Stylish July Paper Doll Project 2023

The Stylish July Round Up: All 31 Creations Together

The Paper Dolls

 I feel like starting the dolls, because well, you need a doll to wear the clothing, right? Right. I was very pleased with this doll and I still am. There’s a few things I would change now, but all in all, I’m quite happy with how she came out.

The Historical Clothing in Order of Historical Period

Originally, this project was going to be all 1910s clothing, but that didn’t last too long. I ended up with some 15th century stuff, some 1890s stuff, and some 1910s stuff. I’m particularly happy with how the folds came out in the 15th century gowns and I fretted for a long time over their headdresses.

The Sci-fi, Fantasy and Steampunk Clothing

I draw a lot of fantasy stuff. I like drawing it. It’s some of my favorite things to work on. I wanted to try out a bunch of different looks and see how I did using digital tools with them, rather than a pencil and pen. At times, I seriously missed my pen, but I can see ways in which I improved as the process went on.

The Contemporary Clothing

 

I didn’t do as many

A Few in Color….

One of the long terms goals of the July Project was to see if I could do a paper doll series similar to many of the ones on this site digitally. Part of that is finding a system, because I am system based soul. I played around a lot with different ways of doing shading and different ways of adding texture.

In the end, I decided I didn’t really love the shading, but I did enjoy trying out several different fun techniques here.

And that’s it! All of them in all of their glory here. If you missed one, you can grab it now and fill out your whole set.

Galactic Fashions: Another Printable Paper Doll

Download 2 Page PDF | More July Project Paper Dolls

So, I wanted to experiment with texture and style. I wanted to see if I still liked the effect of noise texture if the style was less romantic and more something else.

And well, clearly, that something else should be space princesses.

I’m actually really happy with how it came out. I played around with the texture in a way that I think worked well- a larger scale noise effect in the background, but something more subtle for the doll herself. I’m actually very pleased with that part.

Something about this paper doll keeps making me think of 1980s and 1990s cartoons of my childhood like the X-Men and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and She-ra. I was a huge She-ra fan as a kid. One of my friends had a bunch of the She-ra action figures and we would play with them for hours in her bedroom and on her porch. I have a lot of fond memories of that.

All in all this was an successful experiment. I confess I’ve been frustrated a bit with working in Procreate lately (which I think is 100% normal when trying to learn a new skill), so we’ll see how I feel about everything in a few more days.

Yellow Rose Ballgown & Doll

Download the 2 page PDF | More of the July Project Paper Dolls

All right, so I spent sometime this week coloring my favorite of the July Project which was this rose ballgown.

One thing Procreate does really poorly is color management. It’s really frustrating. I keep thinking there’s a trick to it that I am missing, but after watching several tutorials and such, I am increasingly convinced that Procreate is just bad at color management. That’s it.

I’m still experimenting with texture as well and clearly experimenting with shadow, as well. My favorite artists don’t tend to do a lot with shadow… I dunno. I remain unconvinced that it works. More experimenting is clearly needed. But you don’t know if you don’t try, I always say, so trying matters.

Long story short: I’m not in love with Procreate for coloring things. I’m pretty happy with how this turned out, but I think I want more texture or maybe slightly different texture or something.

A Stylish Paper Doll July: A Gown with Pleats and Ruffled Rossettes

Download Black and White PDF | More July Project Paper Dolls

And this is the last of the Stylish July project- 31 pieces in 31 days. Wow.

And if you’re wondering, I have no idea what I am going to do next.

For this gown, I wanted to play around with drawing pleats. Pleats are something I love drawing with pen and ink, but try as I might, I can’t seem to get pleats quite right in Procreate. I think they worked really well on this dress, but somehow they feel too flat on today’s dress. Clearly, pleats are something I need to practice drawing more, which is fine. That’s the process, right?

I think some of this comes from the zooming capacity of Procreate. It is so easy to zoom in and then you lose the “shape” of the whole garment. This utterly fascinates me. I have always preferred working super zoomed in Photoshop for my clean up work, but that’s maybe not the best way for me to work in Procreate.

So, that maybe a habit I work to break or at least get better at zooming out on occasion.

I had this fantasy in my head that I’d get done with this project and then I would 100% know exactly what I wanted to do next. I would finish and then, clouds would part, and I would see a path clearly before me. Sort of like that moment in a musical when the heroine spins around and suddenly knows her destiny.

But as I do not live in a musical, there is not been a helpful personal epiphany. Clearly, my life needs a better script writer.

So, I’m going to take stock of things, maybe do a round-up post of all these pieces together just for fun, and then decide what to do with myself for August.

A Stylish Paper Doll July: A Suit from 1894

Download Black and White PDF | More July Project Paper Dolls

Sources:

I wish I knew where this fashion plate came from, but the Met was not helpful in telling me, because I suspect they don’t know. People have been cutting fashion plates from fashion magazines pretty much since they got invented. So, assuming the person who wrote the date on the plate was correct (and I have no reason to think they were not) this is a suit from 1894.

Even if the plate didn’t say 1894, the sleeves are very much the middle of the 1890s- big and commanding. I mean, who doesn’t want a sleeve that is about the size of their head?

A Stylish Paper Doll July: The Rose Ballgown

Download Black and White PDF | More July Project Paper Dolls

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

Download Black and White PDF | More July Project Paper Dolls

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.

Download the PDF of 24 | Download the PDF of 25 | More July Project Paper Dolls

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.

Download the PDF of Number 22 | Download the PDF of Number 23 | More July Project Paper Dolls

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!