Today’s Printable Paper Doll Inspirations: Um… Sundresses, I guess?
You know, I haven’t posted a new Yumiko paper doll since last year when she was a fairy. So, I figured it was long past time that she got to get a new look.
To tell you the truth, I would love to have some long involved explanation as too why I chose to create this sundress. It’s just not that complicated. I knew I wanted to draw a sundress and this style has been floating around the fashion magazines lately.
By lately, I mean like seven months ago, because sometimes I’m a little slow on the turn around for my paper doll creations.
I also wanted to draw Yumiko with a different modern hair style. I settled on this choppy bob.
As you may remember, there’s usually a gentleman Sprite to go with the lady Sprites. Fear not!
Tomorrow (I know, not ever a Wednesday!), I’ll be posting a new Víctor paper doll. He’s very dashing!
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Today’s Printable Paper Doll Inspirations: Mad Max, The End of the World, Ext.
First of all, I’d like to wish a Happy (as Happy as a holiday about fallen servicemen and women can be) Memorial Day to all my Readers who are celebrating today.
I always think I’m going to do thematic posts for Holidays. I even go as far as to make a list and tell myself I totally got this.
And then inevitably, I forget or get distracted and it doesn’t happen. So, today’s printable paper doll has nothing to do with Memorial Day.
Instead, I recently re-watched Mad Max: Fury Road and that inspired a round of sketching for post-apocalyptic paper doll attire. So, today we have Willow in her world end get up.
I wanted her boots to be mismatched, but not so mismatched that they didn’t coordinate. Her dress was super hard and took about three different versions. I really wanted to contrast the soft folds of fabric with a heavy leather harness going over the top.
Her other accessories are some fingerless gloves, a machete and a canteen.
The doll herself is Willow, one of the first Sprites paper dolls. Her tattoos are, of course, original to this version. You’ll need to clip across her hair to make the tabs work, but there’s a dotted line to guide you.
I hope people are spending time today with their family and friends whether you get the holiday off or not.
Today’s Printable Paper Doll Inspirations: 12 Century Clothing Like Bliauts
I had originally intended for this to be the first Teresa doll, but I decided I’d done a lot of fantasy stuff so I wanted to change of pace.
As some of you know, the Sprites are a later adaption of a series of paper dolls called the Pixie & Puck. I created a Pixie in 2013 named Phillipa with a similar hairstyle to this one. Pixie dolls and Sprites can’t share clothing, just FYI.
Today’s Teresa paper doll owes something to the 12th century. Her dress is a fantasy version of a bliaut. What, you might ask, is a bliaut?
Well, when you picture medieval dresses with those crazy long bell-sleeves that drape to the floor? That’s a bliaut. It’s a style the seems to have been born in France and spread to England after the Norman invasion in 1066.
Of course, today’s dress isn’t a historically accurate bliaut. I won’t call anything historical unless I can point you all to my detailed sources, but it is a bliaut inspired look. Her hair is also a nod to the 12th century when super long braids were very much in vogue.
The two pairs of shoes were my attempt at fairly flexible fantasy shoes, so she could wear them with a variety of the fantasy outfits I’ve created for the Sprites thus far, personally I think she’d look nice in this one or this one.
Tomorrow, there will be a Xavier paper doll with some medieval fantasy inspired clothing as well.
It seemed past time to me that I should share a new Sprites face. Today I am pleased to introduce Teresa, the newest member of the Sprites printable paper doll family. In my head, she’s a Latina paper doll, but her skin-tone and coloring could be from a variety of places.
The name “Teresa” is Spanish and is one of those names where the meaning is a little unclear. It has been the name of several Catholic saints though and I’ve always had a fondness for it.
I’ve been wanting to create a printable paper doll set with suits, so today Teresa has a beautiful grey suit. I chose grey for the suit, because I love grey suits. I think it would be beautiful in a color as well. Maybe a strong purple or soft blue would look really nice.
Her shoes either match her purse or are meant to be nice basics. They do have pretty high heels… but then I love a good pair of high heels.
Yesterday, I posted this blog income report for the first quarter of 2017. I get erratic questions from folks who want to start a blog, so it might be interesting if you haven’t looked at it and care. If you don’t care, then feel free to ignore it. 🙂
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Oh, and tomorrow, there will be a new guy paper doll to be added to the Sprites paper doll family. I’m super excited to introduce him and his dashing suit.
Today’s Printable Paper Doll Inspirations: What I see College Girl’s wearing
First off, my favorite thing about this Ursula paper doll is her hair. I love dreads and I particularly think they look cool when they are styled up into an updo.
Because the lady Sprites have much smaller stands then the guy sprites, I could fit two pairs of shoes onto this page with with Ursula. So, I did a pair of white shoes and a pair of black shoes. I figured that covered all the basic shoes a person might need.
All the Ursula dolls have the same skintone, so she had borrow some sandals from her mermaid version if she wants too. If there are more Ursula paper dolls (and there probably will be eventually), then you can pick out shoes from those dolls as well. Any of the shoes that don’t show skin tone, of course, will fit any of the Sprites ladies.
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Even with this new format, I do plan to post Sprites as sets. I like having a lady and a gent of the same theme posting two days in a row. I think it is fun.
And it is my blog, so I get to decide what is fun here.
There is something so innocent about Cicely Mary Barker’s art. I still really love her books and I loved them when I was a child. My favorite was the Willow Fairy. Of course, the book Fairie-ality was also a big influence. Highly recommended.
I went back and forth and back and forth about the color scheme for this one. I tried out blue skin and green skin, but I really like how the purple turned out. If you think she needs a different color, then there’s always the black and white version.
So, here’s my question for my readers today, was I the only Cicely Mary Barker flower fairy fan as a child? Let me know in a comment!
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“Curiouser and curiouser!” — Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, Chapter 2
As many of you might recall, I love Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland and I love Alice in Wonderland paper dolls. It’s a story I have gone back to over and over again.
This time, the Sprites are getting into the action with Willow as my Alice paper doll today. Tomorrow, the Mad Hatter with make an appearance. Than there will be two more outfits for each of them and, of course, Accessory Thursday!
I made my Alice paper doll brunette as a nod to the actually girl for whom the story was written, Alice Liddell. Most people picture Alice in a blue dress (and I do have that color scheme over on my Patreon page), but the earliest color illustration is The Nursery Alice and in this version she wears yellow.
The playing card motifs are a reference, of course, to the playing card themes in the book. Some scholars think the whole book’s plot is based on the randomness of the rules of cards.
If you like the blog and you wanna know when I update or see selected stuff from my archives, than follow me on twitter! It’s more fun than a barrel of monkeys! Though that does bring up a good point… how much fun would a barrel of monkeys really be? And who put them in a barrel? And isn’t that cruel and unusual treatment of monkeys?
Anyway… There’s an different color scheme for today’s Alice in Wonderland paper doll on my Patreon page. It’ll be available to everyone until Friday. Patrons will also get an extra outfit for this week’s series later this week, so join if you haven’t!
I know what you’re thinking. You’re thinking, “Mermaid paper dolls? Where are the tails?”
So, yeah, there are no tails. This wasn’t my original plan.
My original plan was to have Zachary with a tail on Monday and Ursula with a tail on Tuesday. Then to post joint outfits for them on the following days. I thought this was a great plan, until I realized I could not fit the tail and the Zachary paper doll on the same page together. It simply did not fit.
And to think my layout problems were a thing of the past? Sigh.
So, instead we get two paper dolls and a promise of tails tomorrow. I swear these are mermaids. They’re just tailless mermaids.
Reminder that the black and white versions are linked up at the top of the post, if anyone is looking for it.
Anyway, Zachary and Ursula are both from the Sprites series which I introduced WAY back in January. As some of you may recall, I have been naming the Sprite faces in reverse alphabetical and I had gotten to the letter U, so Ursula it was.
I realized later that making the first Ursula paper doll a mermaid does bring up connotations of Disney’s A Little Mermaid, but that wasn’t my intention. I named the paper doll LONG before I picked out a theme and I could have started with a modern set, but mermaids were more fun. Her hair was inspired by this pin of a woman with teal hair on Pinterest.
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I have been thinking about spring, but it feels a long away off. Even here in Alabama where the winters are so mild compared to what I have experienced in Alaska and the Midwest. Still, today’s paper doll to print is celebrating the possibility of warm spring fashions.
As I mentioned back when I first introduced the Sprite paper dolls, I want to establish a limited collection of dolls who will get outfits much like the Marisole Monday & Friends and the Mini-Maidens. So, this is the second Yumiko paper doll to print.
I figured after her foray into cyberpunk, the she deserved a chance to be a little more casual. I think her casual wardrobe is a little disconnected. I love all the pieces by themselves, but together they feel less the cohesive. I am getting over my mixed feelings by reminding myself that eventually there will be other Sprite paper dolls with casual clothes she can share with.
I struggled a bit to select colors for today’s paper doll to print. I am, personally, a lover of color. In the end, I settled on black as the neutral (though I worry with this paper doll’s black curls does that make too much black?) and pale blue as the other neutral. The patterned blouse over the striped skirt caused some problems since the complicated patterned needed a lot of colors to look right, but I think maybe the chose to many different colors for this collection? I think that’s adding to the lack of cohesion that is bothering me so much.
So, clearly, in case you couldn’t notice, I’ve got mixed feelings about today’s Sprite paper doll. Don’t get me wrong. There are things I love about her- those blouses, that darling purse with the tassel, her cute red shorts. But she feels… a tiny bit discombobulated.
Oh well, not every paper doll is perfect and if I only posted the paper dolls I was “totally in love with”, than I rather suspect I wouldn’t ever post anything at all.
More Yumiko paper dolls live here and there are also more Sprite paper dolls– in case you want Yumiko to get to dress up like an elf for a while or want to print out some friends.
Also, if you love the blog and want to help it keep going- support it through Patreon. There’s a special behind the scenes blog, perviews of sets, and I am way more likely to make patron requests, because… well, they are giving me money. So, consider joining up– it’s a fun group.
What do you think of Yumiko? Let me know in a comment.
Today’s Sprite is and elven paper doll named Willow in honor of Willow Rosenberg from Buffy the Vampire Slayer. (More on that later.) I was the biggest Buffy fan when I was in middle-school and early highschool. I stopped watching around season five, I think. Though I keep trying to get through the later seasons, the show gets so darn depressing.
As with many of my fantasy paper dolls, I try to think about “setting” when I designed these outfits. I have decided both of these elves (Xavier and Willow) are warriors, so Willow has armor to go under her silken tunics and a bow as well. I was also thinking about Ancient Grecian tunics when designing these paper doll pieces. Sure, they’re not really practical, but we all know how I feel about practicality and paper dolls. (Never the two shall meet.)
So, I drew this elven paper doll set and then I colored it and then I was like, “Man, she kinda looks like that elf chick from the new Hobbit movies.” (The character is named Tauriel, but I had to look that up.)
So, then I nearly re-colored the whole set feeling like I wasn’t trying to make my elf look like someone else’s elf and then I decided that I had wanted to make her a redhead ever since I named her in honor of Willow Rosenberg from Buffy:The Vampire Slayer and no random elf chick from a rather bad movie was going to stop me.
There will be other Willow paper dolls, so they won’t all be elves, but that’s what I’ve started with.
I have realized there are five Friday’s in January. So, should I end January with a non-Sprite or should I have a Sprite in the beginning of February? Since they always come in pairs. Let me know thoughts in the comments.
