October Collab 2022

Witchtober: The Merchant and Traveling Witches!

Download the PDF to Print | The Rest of This Project | All the PTP Witchtober Paper Doll Pages

Happy Halloween!

It’s so exciting to be wrapping up my 2022 Witchtober project with the ever delightful Julie Matthews today with the Merchant and Traveling themed witches.

So, let’s talk concepts- On the left, is the Merchant themed witch. I wanted to go for like an edgy CEO in the 1980s look. Very much a power suit. I had fun playing around with drawing the sharp angles on this one. I decided a traditional hat made the most sense, but I tried to keep it feeling super crisp.

On the right is the Traveling witch. For this one, I went a totally different direction. My first thought was like 19th century traveling suits, but then I was like- Nah, I’ve done that before a lot. So, instead, I thought about adventuring clothing- something a little fantasy, a little practical, with lots of pockets for carrying things, and gathering things. To go with this, I wanted to draw a well worn sort of weather beaten hat. The sort of hat that looked like it had been around the block a few times and seen some things.

Both outfits got boots, but I tried to make them about as different as two pairs of boots could be.

You can, of course, just download this page if you want, but you can also grab all the pages in this download, if that’s more your style. In case you missed any, here’s all of the my posts.

Of course, you should head over to Paper Doll School where Julie has shared her really fantastic creations. She sent me a sneak preview and they are pretty fantastic.

And, of course, I hope everyone has a wonderful Halloween today!

Witchtober Continues: 18th Century & Winter

Download the 18th Century Page PDF to Print | Download the Winter Page PDF to Print | The Rest of This Project

If there was one thing I knew from the beginning of this whole Witchtober adventure, it was that my 18th century gown was going to be big. When Julie and I picked out our 8 themes from this list by Juan Joltaire of witch themes, I immediately loved the idea of an 18th century witch.

First off, it has been a while since I drew anything 18th century inspired. Secondly, my love of giant paper doll dresses is well documented on this blog. And is there a better century for giant paper doll dresses than the 18th century? I think not.

For me, nothing in Western Fashion can beat the 18th century for pure over the top glorious absurdity in dresses like this one or this one. There will forever be a soft place in my heart for eras when things are just more is more and that is where the 18th century lives (also, the 1830s, because what even is this?).

Once I decided I was going to go big on the 18th century design, I had a technical problem. I knew that dress was going to fill the whole page. So, when it came time to design the Winter costume, which was the other theme for this week, I knew I needed to at least try to make something that could hold its own against the 18th century spider-queen delight I’d just drawn. After all, a little shift dress was not going to stand up.

So, I went with a sort of coat/top-thing with a bit of a train. For my Winter costume, I wanted something that would feel actually warm, but also I realized none of my outfits were trousers. Since that seemed a pity, I decided at least one of them should get trousers. There’s a little 1890s/1900s in this one with those sleeves and the cut of the bodice. Boots and a fur trimmed hat complete the outfit.

You can, of course, check out Julie’s takes on these two themes over on her blog. They’re great! I especially like like the hat to go with the 18th century gown.

Witchtober- The Sea and The Kitchen

Printable paper doll coloring page with two dresses for Halloween 2022. Witch themed for October! One dress is a sea inspired and the other dress is Kitchen inspired

Download the PDF to Print | The Rest of This Project

So, Julie let me know she might be a day or two late with her designs which is 100% cool with me. As she once said to me when I was fretting about something, “We draw ephemeral paper toys for a hobby. Don’t worry about it.”

And truer words were never spoken.

On that note, let me just say, October has been a lot. September was a lot, but I kept naively thinking it would get better in October while somehow forgetting that my work always get bananas in October. Forward motion, though right? Right…

You know, it’s funny, I really wanted to add Sea Witch to our concepts for this, but not because I was thinking Ursula of the Little Mermaid or something. It was because I really really wanted to draw a cute witches’ hat covered in sea shells.

But once I’d drawn a cute witches hat covered in sea shells, I realized, I have no idea where to go with the outfit.

So, I settled on a sort generic sailor dress which was like version 7 of this.

The other dress came to me much faster. I really liked the idea of a “1950s housewife retro thing” and I designed the little skull and crossbones to look like that poison warning. I almost drew a very similar witches hat to the one I did for my Bones design, but then I thought there should me more witches hat variety.

I can’t wait to see what Julie has done with these themes and I’ll be sure to link her’s just as soon as I see it. Being that we are in two very different timezones, it might will probably go up before I see it. So, check out Paper Doll School over the next few days and keep your eyes out.

Julie has shared an amazing sea and kitchen witch. They are both super cool! Go check them out here.

Witchtober- The Bones & The Birds (Or Bird Bones in this case.)

Download the PDF to Print | The Rest of This Project

So, the first two themes, Julie and I chose were Bones and Birds…. Well, actually, Julie chose the themes, because I saw the list and I had immediate decision paralysis.

My capacity is super limited once the school year starts, plus October is National Archives Month. So, my job tends to decide that we’re going to do “all the things” and I am left feeling a little dazed. It’s fun, but.. it is also a lot. Needless to say, October is never the easiest time of year for me.

And it snowed yesterday… which I am sort of bitter about. Sure, I live less than an hour from the Arctic circle, but that doesn’t mean I want it to snow.

Anyhow, the “bones” dress was inspired by 1950s pinups and the dress on the right- the “Birds” dress was inspired by 1930s slinky evening gowns. I was nervous about drawing a raven skull, but I think it came out pretty well, all things considered. I thought the back drapes of the gown felt a little like wings.

If you missed the doll, you can grab her here. If you need more additions to this wardrobe, Julie Matthews is my partner in crime here and you can check out her contribution over on Paper Doll School. It’s lovely.

Tune in next Monday for another set of gowns for our Halloween witch.

Welcome to Witchober: A Paper Doll Project with Julie Matthews!

A witch Halloween coloring page printable paper doll with one dress and accessories.

Download the PDF to Print | The Rest of This Project

It seems obvious to me that there’s no better holiday for paper dolls than Halloween. So, I am happy to share this Halloween coloring page featuring the first of what will be a month of paper dolls featuring this stylish witch and her stylish wardrobe.

I was super psyched in my planning for the month of October when Julie of Paper Doll School reached out and suggested we go back to our paper dolling roots and do some sort of joint project. The last time I attempted a collaborative project was in 2019 and I lost steam around September and never finished it. Of course, that was also around the same time I was diagnosed with some pretty serious medical stuff, so I guess I shouldn’t be too hard on myself.

So, this year, Julie suggested a Witchtober theme. She drew a super fantastic paper doll. I played Dr. Frankenstein in photoshop and put a head I drew on the doll and we are off to the races. The first dress, we both decided would be a basic “witch” dress.

Then we agreed on 8 different themes from this list by Juan Joltaire of witch themes for October. The idea is to post two outfits on a page and share them once a week on Mondays.

I’ll be totally honest- I am not confident I’ll get through the whole month. I’ve already discovered that with the size of the doll and my tendency to draw gowns… layouts might get creative, people! I may need to stop including the stand in the dresses… I did that for my first few pages and it adds a lot of space…. thinking…thinking…

Anyway, I figure even if I don’t get all 8 outfits done and posted on the Mondays of October, it’ll still be a fun distraction!

And a big thank you to Julie for not only designing the doll, but also making the super cool frame around the doll! Her version is also super neat.