Thoughts on Today’s Paper Doll Sometimes, I have a lot to say about a paper doll set. Other times, not so much. This is falling into the not so much category, as are most of my posts this week. Sorry. I just don’t have that much to say about these paper dolls.
When it came to coloring today’s paper doll, I decided to go a little cliche and just do blue eyes and blond hair. Of course, there is a black and white version you can color anyway you like if you’d prefer a different combo.
Inspiration for Today’s Paper Doll For Ruby, I chose to go very casual with her shoes. Mostly, because the other version of Ruby has such formal shoes. I figured she didn’t need another set of super formal shoes. Her hair was my attempt to practice drawing short hair. I love pixie cuts, but I don’t draw them much.
Last Thoughts Totally unrelated to paper dolls, but I’ve been binge watching Umbrella Academy on Netflix. I have two episodes left. It’s so fun! I find the exploration of how messed up having super powers would probably make you super interesting even if some of the content is a bit cliche.
Also, if you love the blog and want more paper doll content there’s Patreon. You get extra paper doll content and fun perks like polls and things.
Thoughts on Today’s Paper Doll So, today’s version of Pearl can, of course, share shoes with armored Pearl from January.
I really try hard to have a variety of skin-tones in my paper dolls. I also want versatility, which means limiting myself to some degree. It’s a hard line to walk and I am constantly debating the tension between versatility and variety.
There’s also a practical consideration which is that a lot of nuance doesn’t translate to print well. I assume most people print my paper dolls on home-printers and I’m aware their color registration isn’t always great. So, tiny variations in skin-tone or hair color won’t be picked up.
Inspiration for Today’s Paper Doll Um…. I don’t really got much. I did want to celebrate summer with her sandals, so I tried to chose summery colors and I wanted at least one pair of have painted toenails. I love a nice pedicure in the summertime.
Last Thoughts So, I confess that I’m not totally happy with her hair. I was going for a layered bob, but I don’t think I quite captured it.
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And tune in tomorrow for Ruby whose getting a blond version. Anyone who has followed me for a while, knows that I seem to rarely do blond paper dolls. I think it’s because when I grew up there were so many blond paper dolls and I always wanted redheads.
What were your favorite paper dolls when you were a child?
Thoughts on Today’s Paper Doll When I first began this paper doll series back in January, I created two versions of each of the dolls. One was the version I posted, the other version just had shoes (as I often do with dolls) and I held onto them until I had some clothing posted. Now that I have over 20 outfits for the Jewels and Gemstones, I figured it was time to introduce a few more dolls. So, today and tomorrow (and possibly the rest of the week) there will be second versions of dolls I’ve already posted who will have the same skin-tone and therefore can share shoes.
Inspiration for Today’s Paper Doll I think I’ve waxed poetic enough time that folks know I love micro-braids. When I was designing these dolls I kept thinking about versatility. So, her black shoes are fancy evening pumps. Her sandals are fun and could be paired with jeans and her white and blue pumps are work appropriate.
Specific Source Images: I probably dug around on Pinterest to find a source of a person with the right angle of their head who had braids in a bun, but if I didn’t I can’t find it now.
Last Thoughts So, I confess that I have got a super busy week ahead of me and I am recovering from illness from last week. Ugh, life gets so complex sometimes! But hopefully everything will go smooth and the blog should update as normal.
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Inspiration for Today’s Paper Doll This is a case where there were super specific source images. Classic Lolita is very much Victorian influenced (yay!) and sometimes a bit less matchy-matchy than the other Lolita styles. I had a lot of fun creating this Lolita coordinate.
Thoughts on Today’s Paper Doll In the world of Lolita fashion (which is a street fashion from Japan), the outfits are called coordinates. This references the extreme level of coordination each outfit entails. Unlike in contemporary US fashion where “matchy-matchy” isn’t a good thing, Lolita fashion encourages thematic dresses.
A strawberry coordinate, therefore, might not just have a dress with strawberries on it, but strawberry purse, cardigan, shoes, tights and a color matched wig.
This is, in fact, part of what I find so charming about Lolita fashion.
So, today’s Valentine’s Day paper doll outfit is a heart based coordinate. I could have also done a card, letter based coordinate, but I wasn’t that creative.
Inspiration for Today’s Paper Doll Sweet Lolita is today’s theme which is a Lolita style that most folks are most familiar with. Lots of pastel and things. I chose to draw a JSK (jumper-skirt) over a white blouse. Initially, I thought about making these pieces separate, but as it turned out that didn’t work very well from a paper doll engineering standpoint.
Specific Source Images:This JSK (jumper-skirt) from Angelic Pretty. This purse from MILK.
Thoughts on Today’s Paper Doll Pierrot is a stock character of pantomime and commedia dell’arte, a semi-improvised form of Italian masked theater that had a huge impact on the arts of Europe. It’s one of the oldest forms of clowning. And by clowning, I don’t mean the sort of half-decent party clown, I mean the highly difficult art form that often requires actors to wear masks, do acrobatics and be funny- all the same time. Respect clowns. It’s a darn hard art form.
Pierrot developed in the late seventeenth-century, making him a younger stock character than most of the other stock male characters in commedia dell’arte. Interestingly, Pierrot has evolved over the years. He started out as a naive buffoon, pining after the beautiful Columbina, but inevitably losing out to Harlequin (another stock character) and never learning his lesson. Over time though, the sort of innocence of Pierott became seen as a sympathetic character.
Interestingly, Pierrot is also heavily featured in artwork. Often see as representing the innocence of the artist in the cruel unforgiving world. It also helps, not doubt, that his traditional outfit is so distinct- white face, white smock, loose white pants. I love how the costumes of commedia dell’arte stock characters are so distinct. You know immediately who is who which was, one should note, kind of the point.
One of these day’s I’ll do Harlequin or Columbina, but I haven’t gotten around to that yet.
Inspiration for Today’s Paper Doll Obviously, today’s Pierott inspired outfit is based on Pierott’s traditional outfit of white smock, loose white pants, fluffy buttons, hat and ruff around his neck. I modified it, obviously, but that’s the basic theme. Sometime around the 1920s, Pierott’s costume added black to the white. You don’t see it much before that. There’s also some gender-bending in that era where you see very feminine Pierott images appearing. So, my lady costume for Pierott isn’t totally out of the realm of possibility.
Last Thoughts A few of my favorite Pierott’s in art include- Schwarzer Pierrot from 1908 by Fritz Erler, Pierrot & Arlecine (Harlequinn) from 1914 by Russian artist Alexandre Jacovleff, and Self-portrait as Piero from 1911 by Zinaida Serebriakova. If you’re interested in checking out a few more of the clown.
I actually have a strange affection in my heart for masked theater. If you can actually find some that is well done, it’s a really fascinating art form. I digress.
My Friday Patreon outfit is also theater inspired, but in a more circus sense. Join us on Patreon if you’d like to check it out. Support through Patreon is what keeps PTP around.
Do you like clowns? Do they freak you out? (No shame if they do.) I personally am cool with clowns (and have known a few), but I admit that the sterotypical clown outfits do nothing for me.
Thoughts on Today’s Paper Doll I would probably draw nothing but fantasy dresses for quite some time and never get bored, because there’s so much history to fashion to dip into a try. People have been wearing clothing for pretty much, well, ever. So, it’s a huge deep pool of neat stuff to pull ideas from.
Inspiration for Today’s Paper Doll Today’s paper doll gown is very much a renaissance inspired gown, though it’s not historically accurate in anyway. By the way, the dress is really close to Italian renaissance styles which the high waist and the split sleeves that show off the shift underneath.
Specific Source Images: I didn’t really look at anything while I was drawing it (the perk of spending so much of my free time collecting clothing images), but if you’re interested in similar styles here’s a few options: This gown, this gown and this gown.
Last Thoughts I love drawing super detailed pattern motifs, like the one above, until I am coloring them. While I am coloring them a little piece of me cries and cries and wonders what I did it. Such a pain to color!
Thoughts on Today’s Paper Doll Okay, so I know I’m not supposed to have favorites, but I do. And this Walking Dress was one of my two favorite dresses I drew for Monday’s Regency paper doll.
My other favorite is a morning dress that is going up for my Patrons on Patreon on Friday.
Today’s walking dress was a form of half-dress, for those keeping track, which means we’re really only missing undress (the more informal of options), but if you’re a Patron, one of those will be up Friday.
Inspiration for Today’s Paper Doll Occasionally, I see something I just want to draw it. That was what happened with this amazing fashion plate. I was in love the moment I saw it. I was a little worried about the ruff at the neck, but I think it came out okay.
Last Thoughts If you’re super observant, you might notice that the cuffs on this dress are the same as the cuffs on the day dress. This cuff style was super popular. When you see a style popping up on multiple garments, it’s usually evidence that people were into it.
Friendly reminder that if you want to see a morning dress tomorrow, join us on Patreon. 2 dollars a month gets you an extra paper doll dress every Friday.
So, which dress this week has been your favorite? Personally, I’m a big fan of today’s dress. Let me know in a comment.
Thoughts on Today’s Paper Doll There’s a perception that the Regency era was all white dresses, white stockings and white shoes. Never mind the fact that there is still mud in the 1800s and there’s not the kind of laundry capacity we have now. I knew I wanted to do a richly colored day dress in patterned cotton.
Day dresses were a form of undress or half-dress (as I mentioned yesterday). This dress is a more middle class style and certainly casual. Printed cottons were very popular in the era and this color is called Turkey red. The “turkey” part of the name refers to the country of Turkey, not the bird.
Her bonnet is a bit earlier than the dress- it’s a soft sort of style that was super popular before 1810 and then seems to fall out of fashion a bit for harder stiffer styles. I have one of those bonnets for tomorrow.
Inspiration for Today’s Paper Doll The dress’s silouhette comes from this gown from the V&A Museum. The print on the dress and the colors are from this swatch from Ackermann’s Journal. That was a fashion journal that included pasted in fabric/paper swatches.
Last Thoughts One of the challenges though of working in historical clothing is that I don’t know what would be considered “tacky”. Would it be tacky to combine blue stockings with green shoes and a red dress? Is this too much color? How would a woman of this period actually feel about this combination? I have no idea.
I just noticed there’s a tiny coloring error in this set. How embarrassing! I’ll get it fixed when I can. Probably not this week though (this week is a bit crazy).
I’m not planning to do a mourning dress, but how cool are these mourning dress fashion plates? I always think of the obsession with mourning clothing being a Victorian thing, but here’s the early stages.
So, what do you think of today’s dress? Love it? Hate it? Wish it was white? Let me know in a comment.
Thoughts on Today’s Paper Doll This is the first day of gown for the Regency paper doll I posted on Monday. Part of why I made this the first gown is that the shoes that go with this dress are with that Regency paper doll.
In the world of Regency clothing, there were three forms of dress- undress, half-dress and full-dress. Undress was most casual. Full-dress was most formal. Half-dress goes somewhere in the middle, but isn’t as easily defined. There’s a nice overview on Full-dress here.
Ballgowns, like today’s paper doll dress, were definitely full-dress. They were also really really low cut. So low cut, in fact, that I had to make the neckline higher to cover the stays I created. Sometimes, I kinda wonder how ladies stayed in these dresses before the era of fashion tape. I mean, one wrong move and you’d be flashing everyone at the party.
Inspiration for Today’s Paper Doll When I planned out my Regency fashion week, I knew I’d need a ballgown. And I love regency era ballgowns. I think they are so pretty! I chose a gown from 1818 in a rich gold color to illustrate and I accessorized with the required over the elbow gloves and a small bag which I’m not sure is really an accessory a women would have carried.
Last Thoughts I think I always picture the Regency as being nothing but white clothing, but really I kept seeing this rich yellow. I love color! So, any excuse to use it.
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What do you think of today’s ballgown? Your style or not? Let me know by leaving a comment.
