Okay, so after I posted Riven, a few people asked to see more of my childhood work. Today, therefore, I offer Ellie.
When I look at Ellie, I see a lot of how far I’ve come and also how far I still need to go. I still don’t feel like I know how to draw very well, but I like drawing and, as I always say, gusto makes up for a lack of skill sometimes. Anyway… here’s Ellie, a paper doll of my childhood (and also of the midriff bearing days of the 90s).
I drew Ellie 15 years ago. I was in middle school and I remember being quite proud of her. I distinctly recall carefully drawing her clothing. Clearly, it was the 90s and I was clearly used to working in Crayon. I worked in crayon for a lot of my childhood drawings. I was convinced it was better than colored pencils. In hindsight, I wish I’d learned to use colored pencils or markers earlier on, because those skills would be useful now that I’m older. Never the less… this is Ellie… She’s still pretty cute.
By the way, I just realized we’re mid-Kwanzaa here in the United States (I don’t know if it’s celebrated outside the US…), so I’d like to wish a Happy Kwanzaa to anyone who is celebrating.
This is the first part of a multi-part paper doll project to create a neo-victorian or steampunk paper doll bride with a trousseau of outfits for every occasion. I feel like I’ve written before about my love of the idea of a trousseau. I remember as a child I was fascinated with the idea of having different dresses to do different activities. I wanted to tea dress and an afternoon dress and a morning dress. This all seemed very exciting to me. I’ve never given up my love of trousseaux or layettes or wardrobes and each time I do a paper doll, particularly a mix and match paper doll, I think about how each of the pieces can go or can’t go with each of the other pieces.
Several months ago, I hatched the idea of doing a steampunk paper doll with a trousseau, playing with the Victorian obsession with an “outfit for every activity”. I poured over old reports of trousseaux from major marriages of the guilded age, including Princess Beatrice whose style seems remarkably crisp and straight forward for such a frilly period. In the Ladies Book of Etiquette and Manuel of Politeness the following information about a proper bridal outfit, or trousseau, is offered, “In preparing a bridal outfit, it is best to furnish the wardrobe for at least two years, in under-clothes, and one year in dresses, though the bonnet and cloak, suitable for the coming season, are all that are necessary, as the fashions in these articles change so rapidly. If you are going to travel, have a neat dress and cloak of some plain color, and a close bonnet and veil.”
Clearly, this is going to be a larger project than just this post. This is the first of what I suspect will be several pages of trousseau for Greta. We’re starting with her wedding dress, with a jacket, a dinner dress and a house dress.
The wedding dress could become a ballgown quite easily and that wasn’t an uncommon practice, because wedding dresses were often simply a women’s best dress. The dinner dress is more of a semi-formal dress, a step below a ballgown and right around the world of an opera toilette (don’t worry, she’ll get one of those two). Her house dress is, of course, the least formal with a book to read while she spends time at home. Ever stylish paper dolls need to relax sometimes.
All of Greta’s Trousseau posts are gathered together under the tag “Greta’s Trousseau.”
So… again with the channeling Kate Greenaway thing, also a little bit of Peakswoods (a Korean ball jointed doll company), their fairies of fairytales were one of the inspirations for the Poppets series in general. I have noticed a tendency for ball jointed dolls to be dressed in totally over the top ruffled outfits (like this Little Red Ridinghood ensemble), so there’s a little of that here as well. I have a few dresses in process for the Poppets that take that concept on in a more fluffy way.
This set was drawn to go along with my second poppet paper doll Primrose. The dress, cape and hat, are all in the same color scheme and therefore can be mixed and matched. I am particularly fond of her little button up boots with spats on them.
I realize now that I’ve mentioned Kate Greenaway twice and I probably should pause to say who she was. Greenaway was an artist whose work was published mostly between the 1870s and the 1890s. She drew idealic angelic looking children in pseudo-regency costumes. You can see scans of her work at the Digital Library of illuminated books.
Last, but not least, I’d like to wish a very Merry Christmas to all my readers who celebrate it. I hope people have fun with family and friends today. I am with family myself and quite content.
I confess I named this paper doll after I decided on the color scheme, so it doesn’t make as much sense in black and white as it does when the doll is fully colored. I thought about making her another princess, but then I decided that Queens have power. Power seems like a good thing. So, she’s a Queen not a Princess. (Unless you want her to be a Princess, in which case, go for it, I say.)
Having recently watched the first Hobbit film with my Mother to get ready to go see the sequel, I feel that I can say these costumes feel far more Elf like than Hobbit or Dwarf. Also the new first of the Hobbit movies felt very manic.
I like the layers on the dresses, but I’m not totally pleased with the shoes. Still… Not everything has to be perfect, I suppose.
Someone requested the lute. That’s why she has a lute. I am not going to go down in history as the worlds best lute artist. Still, it was fun to draw my slightly deformed insturement. I wish I could recall who asked for a lute… If it was you, drop me a comment. It’s bugging me now.
Yesterday, I posted this paper doll in black and white. Today, she’s going up in color. I’m not sure if I like doing this whole… one day black and white next day color thing. It sort of defeats the point of being able to reduce workload. I might start spacing them out a week, depending on how things seems to work out as I get into the crazier time of the year for me.
I went back and forth and back and forth about so much with this paper dolls color scheme. As I often do with questions of paper doll fashion, I think I spent more time on it than was totally rational. I wanted her to be stylish, but not overtly girly. I couldn’t decide between pinks and blues and then I originally conceived of the blouse as being burnt orange with teal flowers. Yeah… that wasn’t my greatest idea ever.
In the end, I settled on a color scheme that was cheerful (which I think we need on these grey days of winter) and mix and matched pretty well, though not as perfectly as some of my other paper dolls have done. There’s really only nine outfit options here, and I think I’d like to do more, but the dolls are fairly large and that limits how much clothing I can fit on a page with them. I have been thinking about doing some sets that are “clothing only” as I have always liked clothes more than dolls, but I don’t want to disappoint people who feel otherwise.
Paper doll outfits or dolls? That’s always the most complicated of questions, isn’t it?
For my second Bodacious and Buxom paper doll to color and print, I wanted to do something modern. Most of my readers know my love of fashion magazines and I wanted to create a mix and match set that felt contemporary and contained things I could imagine a stylish girl wearing when she walked down the street. I try to be diverse in my paper doll production, both in theme and in ethnicity and in style, so today’s paper doll is a stylish black girl with some mad-happening afro-puffs.
So many “modern” paper doll sets are very very frumpy and I try very hard to avoid frumpy when I make my paper dolls. Frumpy is not something I want my paper dolls to be. Plus, since the Bodacious and Buxom paper doll represent curvy girls, I really don’t want to go frumpy. Just because you have some curves does not translate in to wearing a sack.
Anyway, people have probably already noticed I have a thing for afro puffs. I just think they are SO cute, though I have been told recently by someone whose far more familiar with black hairstyles than I am that they are not currently an IN thing to do with your hair. She assured me, however, that I could still draw them if I wanted. (Not that I was seeking permission.)
I do try, however, since I am not black myself, to be respectful and aware of trends while I am drawing. I think you have to approach such things from a place of learning and willingness to be corrected as needed.
When creating a paper doll to color and print, I try to think about shapes and also pattern. After all, it is only so much fun to color things when there’s some neat things to color. I was never a big coloring kid, but I know a lot of my readers are (or have kids who are.)
Before I forget, I would like to wish a Happy Yule to any of my readers who are celebrating tonight. (Someday, I may tell the story of me and badly chosen shoes and a lot of snow and the search for a suitable Yule log. It was um… an interesting high school adventure which did not involve booze, but probably should have.)
Also, while I was wandering around the web, I came across a blog I’d never seen before called Paper Doll World. It’s a fun blog devoted to one of my favorite topics (paper dolls) and the dolls are very cute. They remind me of some of the dolls I drew as a child, which is fun.
I think I’ve mentioned already that Paper Thin Personas is turning three in January and entering it’s fourth year of life. It’s been three years since the site crashed and I had to start over from scratch. I couldn’t be more pleased with where the blog is now.
But I thought it might be interesting to look back and where PTP came from… So, for today I have combed through the archives and found nine paper dolls from December’s Past that I thought were worth featuring. Step back with me and take a look at what I was drawing two years ago. 🙂
Marisole Monday went to space as an alien in color and to be colored. I remember being conflicted about posting the ray guns. There’d been some gun violence around the time I was working on this paper doll set. People were talking about the dangers of toy guns and children. I didn’t get a single complaint about my ray guns.
This paper doll has the dubious honor of being the paper doll set that I spent way to much time on the shading, only to realize I’d done it on the wrong side and having to correct it all on photoshop. I loved the outfit on the right so much that I thought it was worth it. 🙂 Actually, I love both these outfits.
I got a request for some superhero Puck paper dolls. I confess openly that I wasn’t totally pleased with how the two of them seemed while I was drawing them, but I wanted to draw some male paper dolls aimed at boys and I thought for sure that boys would be into these options. In the end, I was quite pleased how they came out.
Last year, I was contacted by some people from HP about using my content in a downloadable application for their web enabled printers. After many months of conversation and discussion, I’m excited to announce the Paper Thin Personas App for HP Web Enabled Printers featuring Marisole Monday.
I’d probably get them in black and white if I had kids, because than the paper dolls become a fun coloring activity. And who doesn’t like fun coloring activities?
(Plus, in an entirely unscientific study done by my friend with her cousins, small children + crayons + black and white paper doll sheets = almost 20 minutes of occupied time. And this time of year, who doesn’t want that?) A few things you should know… You need a web enabled HP printer to print out the Marisole Monday paper dolls. All of the paper dolls in the App have appeared on the blog in full color before, but not all of them have appeared in black and white.
I think the Paper Thin Personas App is great for parents or grandparents who want something for their kids or grandkids to play with every Monday or if you just want a Monday morning pick me up. It’s really very fun to walk into the room on a blurry-eyed Monday morning and see a paper doll waiting.
Lastly, I have to give a shout out to the wonderful team I worked with. They were all fabulous and made the process quite painless. 🙂
Today is Friday the 13th which is apparently bad luck, though I have no idea where that came from. Does anyone know? Anyway, I figured a good way to get rid of bad luck was to post some paper doll fashions. 🙂
As a lot of my longtime readers know, I am often playing around with patterns for my printable paper doll clothes. I think pattern, while a pain in the behind, is important for the diversity of paper doll outfits. Solid colors are all well and good, but most of us have some patterned things in our closets and there’s not real good reasons why paper dolls shouldn’t be the same.
When thinking about pattern, I tend to fall into the same styles repeatedly. I suppose I can only be so creative on any given paper doll set. Still, I am always looking for new pattern inspirations- even if they don’t make their way onto the blog. I really admire the pattern work of Julie of Paper Doll School. Her patterns rock.
(She can also use Illustrator. I’m so jealous. I have the program, but I think that like a wild dog it can smell my fear.)
Anyway… Miss. Mannequin and friends are getting pretty girly today with their full patterned skirts and rose printed strapless dress.
Before I forget, I wanted to mention that I recently stumbled across a Peal Chang paper doll. Soft Film is a blog devoted to Chinese film, as far as I can tell, and the author commissioned a fantastic paper doll of Pearl Chang, who was an actress. I confess to not being at all familair with Pearl Chang, but I knew the name Kwei-Lin Lum from her incredible paper doll work. Check it out, it’s a pretty neat paper doll.
Of course, now I have to go on Netflix and see if I can find any of these movies. Does anyone know anything about her?
I have a lot of readers who love my magnetic paper dolls (which is understandable, I love them too) and I often get asked about a boy paper doll for the boys out there who might want to play some dress up too.
I don’t have a lot of male paper dolls on this blog (because I don’t find them as interesting as girl paper dolls) and I’ve only done about fifteen Puck paper dolls over the years. The result is that I don’t have a lot of “stock” to pull from when creating a magnetic version. After some debate about what to include, I decided for my first Puck magnetic set (posted early enough for people to print them for the holidays), I would include three boys and some contemporary clothing choices.
The magnetic paper dolls have three sets of shoes, five tops, five bottoms and a few different accessories. All of the pieces can be used interchangeably amongst the three boys, meaning that there’s a lot of fun mix and match outfit options (about 75 different outfits to be exact).
It’s not as exciting as some of my other sets, I confess, but I think they’re very versatile. Since I haven’t done that many Puck paper dolls, it was a little challenging to put together a set for magnetic printing, but I hope this serves some of the readers I have with boys.
Today, we have our printable paper doll showing off her slightly girly wardrobe of ruffles in purples and pinks. As you may recall, last week this printable paper doll was in black and white for coloring.
For those of you who play Shadowrun, the little iphone looking device she wears strapped to her arm is her commlink (she’s a technomancer, so she mostly wears one for show) and the glasses are her AR vision glasses. You may need to extend the tabs and paste them together to slip them over her head. For those of you who don’t play Shadowrun, then she’s just a chick with some crazy glasses, a teddy bear and some really ruffled skirts that she likes to wear.
On the left, you can see some of the outfit options. There are actually fifty-two outfit combinations here. (I’ve posted before about how to do paper doll clothing combination math) since everything is mix and matchable. I think there are actually a few more since two of the tops can be worn either over the tanks, as I tend to imagine them, or as separate pieces. If you include the two sweaters as layer pieces than you have 76 outfit options. Not bad for a wardrobe of 13 clothing pieces, not including the gloves or the glasses or the commlink.
Also, apparently I’m not the only one whose ever been possessed to make paper dolls out of Shadowrun races. Personally, I think they’re wonderful paper dolls, but not really my style. My style is much more girly.
The blog calendar. I never said it was attractive.
I talked about my Red Binder a little while ago. I love my Red Binder, but I wanted to write about the other tool I use for organizing blog posts.
It’s a calendar.
I use Calendar Labs to create my monthly calendars. I like Calendar Labs, because you can choose which day to start your weeks on. Since Marisole and Friends Paper Dolls always post on Mondays, I can choose to start my weeks on Monday, rather than Sunday. I find it’s easier to plan if I do it that way.
As you can see from the photo, the Calendar gets filled in as I figure out what is going to go up each week. I took this photo mid-November when I was still figuring out what the month was going to look like. These posts often change and move, but my general goal is to have two printable paper doll posts and one non-paper doll post each week. At the bottom of the calendar, I keep a list of what posts I think I am going to have completed in time to post them in any given month.
Since I work in spurts to activity, its possible that I might have four or five pages of paper dolls ready to go up. Now, I could post these all in a row… which would be great for five days.
The problem is that the next five days there would be nothing.
In Blogging, consistency is just as important as frequency.
So, while I might want to show off what I’ve done from a long Saturday afternoon spent working on blog things, I know the smart thing to do is to space out the posts and the calendar helps me to do this. It also gives me breathing room and space and makes sure that I know I’m going to have something up each week. It allows me to plan vacations or busy times of my life without having to worry about the blog.
Does it mean I always manage to get up everything I wanted to get up when I wanted to get it up? Nope, often not, but it sure helps me map out each month and it lets me know if I am going to be desperately short.
What I hate, more than anything else, is realizing at 8pm on a Saturday night that I don’t have a Marisole Monday & Friends post even drawn for Monday. Can I get it done in a day? Yes, I can, but I won’t have any fun doing it and the product won’t be very good. So, I usually don’t. I need to know ahead of time if I’m out of scanned materials.
I think sometimes blogs function under the assumption of spontaneity. There is a tendency to assume that someone just sat down at their computer and produced in a moment a wonderfully written post with great photographs.
I don’t really think that happens. (Maybe I’m wrong? Any other paper doll bloggers want to chime in here?)
A great post comes from planning, from knowing what you want to post and then carefully putting it together. It’s a labor of love and it always takes time. Spontaneity is a myth.
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