Ramblings

Archives Round-Up: 13 Rocking Punk Fashion Paper Doll Designs to Print for Free

Maybe it’s because I’m a cardigan wearing librarian in the real world (seriously, I wear a cardigan to work nearly very day), but people are always shocked to find me listening to the Sex Pistols and the Ramones in my car.

I don’t know why. I love 1970s classic punk music and so today I thought I’d feature the paper dolls I’ve drawn embracing punk fashion. I think this is all of them, but this collection wasn’t was easy to put together as some of my other archives dives might be.

Most of the Punk Paper Dolls of Paper Thin Personas

I know it might have been more apropos to do a cybergoth round up today, since that was this week’s theme, but as I’ve only ever drawn one cybergoth paper doll- Circuits and Fishnet– before this week I didn’t feel like that was really enough for an archives dive when a simple link would do.

Archives Dive: 23 Fairy Paper Doll Printables

When I was a kid, my neighbor had a book of illustrations of flower fairies. There was one for every letter of the alphabet and I coveted that book so badly as a kid. Today I thought I would offer a round-up of fairy paper dolls I’ve done over the years. Each image leads to original post where you can download the printable fairy paper dolls.

A Gallery Of Printable Fairy Paper Dolls

Remember: Just Because the main post image is a color paper doll, doesn’t mean there isn’t a black and white version linked to in the post.

Just so you all know, this is my plan for Friday posts for the future. Every Friday, I’ll put up a roundup of things from the archives. If you want an extra paper doll outfit or doll, join up on my Patreon page.

Introducing the New Series: Jewels & Gemstones

At the end of 2017, I decided to retire every paper doll series I’d had and work on developing a new series. My original plan was to make that series one doll, lots of clothing. In the end, I chickened out and made three poses. So, Dames and Dandies wasn’t one doll with lots of clothing. It was three doll series all of which were to scale and stylistically connected.

The New Paper Doll Series: Jewels & Gemstones doll on the left and some sketchbook pages on the right.

So, as 2018 came to a close, I started thinking seriously about two things: What I wanted in 2019, why I hadn’t gone with my first instinct in 2018 anyway and how important a curvier paper doll was to me as an artist and to people I knew.

From those thoughts, the new paper doll series was born. It is one doll pose. Each doll will be named after a different gemstone/rock. A big thank you to my Patrons for helping me pick a name for the series.

Sketchbook pages, penciling and Opal in Photoshop.

My goal for the next three months (that is until March for anyone whose counting) is to post five days a week. Every Monday through Thursday there will be a new paper doll outfit or doll posted here on the blog. On Friday, there will be an exclusive doll or outfit for my Patreon backers at the 2 dollar and up level. You can join Patreon here.

On the blog on Fridays, I’ll be sharing a round up from my own archives around a theme or from a series that never got such a thing. So, for example, I might gather up all the punk paper dolls or fairy paper dolls or redheads or something. I have over a thousand posts on this blog devoted to different paper dolls. I know my archives pretty well and I want to share them with you.

If you have any questions, thought, or whatever, please feel free to ask me in a comment or on any of my social media- Facebook, Instagram, or Twitter.

A Pre-Thanksgiving Thank You to My Patrons

In December of 2015, I looked at my finances and realized if the blog was going to continue and grow, I needed a better way to pay for the operating costs. I keep my paper dolls free to print, but that doesn’t mean the site is free to run. Thanks to the generous donations of my Patrons I have been able too do the following:

  • Get a real professionally designed theme. The site looks SO MUCH better and the code is so much cleaner. And if I have issues, there’s a professional company I can ask.
  • Upgrade my server subscription and improve site performance.
  • Actually consider hiring a programmer to help make the site SSL secure (still researching this process, but it’s a bit beyond my skill set).
  • Run daily backups of the site. I haven’t needed these yet, but so much peace of mind. I hope, by the way, I never need them.
  • Back in 2016, I had a hack rerouting some of my URLs. This was far beyond my ability to fix, but thanks to my Patrons I was able to get it fixed, which cost several hundred dollars, and have that company install and monitor a firewall. That way it won’t happen again and if it does, they are available to help.
  • Use social media organizing soft wear to try to find new readers and make my art accessible on other platforms like Facebook, Pinterest and Instagram. I work full time. I can’t be manually posting to social media. I’m no “Social Media Guru” but I do know that there are people out there who might love my paper dolls and they maybe on something like Instagram far more than they are on the regular interwebs.

I realize that not everyone can donate and I believe in the importance of my art being free. I function on the NPR model and the hope that if you have a few bucks and you love the blog that you might step up and help cover the expenses. It’s not required, but it is gratefully accepted.

So, I thought I would take this week of Thanksgiving to say how thankful I am to everyone who has donated a little and to share the link to my Patreon page if you would like to donate as well: Donate to PTP Here

Best,

– Rachel

All the C Pose Guy Paper Dolls

Today, I’ve gathered all the C pose boy paper dolls thus far. Guy paper dolls aren’t easy for me. I struggle with ideas for guys and I don’t think I’m great at drawing guys to begin with. They always end up looking a bit effeminate to me.

In total, there are 26 C Pose boy paper doll sets. My favorites are probably the fantasy sets and you can see how much I love the look of pants tucked into boots.

C Pose: Printable Paper Dolls 1/15/2018 – 10/1/2018

The Paper Dolls

The Fantasy, Sci-fi, Steampunk Paper Doll Clothing

The Contemporary Paper Doll Clothing

And that’s all of the guy paper dolls! Do you have a favorite? Let me know in a comment.

Meanwhile consider becoming a Patron. You donations keep the blog ad free and online.

Is there a theme you’d like to see for the C Pose Dandy paper dolls? I struggle with ideas for them sometimes, so do let me know with a comment.

All the A Pose Paper Dolls So Far

So, I was going to do a normal week of paper doll content and then I realized this was going to the 100th Dames and Dandies paper doll post and I wanted to do something different to celebrate.

This week is going to be a week of round-ups. So, here’s every A Pose Dame for the Dames & Dandies from January until today.

Tomorrow, there will be very B Pose paper doll and then all the C Pose paper dolls.

I organized them by theme, rather than by date.

A Pose: Printable Paper Dolls 1/1/2018 – 10/3/2018

The Paper Dolls

The Historical Paper Doll Clothing

The Fantasy, Sci-fi, Steampunk Paper Doll Clothing

The Contemporary Paper Doll Clothing

And that’s them all! Woot!

And if you’d like to help support the blog consider becoming a Patron, there’s a bunch of extra color schemes there for A Pose posts.

Is there a theme you’d love to see for the A Pose Dame paper dolls? A fairy? A mermaid? More science fiction? A specific time period? Let me know in a comment!

Hiatus Until June 25th

All right, I thought I would clear the end of the fiscal year without too much trouble, but travel and work has reared it’s head, so I am pausing things here to build up a strong buffer of content to coast (I hope) though the rest of the year.

There will be updates on my Patreon page while I work on this. Some public, some Patrons only.

As always, thank you so much for all your support.

– Rachel

Hiatus Until May 7th

So, I am traveling and it’s the end of my grad work semester, so I am giving myself the week off. I shall return on May 7th.

Best,

– Rachel

The Future… Meet the New Series

In 2009, something horrible and magnificent happened- I crashed my entire blog.

I didn’t have a great backup and I didn’t know that I had a friend (he was just an acquaintance then) who could have probably fixed it.

It was simitaniously horrible and completely liberating. Freed of the constraints of what I had done before, I started fresh with a new format, new layouts, new everything.

Lately, I have felt a great deal of blog ennui. Since I haven’t crashed the entire site (thank goodness), I don’t have any kick in the pants to change things.

A week ago, a dear friend said to me: If you could do anything with the blog, what would you do?

It took only an instant to know the answer: Update daily and only have one paper doll series.

And then I gave all the reasons I couldn’t do that: Marisole Monday is my most popular series. B&B is my only curvy series… I have a million reasons.

But the reason I should do it was also utterly clear- It excited me.

Ever since I made the decision, I have been working with the sort of manic delight that I haven’t felt about creating paper dolls in at least a year or more. Last time I really remember feeling it was when I was researching vikings for my Viking paper doll.

I spent all of Saturday sketching and erasing and scanning and fixing. I called my mom and asked what she thought of various names for the new series.

I lost track of time and stayed up far to late working on shoes and watching Buffy the Vampire Slayer on Hulu.

In short, I felt delight and delight is why I have this hobby to begin with.

Every Thursday until the end of the year, I will share updates about where and how this is going. I will keep you all as much in the loop as I can. Until then, I hope you can share my excitement as I close the door on one period of the blog’s life and open it to another one.

Here’s the two previews to share:

The templates I sketched in my notepad. On the left, many many drafts of the guys. I confess I am still not great at drawing guys. On the right are the ladies.

The base dolls of the new series whose name will probably be Dames and Dandies. The gents on the left and the two lady poses on the right. I will share more next week.

Let me know what you think in a comment.

P.S: I am currently working on updating my theme. Please forgive me while things look a little messy and strange around here. 🙂

Hiatus Until December 11th

Hello all. So, I will be on a break until December 11th when my semester ends. AsS some of you might remember, along with being a full time librarian, I am also getting an additional Master’s Degree in Education.

It’s final project crunch time at my school and so I am focusing on school work right now.

(Plus, Wednesday’s paper doll was literally the LAST thing I had finished and ready to go.)

I shall return on the 11th, full of vim, vigor and paper dolls I hope.

Until then, I hope everyone has a great first week of December.

Best,

– Rachel

I’m Sick!

So, I am ill. Normally, I have a backlog for these times, but I got through all of that while traveling. I’m going to go take some drugs and go back to bed. Daily posts will return when I stop feeling like crud.