Coffee, Stawberry and Cream: Printable Paper Doll

goldenSo, I did this paper doll set once before, well… not this set exactly, but a very similar paper doll set called Mint and Roses. Now the idea was to try a similar color scheme and see if I liked it better. I think I do. I traded the grey for a dark chocolate brown (which has a lot of blue undertones) and the green is less muddy. On the whole, I think this set works better, though I sort of miss the orange hair of the other paper doll.

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Things are up a little later tonight then I had planned. I have been fighting with the United States Postal Service lately about if I do or do not exist. They think I don’t exist. I swear I do exist. I’ve called them twice now and spoken to them in person once. I am getting ready to leave a nice little note in my mailbox for my carrier assuring him or her of my continued residency. I should add that I actually love the USPS. They do amazing things. They get mail across this country in a remarkably short period of time. They are amazing.

Anyway… on an unrelated, look its a paper doll. She’s cute. She has a really puffy skirt.

Prudence: Paper Doll with an Afro

I really am quite pleased with my paper doll Prudence. Her skin tone, like Kadeem’s and Gabriel’s skin tones, was based on my recent searching around for skin tones on the web.

After a few weeks of looking and collecting, I have over 50 different swatches, but I am working on narrowing that down to a manageable number- probably 10 to 15. The truth is that a lot of them are so close in color, I don’t think there would be a visible difference once they were printed anyway.

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It’s rare I produce a paper doll that I can’t find anything wrong with, but Prudence is pretty close. I lover her glasses and her vintage wardrobe and the color scheme turned out better then I imagined it would. Her hair didn’t come out quite as I had planned it (afro’s are hard to draw), but I’m still pleased with how it looks.

Personally, I would pop her into her cream dress and put her on a date with Kadeem or Gabriel for a night on the town. Or maybe slip her into something more fancy and have her strut down the red carpet (I’m sure Roxanne or Yasmine would be happy to share). In fact, if you don’t like any of those options, there’s a black and white version of Roxanne and you can color any color dress for Prudence that you think she needs.

Shadow & Light 9: Pirate Paper Doll in Black and White

I love pirates. I’ve done pirates a few different times.

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I don’t have much exciting to say, so I thought I would point people to a few other printable paper dolls I’ve found online over the last few days.

Paper Dolls to Print from Fantasy Jr. are aimed at the little ones out there (or those of us who have never really grown up). The paper dolls are officially part of a “no frump” paper doll plan which I can agree with. There’s also some fun Halloween Printed Toys which are jointed with brads and some beautiful Victorian Doll Coloring Pages.

The Admirable Women Paper Dolls come from Unkempt. Each paper doll has a nice little bio and some um… interesting clothing. It’s not really aimed at kids, but they are kinda cool.

So, enjoy these paper dolls along with my pirates. And there will be a pixie post on Sunday. I’ve already finished it and I’m excited. She’s really cute. 🙂

Paper Doll Clothes with Lots of Bows

Life has a way of getting crazy and getting away from me, but I finally feel a little more on top of things after a few weeks of nothing short of total insanity. I finished a paper for one of my classes and that leaves two more to write and one final to take. Not terribly bad, all things considered.

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The first hard frost of winter hit the corn fields, and my car today. So, I guess I should be tracking down my wool socks and getting ready for the long cold winter. Personally, I would rather it stayed fall a little longer, but I doubt its going too. I think winter is actually here.

Since the winter is coming, I decided to go pastel for these vintage inspired dresses. I wanted to make the sorts of things I imagine a Southern woman wearing to church… of course, being neither Southern or having ever gone to church more then twice in my life, I have no idea if anyone would actually wear it to church. Still, I like them, but the black wig might not fit under the pastel green hat.

Quick Note

Hello all,

I just wanted to say that I’m traveling for the rest of this week and might be out of town for a bit of the week after, so things are going to be sort of on pause here until I get back and possibly longer. I will update before the end of the month, so keep checking back and I’ll be replying to comments as I can.

I hope everyone who is celebrating Thanksgiving has a wonderful one. 🙂

– Rachel

Sketchbook Bound

 

sketch-8aThe Dictionary Girls get to be a little modern here with a set of nautically inspired clothing. I love the stripes and the flared trousers. Behind this set, if you look closely, you can see the hints of the next page which holds some other pieces of, as of yet, un-inked dictionary girl attire.

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Further examples of things I have been working on that are not really blog related. The idea so far is sort of a Marisole styled paper doll, but in a different pose. At first, I thought I would replace Marisole, but now I’m thinking of just creating this new doll as an associate… or something totally unrelated. In my mind, I have named her Magnolia. At first, I thought she would be a specifically magnetic paper doll, but now I’m less sure that’s where I want to do with her.

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Magnolia has, obviously, a page of shoes and not much else, I’m afraid. Originally, I thought she would have four different skin tones- hence the four pairs of sandals, but now I’m not sure if four is enough. In my skin tone color gathering I have collected over 36 skin tones, but I will narrow things down to a smaller selection soon. The truth is that many of them are so close in shade, I doubt very much there would be any difference when they printed out anyway.

Commercial Fisher: Printable Paper Doll

Technically, it’s just past midnight here in Illinois, but its still Monday in Alaska, so I think she still counts as on time.

When I was a child, the we’d go out for a few weeks each summer and commercially fish for salmon and halibut, so I wanted it to be accurate beyond my own memories. Commercial fishing is some of the most back breaking labor I have ever done. It’s hard work, but you can’t beat the views. When I was 16, I was offered the choice of working for the summer fishing or finding a job.

I found a job.

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My mom actually requested this paper doll a few months ago and it took me a while to decide what exactly to include on the sheet (Hi mom!). So, we have Marisole, with coloring as close to a self portrait of me as you’ll ever get on this blog, and she has a wardrobe of proper fishing clothing from her heavy duty dark green rain gear (overalls and a jacket) to her bright orange rubber gloves for baiting hooks and cutting fish. She comes with a small Pacific Halibut (slime not included) and a King Salmon, though neither looks as good as I wanted it too. She also has a gaffhook, a gutting knife and a little green tin of bag balm to wear under her gloves.

The cold storage we sold our fish too was in Hoonah, Alaska and it gave away baseball caps. I still remember my father walking around in his jeans with his bright pink Hoonah Cold Storage cap on his head. I had one for years, but I don’t know what happened to it. So, Marisole has one of those too along with some t-shirts, jeans and long underwear. Most importantly, Marisole has her Xtratuff boots which are a required part of any fisherperson’s wardrobe.

Personally, I think she’s prepared for her adventure.

Edit 3/28/2016: There is now a black and white version of this paper doll. Find it here.

Curvy Printable Paper Doll Cocktail Dresses

This beautiful sent of cocktail dresses was meant to show off ruching which I have been practicing. I love the combination of the apple green and the strawberry pink, but also wanted to have a more sedate color scheme for the less adventurous among the Dictionary Girls. I am pleased with how both dresses came out, but I sometimes admire the work of other paper doll artists and know I need more practice.

dictionary-ruching-cocktaildresses

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Lately, I have been very impressed by Siyi Lin an artist from Taiwan, I think. Her work is beautiful and often featured in Haute Doll Magazine. She has both a webpage and a Picasa album which I confess to staring at for far too long. I love her colors and her drape and her faces. I think her paper dolls are done with vectors and that is something I really want to learn how to do. Someday, I’ll have the time to take a class on vector drawing. Yes… I’ll fit that in between my classes, work and job hunting. Not any time soon, I fear, but someday.

But I’m really inspired by her paper dolls of Ann Estelle and Betsy Mccall and I wonder about doing a child paper doll. I’ve played around with them in the past. It would certainly be a paper doll of a doll rather then a real child.

But this brings up a deeper more complicated issue of what should I do with paper dolls that aren’t part of my standard series, and I don’t have an answer. I don’t like the Gallery, but I don’t know what to do with the content I have there and the Short Run dolls were fine, but I haven’t used them in a while. I need to somehow consolidate the paper dolls that are not part of a series under a sort of umbrella category somehow… What do people like more? A gallery approach or something else? Does anyone, but me care? Possibly not.

From the Depths of the Sketchbook

As I sit here prepping this post, I have giving out candy to small children. Is there anything cuter on this planet then children dressed up for Halloween? I don’t think there is.

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Shadow and Light clothing for the paper dolls. Some pirates and some fantasy Gothic attire. As always, I draw heads separately and attach them to the doll as needed. With Shadow & Light, I also tend to draw the heads a little bigger then needed and re-size them- it helps me get in more detail then I usually can.

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I’ve been working on some child paper dolls. This is some clothing I have drawn for one. I’m not totally pleased with the doll, but then I’m never totally pleased with anything. All of these dresses are based the clothing of Lenci dolls from the 1920s and 1930s.

Trick or Treat: Halloween Printable Paper Doll

Happy Halloween! And to celebrate this festive day, I have a halloween paper doll.

Now, this isn’t the first Halloween paper doll I have done. After all, there was the vampire paper doll from last year, so you can celebrate with her too. (Also, there’s a zombie who would fit in well.)

halloween-paper-doll-marisole

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I always have these high expectations and plans for Halloween. I mean, is there a better holiday for paper dolls? It’s all about costumes, for gods sake. It’s perfect. And yet, somehow, I never manage to actually get my act together enough to do anything major for the holiday. Sad, but true.

Last year, I actually drew this paper doll set. The idea was to do a whole month of costumes. Obviously, that didn’t happen last year and it didn’t happen this year, but since I’d never finished coloring this set, I thought I would post it now. The strapless white dress can either be used as the base for the Egyptian Queen costume set or the Angel costume set. The wings should be glued to the back of the doll along the white strip.

I hope everyone has a safe and fun Halloween. I’m planning on spending mine doing laundry, cleaning the apartment and handing out candy to small children.

Kadeem and Gabriel: Boy Paper Dolls with Suits

So, a few weeks ago before I dropped off the face of the earth, before I ended up sick, and before I discovered what fascinating colors old chicken curry can turn, I had a little drawing to celebrate the 65th Marisole paper doll ever. A wonderful reader known as Kat won by drawing and was so kind as to send me the following guidelines for what sort of paper doll she would like to see for her prize.

I was wondering if I could request a Puck doll. If so, I’d very much like to see him in a suit, so that he can take the gussied up Pixies to their soirees :). No real preference on the colors but I would like a boutonniere.

Now, I’ve never been pleased with the Puck paper dolls, but I was willing to try to make some dapper Pucks for her, so I set to work and it took a lot longer then I thought it should, but sometimes these things do.

punk-kadeem-suits

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It might be a few weeks late, but I am proud to provide two puck paper dolls in stylish suits. The first is Kadeem who I think of as a modern young man heading out for a date, though I suppose in his clean cut suits he could also be heading to work or something else. He has two different boutonnieres and a corsage for his date.

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He’s joined by his good friend Gabriel, a slightly old fashioned gentleman, with a pair of black suits with red ties. Something about double breasted suits always makes me think of the noir movies, so I gave Gabriel an old fashioned hair style and shoes to go with it. Gabriel, Gabe to his friends, also has two boutonnieres and a corsage. If you slit along the dotted line on the suit jackets, the gentleman can wear their boutonniere.

I hope these guys were worth the wait, Kat and now any of the Puck paper dolls are ready for dates. Love maybe in the air.

Shadow & Light 8: Alice Printable Paper Doll

Yay, Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland.

(I’m really tempted to end the post here, but I won’t.)

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I’ve always been fascinated by how Alice in Wonderl and has spread and propagated fascinating cultural ideas. Though, I suspect Jefferson Airplane had a lot to do with it, the novel is one of my favorite as is the sequel. I’ve read them both many times and if you want to read them many times, then you can find them free online all over if you’ve never read it.

I, of course, agree with Alice. There’s not much use for a book if it doesn’t have any pictures in it, so I offer these illustrations. The outfit on the left is inspired by Alice herself and the right look is based on the Mad Hatter. Enjoy both the outfits and the paper doll.

On a semi-unrelated note, there will be Puck paper dolls up on Sunday and more sketchbook images next week as I take more photos of what I have been working on.