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.
I want to give a shout out to my Patrons without whom the blog wouldn’t be around. Thank you to all of them. Join up if you’d to get extra paper doll content & support the blog.
What do you think of today’s ballgown? Your style or not? Let me know by leaving a comment.
Thoughts on Today’s Paper Doll This is the first day of Regency Fashion Week. I am so psyched. I’ve been wanting to do historical clothing for the Jewels & Gemstones since the beginning. There’s this myth that in the past everyone was super hot and skinny (I blame Hollywood). I chose Amethyst as the model for this clothing, because there’s also this myth that everyone was white (I blame institutionalized racism).
Technically, the Regency only lasts from 1811 to 1820 in England. That’s just 19 years. However, the styles we think of as “Regency” stretch from about 1805 through about 1825 when the waist line begins to drop. It lowers steadily through the 1820s before settling at the natural waist around 1828 or so. Personally, I chose the term Regency for this week’s paper dolls, because I think it is the term most people know.
Inspiration for Today’s Paper Doll Okay, now we get to get specific. There’s a myth that in the early 19th century women didn’t wear corsets. This is not true. Women totally wore corsets, but since the styles were changing rapidly, there wasn’t a single silhouette. No woman with actual curves wants to not wear some sort of bust support. The corsets (or stays) of this era were generally less boned than those of the 18th century and were short or long, depending on the style. I chose a long set of stays, because I have been told by folks to know more than me, that for bustier women (and the Jewels paper dolls got curves) this is a more comfortable style.
The shift our Regency paper doll wears was adapted from one I found in a museum. Shifts are kinda… not terribly changing garments and I made the sleeves a bit shorter than I think they would have been, so I could accommodate evening gowns which often had very short sleeves.
One of the quirks of shoes of this era is that a lot probably laced up the ankles, but since the laces are often missing it is hard to tell from photos from museums of they had laces or not. I erred on the side of omitting the laces, but I am not sure that was the right decision.
Last Thoughts I could write so much more on this era and why I chose what I chose for the paper doll, but we’ve got all week for this. I am going to try to space out my thoughts and if I get a bit pedantic than please, be kind. The truth is that I love history and I love historical clothing and I could talk about it for hours.
Regency week happened, because it won the poll I put out for my Patrons (actually Space Princesses surged ahead at the last minute and beat it, but I was already started on the Regency stuff, so Space Princesses will be later). I also chose it, because I really love this era’s clothing (and I have a soft space in my soul for a good Regency era romance novel.)
What do you think? Looking forward to Regency week? Not sure it’s your thing? Do you have a favorite era of historical clothing? Let me know in a comment!
Thoughts on Today’s Paper Doll For the last few years, I have teamed up with some super talented other paper doll artists to create a shared paper doll project. This year, I designed the base doll and then everyone else got to draw clothing.
It has been a super fun project, as always, and I am looking forward to it.
Inspiration for Today’s Paper Doll The dolls were all based on a sort of traditional paper doll pose. The theme for the clothing this month was Trends of 2019. I chose to illustrate what I think will remain popular in fashion on the left- sleeve detail and skinny ankle pants.
On the right, I chose to get a little more experimental. If there was one thing I noticed on the Spring 2019 runways, it was fullness. Huge skirts. Huge sleeves. High necks. So, I adapted those things into a cocktail dress.
Last Thoughts My 2 dollar and up patrons, are getting an extra set of dolls today! I had a lot of fun designing them and hope you all enjoy them.
Also, this wouldn’t be any fun at all without my fellow artist, so be sure to check out the versions of this today’s theme from Paper Doll School, Miss. Missy’s Paper Dolls, Popculture and Paper Dolls and Paper Dolls by Cory. Cory did let me know he might be a bit late. That’s okay though. This is a fun project, not like… it’s not meant to be too serious.
By the way, what trends do you think will be in for 2019?
Thoughts on Today’s Paper Doll Winter fashion week was last week. I posted a bunch of stuff, but I didn’t have space on the pages to add the coats I had created. So, the coats got to wait until this week. These coats can, of course, stand alone, but they are in the same color schemes as this post, this post and this post.
Inspiration for Today’s Paper Doll I love beautifully tailored coats and while I don’t love puffer coats, I can not deny they are warm and very much in style right now. I keep seeing them all over the place.
Learn/See More On the Blog: The Winter Fashion Week Posts ( this post, this post, this post, and this post) and More Jewels & Gemstones Paper Dolls Around the Internet: Hmmm… They’re winter coats. I’m not sure what else to link to here. Last Thoughts Okay, I know I said today would be the Collab 2019 post and that’s because I seriously thought that today was going to the 31st. I got all confused with my dates yesterday. My bad! So, the 2019 collab will go up on the 31s5, forgive me.
For my 5 and 10 dollar patrons, your new Vivian gowns are up on the Patreon page. I hope you all enjoy them.
Do you like winter? I have mixed feelings. I like winter coats, but I can take of leave the cold weather. What do you think? Let me know in a comment.
Thoughts on Today’s Paper Doll As with a lot of the early stuff I drew for the Jewels and Gemstones paper dolls, I really wasn’t thinking much about theme or long term plans, as much as I wanted to try to draw a variety of things. So, this outfit was born, because I didn’t have any fantasy clothing that didn’t involve a skirt at the time. I drew the Viking inspired outfit that I posted a few weeks ago after this one.
I’m pretty sure I messed up the seam down the left leg, but I didn’t realize it until after I drew it. That’s okay. Every paper doll outfit is chance to improve my art, but I wanted to point it out. Occasionally I get an email about wanting to learn to draw and I think it is important to note that after drawing paper dolls for a long as I can remember, I am still learning constantly.
Inspiration for Today’s Paper Doll I love any movie involving “swashbuckling.” So, the Three Musketeers, anything with pirates and such. I love a good sword fight in a movie and these sorts of outfits always feel kinda of… pseudo-pirate, but not really pirate to me.
Learn/See More On the Blog:Another Favorite Pseudo-Pirate Paper Doll & More Jewels & Gemstones Paper Dolls Around the Internet: If you haven’t ever checked out Armstreet, they are Euporean based company that makes historical and fantasy clothing. Never bought anything from them, but their website if full of lovely ideas.
Last Thoughts I’d like to thank all my Patrons who voted in my poll to help me prioritize my drawing. Thanks to them, we will be having Space Princesses! There will be Patron only posts chronically the designing and drawing of space princesses, so join us and you can see those too.
Tomorrow, there will be the new 2019 paper doll collab! I’m super excited about this and there will be exclusive Patreon content with that, too!
This is Amethyst, the curvy girl paper doll with shoes! I’ve had so much fun drawing for my curvy Jewels and Gemstones paper dolls. She’s also available as a coloring page, if you prefer.
Thoughts on Today’s Paper Doll So, there’s something a little mass production about how I think about paper dolls sometimes. It’s like, if one is hard than two isn’t that much harder. This isn’t always the best trait in the world and I blame my father for it. He’s a man who always thinks in terms of manufacturing. I love him, but once in a while, I just want to make one batch of cookies (not three), you know?
Anyway, back when I was planning the Jewels and Gemstones debut I decided it would be just was easy to draw two of every doll (because really what’s one extra hairstyle?) as it would be to draw one and then I would have some built in backlog.
But wait, you say, I don’t recognize Amethyst from the first week.
And that is because she was a Patron exclusive when she debuted.
But this version is not, so now everyone gets to see Amethyst.
Inspiration for Today’s Paper Doll Her skin tone is based on Karen David whose in the show Galavant. Galavant hasn’t been on for a while, but I love that show with a passion that is no totally rational. Seriously, guys, it’s a sitcom with singing set in a medieval fantasy world. How could that possibly be bad?
Specific Source Images: Nothing super specific this time. I probably looked up sandals in Pinterest. I usually do.
Tomorrow, there will be a fantasy outfit with a sword and then we’ll see where the week takes us. Probably to coats, but I’m not sure yet.
As always, I love to hear about what you think of today’s paper doll, so please feel free to leave me a comment. (Right now, because my spam filter is acting up a bit, I am having to manually approve comments that go through the filter, so just be aware there might be delay between commenting and me seeing the comment and approving.)
Thoughts on Today’s Paper Doll As I was working on Winter fashion week, I knew I wanted a set of mix and match clothing options. So, a dress, jeans, sweater, skirt and top all seemed like logical pieces to include, plus I liked the idea of something else that could be worn with those super cute navy tights I drew for Tuesday’s outfit.
I’d already done black boots do with with Wednesday’s outfit, so I wanted brown boots to go with today’s outfit.
Inspiration for Today’s Paper Doll I wanted to mention that I use Pinterest a lot for collecting source images. So, I knew I wanted a skirt and boots, both of those come from Pinterest. The top was my creation. I wanted to keep with my geometric patterns that have been such a strong part of this collection.
Specific Source Images: These boots and this skirt, both of which I found on Pinterest.
Thoughts on Today’s Paper Doll So, today’s paper doll outfit is the one that inspired the whole idea of doing a winter fashion week. I came up with the idea for the sweater and then the pants. And then I thought, well one contemporary fashion outfit doesn’t make a whole wardrobe, so what if I did more…
And winter fashion week was born.
Inspiration for Today’s Paper Doll Confession: This whole sweater happened, because I rediscovered my shapes stencil. Meant for technical drafting, I am totally in love with drafting stencils like this one. You can pick them up at most office supply or craft stores like Micheals. I love mine.
Specific Source Images: Nothing really this time.
Learn/See More On the Blog: I’ve done other sets with sweaters before. Here is one of my favorite sweater heavy sets and here is another. Aso, more Jewels & Gemstones Paper Dolls Around the Internet: Hmmm… I got nothing. Last Thoughts Normally, I try to come up with interesting related links to my paper doll outfits, but today I’m pretty much drawing a blank. This paper doll outfit really was basically because I have a drafting stencil and I wanted to draw jeans. Every paper doll needs jeans.
Maybe not the most thrilling source images heavy post, but there you have it.
Over on Patreon voting is still open to help me prioritize my drawing plans. Poor fantasy armor week does not look like it is going to win. The four way time between Regency, 18th century, Lolita and Space Princess is thrilling. If you are a patron and haven’t voted yet- do so here– if you aren’t a patron, join and you can vote too.
Tomorrow, tune back in for a skirt and boots combo. In case you’re wondering- hey, where are the coats? Those ended up getting their own post. And that will probably go up next week.
