Ice skating, like most things that involve coordination, is not something I’m very good at. I occasionally watch other people and think, “That looks like fun.”
However, upon attempting the activity, I end up falling down a lot.
Never the less, I do like the clothing people wear to go ice skating and since I draw paper dolls, it seems to me that the clothing is the important part. Plus I thought these ice skating clothes would be a fun winter coloring page. It’s cold and dark outside, so coloring in front of a fire sounds like a pretty good time.
So, here we have a set of practice clothing for ice skating and a performance dress. I chose purple and black, because I like purple and black.
Not being an ice skater, I can’t speak to the accuracy of today’s ice skating ensembles, but I hope I didn’t screw up too badly. Maybe someone who does ice skate can let me know in a comment.
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First off 14th Century week continues with today’s surcoat over a kirtle and some headdresses. Second off Happy Thanksgiving to those who celebrated yesterday.
Surcoats were worn over kirtles (I did one of those on Wednesday). Like a lot of surcoats, today’s has slits in the front that provided access to the purse worn off the girdle underneath. Think of it as the 14th century solution to pockets.
Today’s paper doll surcoat with kirtle was inspired by the Romance of Alexander from the Bodleian Library MS. Bodl. 264. There’s a bunch of different examples of this short sleeved surcoat in there, but I based this dress off the red dress in this miniature and the blue dress (and pink dress) in this miniature.
One of the interesting things about those miniatures and many others from this era (check out my 14th Century Dress Pinterest board for more) is how many of them show women with their hair uncovered. Unlike later eras (and some earlier ones) the 14th century seems to be a time when women could go around without covering their hair.
(Women shown with uncovered hair in miniatures from other eras are often depicting vice and/or wickedness and this is indicated by the uncovered hair. The scandal of showing one’s hair in the 15th century was intense. )
However, some women did still cover their hair. Here’s one miniature with some hair covered and here’s another and here’s a third one. You also see head coverings in statuary. One thing I do when I am trying to decide what to include in these historical sets is to try to find multiple examples of something. That’s why you see some duplication of types of images on my 14th Century Dress Pinterest board.
That’s also why when I am dealing with an era I don’t know much about it can take me a long long time before I am comfortable drawing a paper doll of it. I learned a lot of history from Tom Tierney’s historical paper dolls and I want mine to be as helpful and accurate as I can make them.
If you want some say in the time periods I create paper dolls for, think about supporting the blog on Patreon. I tend to listen to my Patrons when they make requests. Here’s a post about what patrons have made possible from earlier this week.
Have you enjoyed 14th Century week? Let me know. I love to hear from you.
In the world of 14th century dress in Europe, there’s a lot of layers. On Monday, you got to see the shift, the stockings and the shoes which were the first layers. Over that, women wore a kirtle.
Technically, add a girdle (belt) to keep your purse (which was also as close as anyone got to having pockets in the 14th century) and you were fulling dressed. This kirtle example has a spiral laced front and buttons on the cuffs.
Her girdle is based on this example. I looked at a lot of carved sculptures of the Virgin Mary when designing this set like this one and this one.
Her shoes come from Stepping Through Time by Olaf Goubitz. It’s a great resource. Her stockings would have been held up by garters, because bias cut wool doesn’t stay up on its own. However, based on my current understanding, the stockings would be rolled down over the garters to cover them, so that’s why the garter’s aren’t visible.
If you want a historical doll to wear this example of 1300s clothing, than you can go grab Alice whose wearing a shift and has many pair of period shoes.
Right now, I am thinking about what to do with Paper Thin Personas in 2019. I have a poll and please answer it if you haven’t.
I have had several requests for early fashion history paper dolls and this week I am sharing a whole week of 14th century clothing from Europe. This is not how they were dressing in the Yuan and Ming Dynasties of China, for example. Though someday maybe I’ll feel confident enough to try out historical Chinese dress (it’s really interesting).
Her shift is a bit more fitted than they probably would have been in the real world, but that’s because paper dolls don’t have the benefit of fabric and the layering gets to be an issue. It’s based on one of the few shifts I could find in manuscript illustration. It comes from Roman de Giron the Courtois which is a manuscript held in the National Museum of France under the call number NAF 5243. The illustration I used is on folio 87v. It’s also on a few other pages as well.
Her shoes all come from the excellent, though rather dry, book Stepping Through Time by Olaf Goubitz. It took me months to find a copy at a reasonable price, but it’s an excellent source full of drawings of archaeological footwear finds. If you know, that’s your kinda thing.
As always, a big thank you to my Patrons and if you’d like to help out the blog by making a donation, you can do that over on the Patreon page.
Also, I’m doing a poll! I posted this on my Patreon page, but I didn’t get a lot of responses, so I am hoping if I post it here I might get more. Plus I know Monday is my highest traffic day.
[poll id=”22″]
As always I reserve the right to ignore the outcome if I feel like it. 🙂 Anyway, enjoy today’s paper doll and if you have a moment, let me know what you think about 2019.
When I was looking at the all the B Pose dolls, I realized that I’d not really done one that was “steampunk” inspired. So, it wasn’t hard to decide to make the third version of Batari as a steampunk dress up doll that you can print. I mean, she could also just be a girl with a red bob. I suppose the difference is not exactly extensive.
Also, she has navy toenail polish which I think is super fun.
It’s been so long since I designed this paper doll, I really can’t recall what my inspirations were. If you head over to my Steampunk Pinterest Board, you’ll find plenty of steampunk fashion inspiration.
Right now, I am doing a poll about what I should create in 2019, if you have a moment, please hop over to the Patreon page to vote. Also, I’d love to hear if you have a comment, so feel free to let me know there or here.
I’m going to close out this week with steampunk paper doll styles. This is the first and then there will be a steampunk B Pose paper doll to wrap up the week. Next week, I’ll be debuting a new paper doll post image style (I hope) or I won’t get it anything done and I’ll have to go on hiatus to catch up.
At least I’m honest, right?
Meanwhile, I really wanted to design a steampunk paper doll costume that wasn’t “fancy” and felt a little more like what a working person in a steampunk world might wear. I decided to do a similar color scheme for today’s outfit as I did for steampunk Changrui which was a big inspiration, I confess.
Sometimes when I am drawing one paper doll set quickly brings me to another paper doll set in a sort of paper doll cascade.
What do you think? Do you prefer your steampunk more “street” or more “fancy” with ruffles and top hats? I’d love to hear your thoughts in a comment.
Today’s paper doll dresses were inspired by retro-rockabilly styles. I’ve been thinking about rockabilly dresses ever since I posted this version of Aisha and Julie, of Paper Doll School, suggested that the pink haired version needed some rockabilly dresses in pastels.
Well, I confess that pastels just didn’t seem seasonal, so I went with autumn tones (which perhaps don’t go as well with the pink hair), but if you head over to the Patreon page you can download the spring time pastel version.
Meanwhile, there maybe some changes coming to the blog in the new year, so I’ll be putting up some polls looking for thoughts and I hope folks will respond.
And, as always, if you like the blog consider donating to the blog, following me on Instagram, or leaving a comment.
One of the things I love to do is draw paper doll clothing from fashion catalogs and magazines. Clear pictures are useful, but so it seeing clothing I might not have thought up myself.
This set of paper doll fashions were based on the latest Autumn trends. Sleeve details and ruffles are not super popular. So are blouses, so here we have some blouses with sleeve details. To go with this pair of blouses, there is a pair of skinny jeans tucked into boots. The paper doll also has a matching purse.
Today’s paper doll post is a big skirted princess fantasy dress- one of my favorite styles to explore. I’ve done quite a few of these dresses for the B pose ladies before. You might remember my fall steampunk inspired one from a few weeks ago.
I am prepping for some quick travel over the next few days, so this post is going to be short. I still have to figure out how to fit all my liquids in a single baggie.
Meanwhile, I had a lot of fun drawing this retro science fiction astronaut. I know I haven’t done a real astronaut yet, but I am having so much fun with these zany retro ones.
For those of you who don’t know, I keep Pinterest boards as one of my favorite ways to collect images. My Retro Futuristic Fashion board has all sorts of images that influenced today’s paper doll.
Also, if you have a moment and want to do me a favor, there’s a poll about the blog post images over on Patreon. You can vote even if you’re not a Patron and I hope you do! It’s all about how the post images I create of each paper doll set should look.
And speaking of voting, if you are in the USA, I hope you will vote on Tuesday (or perhaps have voted already, if you live in a state that allows that). It’s super important to vote, so please go vote!
