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Regency Autumn Fantasy
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One of my favorite things is taking a historical silhouette and just playing with it. It’s pretty much just a chance to draw pretty dresses for paper dolls. Don’t get me wrong, I love doing variety (like this Cybergoth Set), but I think anyone whose a regular here knows my first loves are the fantasy and historical stuff.
The fantasy stuff is easier than the historical stuff, because there’s no research involved. I simply am unable to call something historical if I haven’t actually done some research to back up that claim. And sometimes, I just don’t wanna do research.
Despite the research free nature of these dresses, they are based on Regency Era styles. In my head, the dress on the left with the yellow skirt is a ballgown, because it is the lowest cut and fanciest. The dresses on the left are a dinner dress (the blue one) and day dress (the one with the vest).
If you want some actual regency dresses, rather than these regency fantasy dresses, I recommend my Regency tag and as I was working on this post, I realized I do have other regency fantasy dresses- enough that maybe I should make a tag for that too, so I did.
I now have a regency inspired tag for all my non-historical forays into this silhouette, including my regencycore modern stuff which I think I’m going to draw more of. I really enjoy drawing romantic dresses. And yes, I am eagerly waiting for season 3 of Bridgerton.
Meanwhile, this is Newsletter week, so if you haven’t, sign up and get an extra paper doll coloring page in your inbox every two weeks.
Witchtober: The Merchant and Traveling Witches!
Download the PDF to Print | The Rest of This Project | All the PTP Witchtober Paper Doll Pages
Happy Halloween!
It’s so exciting to be wrapping up my 2022 Witchtober project with the ever delightful Julie Matthews today with the Merchant and Traveling themed witches.
So, let’s talk concepts- On the left, is the Merchant themed witch. I wanted to go for like an edgy CEO in the 1980s look. Very much a power suit. I had fun playing around with drawing the sharp angles on this one. I decided a traditional hat made the most sense, but I tried to keep it feeling super crisp.
On the right is the Traveling witch. For this one, I went a totally different direction. My first thought was like 19th century traveling suits, but then I was like- Nah, I’ve done that before a lot. So, instead, I thought about adventuring clothing- something a little fantasy, a little practical, with lots of pockets for carrying things, and gathering things. To go with this, I wanted to draw a well worn sort of weather beaten hat. The sort of hat that looked like it had been around the block a few times and seen some things.
Both outfits got boots, but I tried to make them about as different as two pairs of boots could be.
You can, of course, just download this page if you want, but you can also grab all the pages in this download, if that’s more your style. In case you missed any, here’s all of the my posts.
Of course, you should head over to Paper Doll School where Julie has shared her really fantastic creations. She sent me a sneak preview and they are pretty fantastic.
And, of course, I hope everyone has a wonderful Halloween today!
Dolly’s Dresses for October 2022
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Witchtober Continues: 18th Century & Winter
Download the 18th Century Page PDF to Print | Download the Winter Page PDF to Print | The Rest of This Project
If there was one thing I knew from the beginning of this whole Witchtober adventure, it was that my 18th century gown was going to be big. When Julie and I picked out our 8 themes from this list by Juan Joltaire of witch themes, I immediately loved the idea of an 18th century witch.
First off, it has been a while since I drew anything 18th century inspired. Secondly, my love of giant paper doll dresses is well documented on this blog. And is there a better century for giant paper doll dresses than the 18th century? I think not.
For me, nothing in Western Fashion can beat the 18th century for pure over the top glorious absurdity in dresses like this one or this one. There will forever be a soft place in my heart for eras when things are just more is more and that is where the 18th century lives (also, the 1830s, because what even is this?).
Once I decided I was going to go big on the 18th century design, I had a technical problem. I knew that dress was going to fill the whole page. So, when it came time to design the Winter costume, which was the other theme for this week, I knew I needed to at least try to make something that could hold its own against the 18th century spider-queen delight I’d just drawn. After all, a little shift dress was not going to stand up.
So, I went with a sort of coat/top-thing with a bit of a train. For my Winter costume, I wanted something that would feel actually warm, but also I realized none of my outfits were trousers. Since that seemed a pity, I decided at least one of them should get trousers. There’s a little 1890s/1900s in this one with those sleeves and the cut of the bodice. Boots and a fur trimmed hat complete the outfit.
You can, of course, check out Julie’s takes on these two themes over on her blog. They’re great! I especially like like the hat to go with the 18th century gown.
The Patreon Vivian Project Round up of Everything Else: Part 2
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Witchtober- The Sea and The Kitchen
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So, Julie let me know she might be a day or two late with her designs which is 100% cool with me. As she once said to me when I was fretting about something, “We draw ephemeral paper toys for a hobby. Don’t worry about it.”
And truer words were never spoken.
On that note, let me just say, October has been a lot. September was a lot, but I kept naively thinking it would get better in October while somehow forgetting that my work always get bananas in October. Forward motion, though right? Right…
You know, it’s funny, I really wanted to add Sea Witch to our concepts for this, but not because I was thinking Ursula of the Little Mermaid or something. It was because I really really wanted to draw a cute witches’ hat covered in sea shells.
But once I’d drawn a cute witches hat covered in sea shells, I realized, I have no idea where to go with the outfit.
So, I settled on a sort generic sailor dress which was like version 7 of this.
The other dress came to me much faster. I really liked the idea of a “1950s housewife retro thing” and I designed the little skull and crossbones to look like that poison warning. I almost drew a very similar witches hat to the one I did for my Bones design, but then I thought there should me more witches hat variety.
I can’t wait to see what Julie has done with these themes and I’ll be sure to link her’s just as soon as I see it. Being that we are in two very different timezones, it might will probably go up before I see it. So, check out Paper Doll School over the next few days and keep your eyes out.
Julie has shared an amazing sea and kitchen witch. They are both super cool! Go check them out here.
Sapphire as Gallant Lady
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So, occasionally, I have a reason to dig into my own archives, which is always a kind of weird experience. Seeing art I made like 10 years ago feels… strange. Anyway, I was looking for something else and I came across Knights and Ladies for Marisole Monday from 2011. It was a paper doll printable that I made way back in the early days of site which, at the time, was only 2 years old.
Man, I was back in Library School then. Wow, it’s weird to think about that era of my life.
Anyhow, this was a paper doll I have very distinct memories of. I drew her in the library while I was in grad school and I was stuck between classes and I didn’t want to leave campus. I based the sleeves on some 19th century fashion drawings I’d been skimming through.
I saw it and I thought, man… I could do so much better now.
There’s things about the original Knights and Ladies that I found super compelling. I liked the hair and I was interested in the belts.
So, I decided to would draw the paper doll printable design once more for the Jewels and Gemstones series. This time I tried to think about how the belts would actually “function” if they were made of leather. I added some new details to the dresses and I fixed the skirts- before they clung way to much to the doll’s legs and I wanted more pooling. Though I debated recoloring the dresses, I decided against it. I thought I’d stick with my original color scheme.
I did go with a lighter hair color, because I wanted to keep the doll’s hair brown and I wanted a nice contrast with the skin-tone. I also was pretty sure that the original crown wouldn’t work very well on the doll, so I redesigned it to have the doll’s hair integrated.
All in all, I am very happy with how the new version of the Knights and Ladies came out. I don’t know how often I’ll do this, but it was a fun diversion.
What do you think of this paper doll? Let me know in a comment. I love hearing from y’all.
Witchtober- The Bones & The Birds (Or Bird Bones in this case.)
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So, the first two themes, Julie and I chose were Bones and Birds…. Well, actually, Julie chose the themes, because I saw the list and I had immediate decision paralysis.
My capacity is super limited once the school year starts, plus October is National Archives Month. So, my job tends to decide that we’re going to do “all the things” and I am left feeling a little dazed. It’s fun, but.. it is also a lot. Needless to say, October is never the easiest time of year for me.
And it snowed yesterday… which I am sort of bitter about. Sure, I live less than an hour from the Arctic circle, but that doesn’t mean I want it to snow.
Anyhow, the “bones” dress was inspired by 1950s pinups and the dress on the right- the “Birds” dress was inspired by 1930s slinky evening gowns. I was nervous about drawing a raven skull, but I think it came out pretty well, all things considered. I thought the back drapes of the gown felt a little like wings.
If you missed the doll, you can grab her here. If you need more additions to this wardrobe, Julie Matthews is my partner in crime here and you can check out her contribution over on Paper Doll School. It’s lovely.
Tune in next Monday for another set of gowns for our Halloween witch.
And Now, Vivian’s Sorceress Gowns for Patrons
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For my patrons: Vivian’s October Ball Gown
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Welcome to Witchober: A Paper Doll Project with Julie Matthews!
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It seems obvious to me that there’s no better holiday for paper dolls than Halloween. So, I am happy to share this Halloween coloring page featuring the first of what will be a month of paper dolls featuring this stylish witch and her stylish wardrobe.
I was super psyched in my planning for the month of October when Julie of Paper Doll School reached out and suggested we go back to our paper dolling roots and do some sort of joint project. The last time I attempted a collaborative project was in 2019 and I lost steam around September and never finished it. Of course, that was also around the same time I was diagnosed with some pretty serious medical stuff, so I guess I shouldn’t be too hard on myself.
So, this year, Julie suggested a Witchtober theme. She drew a super fantastic paper doll. I played Dr. Frankenstein in photoshop and put a head I drew on the doll and we are off to the races. The first dress, we both decided would be a basic “witch” dress.
Then we agreed on 8 different themes from this list by Juan Joltaire of witch themes for October. The idea is to post two outfits on a page and share them once a week on Mondays.
I’ll be totally honest- I am not confident I’ll get through the whole month. I’ve already discovered that with the size of the doll and my tendency to draw gowns… layouts might get creative, people! I may need to stop including the stand in the dresses… I did that for my first few pages and it adds a lot of space…. thinking…thinking…
Anyway, I figure even if I don’t get all 8 outfits done and posted on the Mondays of October, it’ll still be a fun distraction!
And a big thank you to Julie for not only designing the doll, but also making the super cool frame around the doll! Her version is also super neat.