ended up using, I don’t have as many as I used, but those are a few of my inspirational shots. There are plenty of other Marisole posts which include items that could be added to this set to expand the paper dolls wardrobe. Sweater Style has some neat boots that would go well with today’s set and the sweet version of the retro pin-up set has some short white shorts that would layer well over the black leggings and pretty much all of Modern Girl would work as well, though it’s a little bright in some respects.

As I mentioned yesterday, the blog is obviously being reformatted as we speak. I just have to ask people to be patient while I get things looking at least decent and get everything relinked and some images which were lost when I lost my formatting reloaded. Be patient with me and promise I will get it all done eventually.

Edit: I just noticed that I used an apostrophe wrong and now I am entirely embarrassed. At some point, I will fix this.

Marisole Monday: Pirate Vs. Ninja- Pirate Edition in Black & White

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So, I’ve gotten a few requests for Marisole in black and white. I will not be posting every Marisole post with a black and white option. Sorry, it’s just too time consuming. However, I will continue to do them erratically. I’ve done one other black and white Marisole paper doll and here we have a second one.

Though two isn’t a huge number, it’s double the number I used to have on the blog. (That sounds so impressive when you don’t think too hard about it. Most things work better if you avoid thinking too much I find.) I hope everyone enjoys the black and white version of yesterday’s Marisole.

Marisole Monday: Pirate Vs. Ninja- Pirate Edition

Sometimes people make the mistake of asking what my favorite novel. This is a really hard question to answer. Usually, I fall back on Treasure Island by Robert Louis Stevenson. I read it as a child and return to it every few years. Each time, I am struck by the detail, the care and the complexity. It is a story full of questions of honor, betrayal, revenge and greed. Its villain is compassionate and compelling. Its hero’s are honorable, but hard. It’s a fascinating story. I recommend it to any adult or child who likes adventure tales. Really, I recommend it to anyone ever.

Also, there are pirates. And who doesn’t like pirates? Plus buried treasure and madmen and betrayal and fight scenes.

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These paper doll pieces are more fantasy then reality, but that is the fun of paper dolls after all. I mean, it’s not like I actually bothered doing any real research in this case. I just had some fun with the fantasy. I mean, have you seen the Ninja side of this set? It’s not like I’ve even tried to be vaguely historically accurate.

I’ve been thinking about completely re-formating the site a lot lately… but then sanity prevails and I realize I don’t really have time. Still, I think I would like to convert it back to a more basic blog format, but then I’m worried I’d lose some of the features I like of this format… So, thoughts are ongoing. I could hand-code it, but it would take so much time and lots of trial and error. I shall have to think about my options a bit more before I decide, I think.

So, as some of you know I had a drawing last Monday and I said I would select a winner this Monday. In the end, I had 8 entries. So I just rolled an 8 sided dice, left over from other geeky hobbies I do, and came up with the number 3. That makes Monica the winner of my little drawing. Monica, please email me (paperthinpersonas (at) gmail (dot) com) with what sort of paper doll you would like. 🙂

Also, come back tomorrow and there will be something fun. I promise.

Marisole Monday: Pirate Vs. Ninja- Ninja Edition

So, this paper doll began when I was asking for paper doll ideas and my friend said, “Pirates vs. Ninjas.”

He was joking. I wasn’t.

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I actually gave some thought to the matter and decided I could do both a ninja and a pirate version of the paper doll. Today is the ninja and then next week, there will be a pirate paper doll for Marisole. I did a pirate paper doll a while ago, but I was never really pleased with how it turned out. So, I decided I should have another go at it.

In paper dolls, unlike in life, there are plenty of second chances.

On a totally unrelated note, I was looking at my poll results and I noticed that Marisole won as the favorite paper doll by a landslide. While I always thought she would win, I didn’t think she’d win by as much as she did. So I am curious, why Marisole won. To help answer this question, I have developed a contest.

The Contest

The question is: Which paper doll series on the blog is your favorite and what makes it your favorite? A one word answer will not count, the “why” is very important to me.

The Rules:
1) One answer per person.
2) Contest will run for this week.
3) At the end of the week, I will put the names of everyone who answered into a hat, draw one randomly, and announce the winner on next Monday with the Marisole post.

The Prize: A custom paper doll for a series of your choice- Curves, Marisole, Pixie & Puck or Flora (though Flora has to stay in the Regency Era).

All right, I look forward to reading people’s answers.