Okay, so I somehow got it in my head that I really wanted to try to put Citrus Summer on a vintage background- something that would feel like newsprint- a nod to comic paper dolls. Again, I wouldn’t recommend home printing this one, because the amount of ink you’d need would be a lot.
I stopped doing backgrounds on my paper dolls years ago, because I was trying to respect people’s home printers. However, I still think backgrounds are pretty! And I think they make a more artistic and interesting paper doll.
Something about the limited color scheme, the tones I chose for her, just seemed to speak to me to try this out.
Had I been really wanting to mimic comics, I could have redone my shading with sort of Ben-Day Dot look, but honestly, I haven’t found a Ben Day Dot brush that I like yet. I’ve always been a little conflicted about Ben-Day dots… I think as a black and white effect I like it more than when it was used as a coloring medium, like you see on comics.
If I ever find one I like, maybe I’ll dive into some Ben-Day dots or lines… I’ve always liked the look of copper plate engravings. Another thing I’d need a brush for… thoughts.
Seriously, a paper doll project that I respect so much was done by Boots back in 2015 when she redrew some amazingly wacky illustrations from Judy, the London serio-comic journal as paper dolls. Her line-work is an utter delight and she super captures the feel of the original.
Anyway, back to this paper doll, the background was done using the Phantom Paper Pack from RetroSupply. I tried several free paper backgrouds before, but man, sometimes tools are worth the money. This one was so much easier to use. It really was delightful and the micro-adjustments you can make using it are really great. Well worth the cost.
Okay, I think this is my last version of Citrus Summer. I don’t know what else I would do with her at this point! Let me know in the comments if you had a favorite version.
I decided to try flatting the paper doll in Photoshop and then moving it back into Procreate for details and shading.
(Side note: For those of you who didn’t develop your art-practice based on advice of web cartoonists in the early 2000s, flatting is how comics were traditionally printed. The color was printed so that it completely filled the page and then the black lines were printed on top of the color. I use a plugin in Photoshop called BPelt that allows me to “flat” solid black line-work and THEN go in an color it.
That process is explained in way more detail on this blog post from 2013. My version of Photoshop has changed, by the basic system hadn’t until… well, now.)
Anyway, after I flatted it and then added shadow and some other details, I imported it back into Photoshop.
My thoughts-
I still don’t totally love the eyes. I think they’re too tall and I’m going to work on the face of the doll.
Compared to the Newsletter Doll which she’s based off of, this doll has a less short waist which really does make drawing specific sorts of things much easier. (Proportions… am I right? I really should try to get better at figure drawing one of these days… )
I don’t know if I love shadows… I don’t dislike them, but they feel a little… I dunno. It feels very very digital… that’s not a bad thing, but I’m not sure how I feel about it.
I am thinking I need to break apart two different things I’m working on. One is learning to use Procreate and that is a matter of exposure.
And then there’s trying to tackle my intense fear of figure drawing and moving out of my comfort zone. That’s a matter of maybe taking a class and getting away from sharing things. So, that’s a totally different challenge. Fortunately my mom got me a sketchbook for my birthday this year and maybe that’ll be how I put that one to use.
Thoughts… thoughts…
Anyway, let me know what you think of this new paper doll. The flower in the background is just a stock one from Photoshop-it felt a little like a cut citrus fruit to me.
So, I thought I would try a sketchier looser style for this paper doll, but I’m not convinced it works. Generally, my rule of thumb is to never apologize for my work.
However, I also think it’s okay to talk about things I don’t think were super effective.
I actually don’t think I took the “looseness” far enough. The result is something that just sort of feels like my usual stuff, just a little more loosely colored and I don’t love that. It feels like it’s neither fish nor fowl. The trick to trying out a different style is that you need to “commit” to it and I don’t think I did.
The experience was valuable. I might be a little “meh” about the outcomes, but I’d not unhappy I tried it.
As I told someone recently, I have less of a comfort-zone and more of a comfort puddle. So, getting out of my puddle is very frightening. It’s a big world out there.
I’m also realizing that there’s some core functionality to the program Procreate that I still don’t 100% understand. That’s a big learning curve too- figuring out how to make it do what I want it to do and deciding if it is best tool for certain parts of the process.
Slowly but surely, I am getting there though.
Right now, I am thinking Procreate may end up like my sketchbook used to be and Photoshop will remain my preferred tool for final finishing work. It’s selection tools and resizing abilities are so much better than Procreate and I like how it’s text tools work (I still haven’t figured those out in Procreate.)
Oh, I have a link to the printable pdf, but as with my other experiments lately, I’m not 100% sure I’d recommend home printing due to the massive ink usage the background is going to take. I mean- you do you! But that would be my concern if I was going to do it.
So, I decided to dip my toes into color in Procreate with this paper doll. I also did some experimentation with noise and backgrounds and other things.
While I wouldn’t recommend home printing for this one, because the ink usage will be through the roof, I have added a link to the PDF if you feel the urge to try to see what happens if you do.
East of the sun and West of the Moon illustrated by Kay Nielsen in 1913.
You do you!
And if you do print it, it is scaled to mix and match with the 365 paper dolls.
I’ve been trying to sort out how to get texture. Of course, I think the effect doesn’t work super well unless you zoom in at which point, like maybe it doesn’t work at all?
Hmm….
So, here’s what I was trying to mimic…
One of the things I love very much is the illustrations of the turn of the century. Generally done with a trichromatic printing process (sometimes black was added and sometimes green was added, which is fascinating in it’s own right), the screens used result in a very specific texture to the solid colors in the prints. You can see it in classic illustrators like Arthur Rackham, Kay Nielsen, or fashion illustrations from things like Bon Ton. You can see the texture I’m talking about here and here.
Anyway, trying to archive that effect digitally is not as simple as you might think. So I have been experimenting with noise and other texture effects in Photoshop and Procreate. The result, however, is probably not “strong” enough to be obvious. This is one of the problems of working digitally- you are zoomed in or zoomed out or… whatever. It’s actually super hard to tell what the finished product is going to look like at true scale.
The other factor is that digital printing introduces a bit of noise and I don’t like how it looks, but only because it feels unintentional and I really really value being intentional in my work. I want control, or an active lack of control (hello ceramics, I’m looking at you.)
As I keep saying on these posts, Julie has been a huge help in referring me to tools to try to get this effect.
There are many tools and brushes and things for Procreate that it is super overwhelming. There’s a million different tools and things you can do with those. But I suspect I’ll eventually find 3 or 4 I like and use them 90% of the time. That tends to be how I roll.
But you can’t find the three or four you like without trying out a few dozen, so that’s been the current challenge.
Next up, I’ll be sharing an experiment using a less smooth brush and seeing what happens when I have a “rough” line texture. More on that one next week.
So, like what does it say when you share a piece with another artist and they immediately send you a tutorial and are like… you might want to watch this?
Personally, I think it says you have great friends who want you to improve and know you want to improve.
This is what happened when I emailed Julie Matthews all excited by my second finished digitally drawn paper doll where I proudly said I’d “varied my line-weight”. Julie nicely called my line weight variations “subtle” which I think is polite for “you can’t tell you did that, friend” and sent me this lesson from Proko on Line Weight which was really helpful.
Moral of this story, which I sort of told in this week’s email newsletter: If you want to get better at something, you need to have honest people who can give you informed feedback. So, become friends with people who are better than you at something and are kind enough to be willing to be honest with their observations. Be open to those things and improving your craft (whatever that is), becomes so much easier.
I am incredibly lucky to have Julie to help and her feedback consistently makes my work better.
I often think of this Neil Gaiman quote, “Remember: when people tell you something’s wrong or doesn’t work for them, they are almost always right. When they tell you exactly what they think is wrong and how to fix it, they are almost always wrong.” He was talking about writing, but the same thing applies to any creative piece of work. In art, there are “correct” things- like ‘hey, that foot is backwards,’ but once you get into choices that are purely aesthetic, then you need to listen to your own voice and your own taste. Make the art you want to see in the world. Not the art someone else wants to see in the world.
But as long as I am quoting Gaiman, I also think of this one a lot- “Remember that, sooner or later, before it ever reaches perfection, you will have to let it go and move on and start to write the next thing. Perfection is like chasing the horizon. Keep moving.” He’s talking about writing, clearly, but it is true of anything creative. You can endless edit. You can endlessly tweak.
I look at this paper doll and I see a dozen things I might “fix.”
That’s okay. Because there’s going to be a next time. So, the best thing I do can is share it here. Declare it done and make the next one.
There’s always a next one. Especially when you are, like me right now, learning new tools. You have to leave space for letting go and moving forward.
I’m going to keep this brief, since I wrote a lot of this up in the newsletter already (subscribe here) and I just don’t know if I want to repeat myself (or if anyone wants to read me repeating myself).
One of the weird/interesting things about creating the newsletter has been grappling with the transient/permanent nature of it. I’ve always thought of this blog as both an archive of my work and as a place where if I make a typo and notice three months later (which has 100% happened), I can fix it. However, the newsletters don’t work that way. Once they are sent, they are done.
And while there is an archive, they don’t feel as permanent as a series of blog posts.
Since the whole newsletter thing is an experiment to begin with, I am still trying to grapple with how I feel about all that.
Anyway, let’s talk paper dolls. So, her underwear is a generic set of short stays over a shift with stockings a shoes. My goal here wasn’t to reproduce anything specific, but to get to the basic idea of “generic underwear of this era” rather than getting into specifics. Her hair is a combination of portraits like this one and this one. I wanted a hairstyle that could easily be covered in bonnets or hats, which I knew I was going to be drawing with nearly every dress.
To start with the morning dress is from this November 1813 plate from La Belle Assemblee which, despite a very French sounding name, was published in London and aimed at the fashionable set. People thought all things French were more sophisitcated than all things English. Interestingly, a lot of places will credit La Belle Assemblee fashioj plates to France on the name alone. While many of the plates in the magazine are copies of French fashion plates, the publication was definitely English.
The morning walking dress is really just a gown with a pelisse over it. The pelisse and bonnet were inspired by this September 1813 plate from La Belle Assemblee, again. A pelisse was a coat that was cut the same style as the dress. They came in all different styles like this one or this one. Some were made from very lightweight fabrics, but others were warm and designed as coats. Sometimes it’s hard to tell from an illustration if you’re looking at a pelisse or a gown or something in between.
The first gown on the second page (working left to right, top to bottom) is a ballgown. Ballgowns were the most formal gowns women wore with the exception of court dress and court dress has never been a big interest of mine. Court dress was governed by all sort of rules and regulations- a realm I have never wanted to dive into. The ball gown is based on this one from the Museum at FIT. The turban is from this 1815 fashion plate. Turbans were super popular in the 1810s.
The dress with the spencer is basically a walking costume. The Spencer was a jacket version of the pelisse. Both were cut to follow the lines of the dress. Spencers come in all different styles. A few that inspired this one include this 1815 yellow silk version and this March 1812 version from Ladies’ Magazine.
The Ladies’ Magazine was published in London starting in August of 1770. If I am remembering my fashion history correctly, it was the first magazine to publish a fashion plate, though the idea was quickly copied by French and German publications. My understanding is that Ladies’ Magazine was less expensive than some of the other fashion magazines of the era and the quality of the fashion plates shows this difference. Still, it’s a pretty amazing document. I have digressed a lot from our paper doll, so let’s finish up with the dinner dress.
And that’s it! More, I am certain, than you wanted to know about Regency fashion and inspiration for this regency paper doll set. Tomorrow, I’ll share Vivian’s steampunk traveling suit for my Patrons.
Well, when I decided to shift to this newsletter and monthly update schedule, I did not consider the downsides. The biggest one being that it’s much harder for me to step away as might be needed from time to time. I need to think on that, but I am enjoying the newsletter most of the time.
This month has just been very busy with non-paper doll related tasks. The statewide library conference was in-person for the first time in years, so I went to that. And I have two more library related conferences I’m attending this year. Plus, I’ve been working on a side project that isn’t quite ready for prime time (soon it will be and I couldn’t be more excited). And I’ve been prepping things to become prints for the paper doll party in May. Any leftovers from the party, I plan to offer for sale on Etsy, so maybe that’ll be an interesting change of pace.
Anyway, about this paper doll set- I admit that I started on these paper dolls largely, because I wanted to work with an old Marisole Monday set- Fabulous Fairy that I’ve always had a fondness for. Originally, I had planned on drawing wings, but actually ended up running out of paper in a sketchbook and not having a back up one. Opps. I really didn’t want to deal with paper I didn’t like. So, needless to say, the wings never happened.
Influences were largely flowers and the fact that I like gardens. I’m not much of a gardener, though I keep thinking I should take it up. I rent, so I don’t really know if tearing up the yard would be okay. I do keep herbs on my porch when spring comes and I like flowers. Flowers are pretty, useful to insects, and smell nice. It’s hard to be opposed to them, really. Plus, you can eat some of them.
The other big influence over this drawing fantasy hair which I don’t get to do nearly as much as I’d like. I love complicated hairstyles. You can check out some of my influences on my fantasy section of my Hair pinterest board.
If you’re a patron, there will be a Vivian gown sometime next week (exact date depending on how life shapes up) and we’ll continue on from there.
