Printable Paper Dolls

A Stylish Paper Doll July: The Rose Ballgown

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Am I allowed to have favorites? Because I 100% do right now.

This rose fantasy dress absolutely encapsulates what I am discovering I love about working on my ipad and working digitally.

Layers!

So, my original plan was to draw this dress, though I did adapt it a bit. I changed the ruched bottom piece to a ruffle, added a second layer of roses and did a few other things. The point is that as I was working on the bodice, I realized it could be a totally separate piece.

And this got me thinking about Victorian dresses with several bodices to pair with one skirt.

And then I remembered playing paper dolls with my niece and how she didn’t like the skirts, because they didn’t stay on the dolls very well (and these big skirts don’t unless you add some extra paper strips in the back to hold the skirt against the doll.

And then I was like, but I could make the drees strapless, add a few tabs to the bodice for additional security and then design the bodices to go over the top of the dress.

So, in the end, we have a dress with four different bodices and one jacket.

I couldn’t be more pleased with the outcome.

The only thing that I think could be more fun would be a second skirt option, because then you’d double your outfit potential with just one more piece. But that’s unlikely to happen… well, this month, anyhow.

A Stylish Paper Doll July: Ruffled Evening Gown

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Source

As I try to find ways to beat the heat, I’m pleased to share this fully frilly gown with some boning that I drew. I drew it because I saw the skirt and I thought… That looks hard to draw.

And then I was like, therefore I should try it, because I should try something that I think looks hard. I did end up changing some of the tiers, but all in all, I think it came out pretty well. I also altered the neckline, because the dolls don’t have on the right underwear for such a low cut neckline.

I do sort of regret not trying to get the texture from the bodice in the source image, but I’m not sure how I would have pulled that off anyway. Need to think on that one.

Also, I am working on adding my remaining prints and paper doll books to Etsy as product listings which means taking photos (not my strong suit, but I am working on it) and so I hope I can debut those soon. Though given how hot my office (and usual photo space) is at the moment, that might not happen until the heat breaks here.

A Stylish Paper Doll July: Fantasy Adventuring Armors

A printable paper doll coloring page of fantasy armor with a padded gambeson, leggings and boots.
A printable paper doll coloring page of fantasy armor with a sword.

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And now I am pleased to say we are all caught up with this paper doll project! Woo!

I wanted to do something that really let me play with fantasy stuff like armor since I hadn’t done much of that. I had ideas for chainmail, but never could get it to look right without manually drawing every link. I almost bought a brush for it, but then I have have mixed experiences paying for brushes. Some are amazing and some are kind meh. It’s tough, because you can’t really test it before you pay for it.

Anyway, I’m really happy with how both of these came out even if I didn’t end up sorting out my chainmail challenges. Rather then chainmail, I went with a padded gambeson (which I think is the right name… for the quilted padded jackets people wore as armor back in the day or sometimes under plate armor) for one and the other I did a bit more of a fantasy breastplate thing. All five pieces can mix and match, so there really quite a few options.

One thing that this digital process does that my physical process doesn’t do is that it is MUCH faster. The speed at which I can go from sketch to inking to posting is massively increased. Mostly, this is a good thing, but there is one major downside.

One of those downsides is that the human eye tends to miss things. We see as much what we “think” we are seeing as we see what is actually there.

So, I do find when I look at some of these posts I notice little things I don’t think are quite right- like I am not sure about the gauntlets on both the sets. The angles seem… maybe not quite right.

In the long term, this probably means building in a “rest” period and learning some tricks for looking at my digital art more critically. Learning things like that was sort of the point of this whole project.

A Stylish Paper Doll July: Evening Gowns 22 and 23

A paper doll evening down to color and cut out.
A paper doll floral evening dress with 3d flowers on it.

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Sources:

So, today’s pair of paper doll evening gowns is sort of an exploration of something I can not imagine attempting if I didn’t/wasn’t working digitally. Both these dresses have the same bodice. I drew #23 first, actually, well… I drew the dress and then as I was inking, I thought….

“Oh, I really like that bodice, I bet it would look cool as a slinky fit and flare gown.”

So, I duplicated the layer, saved it and then once I had finished first dress, I pulled it back up and set to work on a slinky dress that I had in my head.

This is the sort of thing that working digitally allows in ways sketchbooks don’t as easily.

Yes, I realize I should have numbered them with the floral gown as 22 and the slinky gown as 23, but I was not paying that much attention at the time.

All right, tomorrow, there will be fantasy armor and then… well, we’ll be caught up.

So, yay!

A Stylish Paper Doll July: Sci-Fi Wardrobe

A black paper doll coloring page with a sci-fi theme.

Download the PDF of Number 19 | More July Project Paper Dolls

So, as I was finishing up my next batch of Stylish July Paper Dolls, I decided to try to share them in groups based on theme. I figured that was a better option and more logical and then just trying to dump a bunch of stuff all at once and share like six things today to get caught back up to where I should be. There will be three today and two shared over the next two days. That’ll get us all caught up.

To start with, here’s three different sci-fi outfits all inspired by Star Trek. I love Star Trek. I’ve become a huge fan of both Strange New Worlds and Lower Decks, because they both seem to understand Star Trek in a way most of the newwer Trek hasn’t. Anyway, they were the primary inspiration for these paper doll outfits.

Download the PDF of Number 20 | Download the PDF of Number 21 | More July Project Paper Dolls

I got this great book on Star Trek costumes called Star Trek Costumes (okay, obvious title) and I think it’s where I learned that one of the things they did in The Next Generation era Star Trek is that they didn’t have visible fasteners in general on clothing. It’s subtle, but it does actually make the clothing feel just a little… different. In high def you can totally see the zippers, but in the original definition, they would have been invisible to the viewer at home.

It’s really actually kinda a cool thing to notice. It somehow works really well.

So, I was thinking about that when I designed these sci-fi inspired paper doll pieces.

Is she a space explorer? Is she a space princess? I had no idea, but I did have fun and that’d what matters.

Tomorrow, there will be evening gowns!

A Stylish Paper Doll July: Sharp and Edgy Sci-fi Dress

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All right, here is number 18. I wasn’t really sure where this was going when I started it to be totally honest, but I somehow ended up with this sort of 1980s edgy dress fashion.

This actually started, if you can believe it, as an evening gown. Somehow this did not end up being an evening gown. That’s okay! Creative processes are rarely smooth, right?

I’ll openly admit this is the last piece I have done for this project, so it might be a few days before I get more finished up, but I still plan to hit 31 by the end of the month.

A Stylish Paper Doll July: A Big Fantasy Gown with Bows and Roses

Fantasy princess steampunk paper doll gown decorated in ribbon bows and roses.

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Sources:

I can’t say that buying a new i-pad after I’d already started this wild project was a particularly smart idea, because it is so much more sensitive than my old one. This means I am having to retrain my hands to know how to get the lines to look like I like and I am having to learn about stabilization in Procreate brushes faster than I thought I would. So, as part of my mission to make things that would make me practice, I decided to do a totally over the top fantasy gown.

It wasn’t until I’d drawn the gown that I realized that the tabs would all need to be floating, because there was no way to make tabs on this gown that would actually be functional.

Opps.

The source image is a color dress from Japan that has always felt a little steampunk to me.

As I understand it (and I am not expert) in Japan women often rent their wedding attire (smart) and change into a dress for the reception that is known as a “color dress” which is often in color (not white) and super fancy. Some women change several times over the course of the day. Kimono are traditionally worn for the ceremony, but not for the reception. I first learned about “color dresses” from Liana’s Paper Doll Blog and she has the actual Japanese which will get you better search results, I’ve found. (I know no Japanese and rely entirely on Google Translate to get me through these websites.)

Here’s some examples of these “color dresses” from a Japanese wedding dress company and here’s some Disney branded ones. I think they’re super fun! And I think renting wedding attire is genius and I wish it was an option in the USA (though I love my wedding dress very much.)

So, I think of this as feeling a little steampunk, but I’m curious. Do others think so? Let me know in a comment.

A Stylish Paper Doll July: Late-15th Century European Gown

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Sources:

Today’s 15th century fashion paper doll is more cobbled together from a variety of primary sources than my last paper doll attempt at the 15th century. The dress is a late 15th century fashion for women from France, but it’s been pieced together a bit. It’s impossible to know if someone from that era would recognize it.

These dresses are called Burgundian gowns and are named for the Duchy of Burgundy which was super rich and fashionable in the 15th century. France has always had the best clothing, I guess.

About 1450, this style of gown became popular. The deep V-neckline revealed the kirtle (under dress) beneath. The trimming could be wool or fur (mostly fur, from what I have seen). The wide belt was placed above the natural waist and gives the gowns a pregnant look. The belts are decorated in studs or with super fancy buckles and can be fastened in front (like this one) or behind (like this one).

I decided to forgo the more popular fur trimming on these gowns for something else, though I am regretting that a little, because fur was certainly more commonly depicted. The hennin headdress is somewhat of a mix of several styles that I saw. The headdresses in this era fascinate me, but I confess I don’t know much about them. I get the sense that they carry a lot of meaning, but I’ll be darned if I can figure out what that meaning is.

I do have another paper doll from this era drafted, but I haven’t finished her yet, because I need to pick out shoes. I wanted to do a doll, because of the headdresses and the fact that fashionable women in the 15th century plucked their hairline which is obvious in portraits like this one or this one. It helps with the headdresses, I think.

Anyway, the dresses’ motif was handplaced and was drawn off this wool and silk velvet in the V&A, though I did simplify it a lot. I sort of had too. I’m still learning how to do patterns in Procreate and I need to work on that more. So many things to learn. Since I got a new ipad, I am discovering that I need to get used to how it “feels” which is different from how my older model felt.

A Stylish Paper Doll July: Early-15th Century European Gown

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Sources:

Based on these three manuscript illustrations, I worked on this gown. The style is early 15th century French. The headdress is referred to today as a “heart-shaped hennin”, but I don’t know if that was a term in the 15th century for it.

Given that this is paper doll #15, it might surprise you to know it was actually the first or second one I sketched out. Most of the 1910s stuff was the first stuff I worked on, but the 15th century paper dolls were being worked on at the same time. Historical 1400s clothing is not an area that I’m super knowledgable about, but I have been itching to do some for a long time. Even more than the 1910s, it is an era I’ve largely neglected.

This is partly because I don’t know much about it and because I find it all a little intimidating. Also, the headdresses are…. bananas.

I went back and forth about this dress and the headdress. In the end, I decided the sharing things I’m not sure about is an important part of this month long project. Finish it and move on is my motto right now.

A Stylish Paper Doll July for my Patrons: Retro Dresses, Shapes and Blunt Cut Bangs

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A Stylish Paper Doll July: A Strawberry Lolita Dress

A strawberry themed dress with tights and a purse. A paper doll coloring page.

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So, when I did my strawberry doll I somehow got in my head that I wanted to draw a strawberry coordinate in the Japanese street fashion of Lolita. I really love how detailed these styles can get and it was great practice for working on my linework in Procreate. I got a new tablet recently. It’s bigger (which is amazing), but it is also much more sensitive. I am having to learn how to use the stabilization features a little more.

Anyway, this was a challenge for me, but I am happy with how it came out and, as I always do with Lolita fashion, I had lots of fun coming up with ways to include strawberries. I wish I’d gone a little further with the pattern on the dress, but I am still not very confident with patterns in Procreate.

A Stylish Paper Doll July: Paper Doll Pajamas

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I don’t draw a lot of paper doll pajamas. Mostly because I think they are sort of boring. Plus, for years I didn’t own any matching sets. I thought it was still to buy matching pajamas/lounge wear. I picked up “comfy pants” here and there when on sale and tended to pair them with whatever oversized t-shirts I had around.

However, at some point, I bought a set that matched on sale at Costco, I think, and I feel in love with the simplicity of having comfortable tops and bottoms that I was embarrassed to answer the door in or walk to the postbox if I needed too. The pandemic meant I wasn’t going out much. Plus, I had some surgery that I had to recover from, so I needed clothing that was easy to wash and easy to wear.

So, my collect of comfy clothing has now expanded to be quite extensive. I still tend to pick them up from Costco on sale and I have both cold weather fuzzy versions and warm weather knit versions. A lot of them look like this set- jogger pants and a simple top.

I know some people really love paper doll pajamas, so if you’re in that camp, this one is for you.