Printable Paper Dolls

Jessica: City Girl

Today’s paper doll is named after a friend in middle school who always said she was going to leave Juneau and head off into the city down south (when you’re in Alaska, the habit is to call anything outside of the state “South”. It’s a matter of perspective I suppose). Eventually, I think she ended up at college in New York, so I suppose it worked out for her, though I lost track of her since then.

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It’s funny how people we’re close with at one point in our lives drift away from us later. I hadn’t thought about Jessica until I was trying to name this paper doll and then for some reason she came back to me. Odd how the mind works.

Coloring the paper dolls is always a bit of a crap shoot. How they show up after converting them into PNG’s is always a bit of a shock. Colors are always more muted. Sometimes I like it, but it can play havoc on skin tone. I think I managed okay with Jessica’s coloring, but I wish the brightness of the coat had converted better. Oh well, I suppose I’ll just have to keep messing with formats.

She’s also the first paper doll to be posted in a vertical print format, not a landscape print format. Just something to remember when you’re printing out the PDF.

Fashion Doll Friday: Florence’s Swimming Costume and Seaside Walking Dress

Strangely, the seaside walking dress is drawn from a fashion plate which depicts a woman standing on a cliff face, as though she’s been hiking. This leads me to suspect the dress was actually intended for seaside walks and the shorter skirt also hints at this option. I would doubt if women actually wore such a thing hiking, but I have seen photographs of women in the 1900’s wearing high heels standing on a Glacier, so I don’t doubt they did it.

A seaside walking dress and a swimming costume for Florence, a Victorian paper doll.

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Who said fashion was practical?

The swimming costume has a cap with it to cover Florence’s paper hair. Though it was drawn after a plate, her hair style made it a little more awkward then it otherwise would have been. Still, as reader pointed out when I first posted the paper doll’s swimming costume I had forgotten to give her the swimming cap any Victorian lady would have worn over her hair. I have not omitted it this time proving I am trainable.

Here is Florence, the paper doll whose supposed to wear this fantastic swimsuit and seaside walking dress.

Curves: A Little Rebel

Mostly, these printable paper doll clothes were an excuse to draw spikes. I like spikes. Also, they are good practice for me. They are also a bit late, but I hope I shall be forgiven.

Curves: A Little Bit Rebel Punk Paper Doll

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I’ve been working nearly full time to make up hours lost while I was in classes. It’s been time consuming, exhausting and I just kinda want to curl up and sleep. Still, I promised myself I would do better with paper dolls and the blog. I hope by trying to schedule more and have more things pre-planned that it will smooth some of the rough edges of things.

Anyway, it is late and I am tired. Enjoy the paper doll.

Marisole Monday: Feeling Blue

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As a paper doll, Marisole provides a few options which the other paper dolls on the site don’t. One of those is to play around with mix and match clothing options which is what I tried to do with this set of paper doll clothes. I wanted to show a variety of options which were available with one dress and several vests, cloaks, jackets which could be placed over it. I stuck to a blue based color scheme when my red based color scheme just didn’t work out very well.

So, my original idea was that Marisole here was some sort of exotic noble lady in a world where fabric (being handmade) was extremely expensive. The resulting society would rely on accessory pieces to turn a simple gown into a lovely dress for a variety of occasions. And since fabric was at a premium, absurd hairstyles could be the status part of a ladies attire. (It is also entirely possible, I just like drawing absurd hairstyles. I would not rule this out.)

Though Marisole’s family has some money, they are not absurdly wealthy. Perhaps some bad investments many years ago have dwindled the family fortunes. So, she must make-do with one dress and a few other pieces to shine in. Her elaborate hairstyle is a sign of her noble status, but she relies on her beautifully made outer garments to keep herself up to date.

Lady of the Manor Part 4

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I almost didn’t post this paper doll dress for the Lady of the Manor. I felt like I had left her alone for so long that I wasn’t sure it was worth finishing her, but then I felt like I had this last dress and it was scanned, so I might as well post it anyway.

I might have more to write about it in the morning, but I am very tired tonight, so I think I’ll crawl into bed. Enjoy the ballgown.

Florence’s Traveling Suit: An 1870s Paper Doll Fashion

Today we have a traveling suit for Florence’s trousseau. I have known I needed one of these for her, so I went onto finding a fashion plate.

Autumnal traveling suits for Florence from 1873.

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Florence’s paper doll traveling costume is based on this fashion plate from the NYPL’s digital gallery (I say based on because it is fairly obvious where the paper doll clothes and the actual plate deviate). The dress is labeled in German and my German is practically non-existent.

Kleid aus einfarbiger und gest... Digital ID: 804190. New York Public Library

I’ve been meaning to ask my German speaking co-worker to translate it for weeks and keep forgetting. I tried babelfish and it didn’t exactly work. It game me an answer, but the answer made no sense. Truth be told, I don’t know if its a traveling suit or not, but it looks fairly similar to others I have seen. Anyway, Florence is my paper doll and if I want to declare this her traveling costume, I darn well can. My life might be full of other sources of chaos, but my paper dolls do as they are told… sometimes.

Suits for women were in style in the 1870’s, so it seemed only reasonable to give Florence one, since she is the most fashionable of paper dolls. I also wanted to use the opportunity to make a few tops to go with the same skirt or several skirts. I expect I shall do this more often and a smart color-er of these paper doll clothes would be wise to consider this for future mix and matchable clothing options. It was common to have two bodices to go with one skirt during this era, so one bodice might be a formal dinner dress while the other bodice would be an afternoon or a visiting costume. The very smart lady (or paper doll, in our case) could, of course, turn an afternoon costume into a visiting costume by adding the right jewelry and a smart hat.

Here is Florence, just in case you missed the first post in this series.

1860’s Black and White Printable Paper Doll with Curves

When I was a kid, I always wanted one of those cakes with the doll sticking out of it. You know, the kind where the skirt is made up by cake and the doll comes out the top. (Here’s a picture, for those of you who weren’t doll obsessed children in the early 90’s) Now, whenever I see the dresses of the mid-1860’s when the hoop was at its widest, I think of those doll cakes. Of course, all fashion is about swings. A item of clothing reaches its most extravagant and then slides out as something else enters to replace it, just as the length of shirts have gone from belly-shirts to tunics in the last fifteen years or so, the hoop skirt’s width moved from all around towards the back until it eventually transformed into the bustle. By the mid-1870’s, it was hard to see how it had ever once been a full hoop skirt.

1860s Curves paper Doll

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The advantage of such a wide skirt is that it calls attention to a tiny waist and the women of this ear were well aware of the allure of that feature, so belts were much in vogue. Curves has traveled back in time for a moment, to embrace this gown from 1861.

Now, I knew I couldn’t fit Curves in period hoops and the size of the skirt on the same image, so I put the paper doll in a modern set of underwear. Perhaps, she is a Civil War re-enactor. That gets me out of the whole- why isn’t she wearing a corset and hoops and all the things a woman in 1860 wore under her dress.

Zombie Chic- An Undead Paper Doll to Print

Like a zombie from the dead, PTP has returned.

Drawing a zombie paper dolls was the source of some slight worry when I turned down a shopping invite because, and I quote, “I need to draw clothing for a dead chick.”

It’s a good thing my friends know me.

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Of course, like any paper doll, dead or otherwise, the clothing is the most important printable paper doll bit, so here we have a nice set of clothes for the printable zombie version of Marisole. But no shoes. I couldn’t seem to get them right.

Truth be told, doing this Marisole set meant I could be a little messier then I usually am. I let myself have rough edges and I didn’t freak out when my inking went bad. It was okay. After all, she was a zombie and distressed fashion was totally all right. Sometimes, I think the absurd and the playful reminds me why I draw paper dolls to begin with.

Ball-Jointed Doll: Paper Doll Coloring Sheets to Print

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{Download a PDF of this Three Page Paper Doll Set}

I don’t think I’m very good at cute (though I am getting better), but I do think this is a pretty cute set. The clothing was inspired by the beautiful garments made by Boneka Company. I drew this paper doll while visiting my grandmother who doesn’t have Internet. So, I always get a lot of paper dolling, card playing and reading done when I go and see her. Also, I get my butt kicked at cribbage. Still, all fun and games with the family.

Marisol Monday: Punky Girl Paper Doll

So, I have this fantasy. It involves ice cream and pie, but also having like saved paper doll posts so that they go up automatically and I’m not constantly scrambling to throw something together while trying to sound like I know what I’m doing. Never in my fantasy is it late at night and I’m staring at my computer screen thinking… Oh god, now I have to say something intelligent.

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The sad part is that I’m pretty witty when I’m not staring at a computer screen at 10:00 pm at night.

(In case you’re wondering, I draw my posts the night before they go up, so most of the time they go up at 12:00 am my time- used to be Alaska time, but I am in the mid-west these days with soybeans and corn. Also since I entered grad school, posts going up at midnight is rarer and rarer.)

My best friend in high school was a punky girl. She still may be, though I haven’t seen her in nearly four years, a fact I am saddened by now that I realize it. Besides being one of the inspirations for Curves and one of the smartest people I know, she had the guts to wear punk clothing in a small isolated town before the days of ubiquitous internet shopping.