Occasionally, I ask Patrons to vote on what they would like to see. Last time I did it, there was a three way tie between Tudor, 1970s and 1890s. Today’s creation is a 1970s fashion paper doll. When I usually think of the 1970s, I think of psychedelics prints and bellbottoms. When I actually spent some time looking at images from the era, I noticed quickly that while that was one trend of the era, it wasn’t the only trend of the era.
I fell in love a little with the more conservative business attire I kept seeing for women. Well and one jumpsuit, because the 1970s is full of amazing jumpsuits. I couldn’t exactly draw the clothing of the period and not include a jumpsuit. My sources were vintage sewing patterns (this one and this one) and several books I have on 20th century fashion.
I decided to go with a swimsuit rather than traditional underwear for this paper doll and my other 1970s paper doll. I just kept seeing swimsuit vintage sewing patterns. I settled on this one as my source material. The hip hugger boy-short bottoms with the belt felt very period appropriate.
The closer you get to the current era, the more it is small things that define a period style. For the 1970s, some of those small things include the shape of the collars, skirt length and pant shape. The last is color and that’s a big one too. Speaking of color, I chose avocado green (such a classic of this era), burnt orange and some deep coral. For the dolls makeup, I tried to keep with the “natural look” of the 1970s which required like 57 products, but was supposed to look like it didn’t.
I chose Sapphire for the model here, because before the 1970s, you almost never seen black women in mainstream catalogs or magazines. During the 1970s, there’s a wave of diversity. Also, I love 1970s afros. Sapphire’s was inspired by Pam Grier and her amazing curls. I tried to make this look like a looser afro than some of the others I have drawn, but I am not 100% sure it was effective. I’m still practicing my hair drawing skills a decade into this blog.
There is another 1970s fashion paper doll forth coming, but until then you can check out my other 1970s paper dolls or join Patreon if you want to get to vote in my next “time period for Rachel to work on” poll.
Today’s ballerina paper doll is created from some pieces you might recognize. I have complicated feelings about ballet, as some of you may know. On one hand, I love watching ballet. On the other hand, ballet is a problematic relationship with body image. I am super into the importance of learning to accept (if not always love) your body.
There are several different traditional styles of tutus. The Pancake style tutu (left) has a shorter skirt style with a wired hoop in-between the layers of tulle to help the tutu keep its shape. The romantic/classical tutu (right) is longer and not wired. Both are very traditional in ballet.
Ballet’s strict “rules” govern how shows are costumed. It’s a little wild. The pancake tutu is the traditional purple of the sugar plum fairy. The classic tutu is a “country maiden” look like Giselle in the first act. Act two is costumed entirely in white. I’m sure it looks amazing on stage, but maybe less fun to color.
Lastly, between the two tutus (try saying that five times fast), there’s a firebird unitard. The Firebird was written for the 1910 Paris season of the Ballets Russes company. It was first costumed by Léon Bakst. His designs rarely feature tutus. So, I thought it was a fun chance to draw something that was not a tutu. Nothing against tutus, but they start to all look the same after a while.
One of the other interesting things I learned about when researching this ballerina paper doll was about toe shoes (of which she has three sets). There’s this concept in ballet costuming called “breaking the line”. The goal is to make the dancer’s legs look as long as possible. You don’t want the color of the shoes to break the smooth expanse of leg. Pointe shoes for nonwhite dancers have historically been super hard to find, this article about introduction of brown pointe shoes in 2018 from NY times is super interesting.
I love it when drawing paper dolls teaches me things I didn’t know about the world.
In case you’d like to grab some practice clothing to go with today’s performance clothing, check out this Amethyst dancer paper doll.
And, of course, if you want a paper doll or outfit every Friday, head over to Patreon. The Gisselle costume was a patron creation from last year.
I am slowly deciding which of the Jewels and Gemstones from the 1.0 series I want to convert to 2.0 series. While I am not a dancer, I really love costume design in ballet. So, I knew the dancer paper doll series was on the short list, hence today’s dancer paper doll.
I do not dance. I worked in tech theater for a while and that’s about as close as I have gotten to professional dancers- most of whom were perfectly gracious to work with. We used t drape carpets over cabling and the edges of heavy objects specifically to give them a warning when they were on uneven flooring in bare-feet. So, while I can construct a make shift sprung stage, I don’t actually know the details of what professional dancing is like.
Not that not knowing things has ever really stopped me from drawing them in paper doll form. I’m also not a professional space princess or archer.
Since I am not a dancer, I hunted down reference images. Sources for my images of dance clothing were Dancewear Solutions and International Dance Supplies. The three types of shoes are pointe shoes, practice shoes and lyrical dance shoes. I’m not 100% sure the difference between lyrical and modern dance. Despite reading What is Lyrical Dance?, I still don’t quite feel like I get it. Anyway, the shoes leave the toes exposed, but protect the ball of the foot.
The other clothing pieces are not specific to a particular type of dance. Leotards and sweaters and skirts are all practice clothing items that seem pretty common among dancers of all stripes.
A reminder that you can print any of the 1.0 Jewels and Gemstones pieces for the 2.0 Series at 80% and they should fit, but there will be a ballerina paper doll soon.
One of the aspects of this pandemic that I hadn’t totally anticipated has been how it has impacted my sense of time. I don’t go into my office. I live near the arctic circle, so it is light all the time in the summer. Plus, there’s a sort of sameness to my days. I’m working through it with todo lists and rules about bedtimes, but it has been hard.
In my second Topaz paper doll of the week, here’s some 12th century clothing to go along with the Tudor paper doll from Tuesday. If I had a chose a period of fashion I both really like and know very little about, it would be the 12th century aka 1100s. 12th century clothing in Western Europe is both super interesting to me (I love the sleeves) and very alien.
As much as possible, I try to work from primary sources, ideally illuminated by well written analysis by scholars who know more than me. However, the books I have tend to start in 1200 which is more well documented period and leave 1100s out entirely.
Perfect historical accuracy is impossible, so knowing that I did my best on this paper doll and her 1100s dresses.
Topaz is wearing a shift based one illustrated in Roman de Giron le Courtois on Folio 87v. The manuscript dates from between 1370-1380 even though this is 200 years after the 1100s. Illustrations of women in shifts are just super rare, so you have to use what you can find. I made my version shorter and tighter than the originals, because paper dolls have to layer. Paper doesn’t fold like fabric.
Additionally, Topaz’s shoes all come from Stepping Through Time by Olaf Goubitz, a book on archeological footwear finds. It’s fascinating, but very densely written work. Her hair and headdress are based on illustrations from Women’s Hats, Headdresses and Hairstyles by Georgine de Courtais. Her veil is based on the one seen on the Ushaw Virgin, a brass from the British Museum, as is the dress on the right. The statue, Enthroned Virgin and Child, from The Met, was another source for the dresses. I also used some of the manuscript images from this German site on the Bliaut. All the illustrations are properly cited and that always makes me happy.
The bliaut is the subject of a lot of debate. Statues of the time show a very wrinkled, almost pleated fabric effect (like this), but illustrations by and large don’t. When they do show horizontal wrinkles across the abdomen they tend to be more subtle. I went with the more subtle option and the no wrinkles option. Inevitably, drawing fashions from history requires making editorial decisions, but I try to capture the silhouette of the period.
Books consulted in the creation of this paper doll included Stepping Through Time by Olaf Goubitz, Women’s Hats, Headdresses and Hairstyles by Georgine de Courtais, Medieval Dress and Fashion by Margaret Scott and Fashion in the Middle Ages by Margret Scott, though this last one was not helpful, particularly.
This is an era I’d like to learn more about. So, if anyone has a book recommendation I’ll happy accept it. Most of my books don’t cover this early period very well.
Today’s set was put together from pieces posted here on the blog last year and on Patreon.
Today’s paper doll is my second Tudor clothing paper doll. My amazing patrons voted for Tudor as a historical era to explore, hence the focus on Tudor. Also, I realized I still didn’t know a lot about the clothing of this time period. My first Tudor clothing paper doll from the Jewels and Gemstones was Ruby and today’s paper doll is Topaz.
A little about this Tudor clothing- this portrait of a young woman from 1567 and this portrait of Susan Bertie inspired the dress on the left. The dress on the right is a Henrician gown. This portrait of Mary I and this portrait of Katherine Parr feature this style of dress in lighter colors than you usually see it. These portraits also show off French Hoods, a very popular headdress style. This portrait, often identified as Helena Snakenborg, is where I saw the court bonnet. I should note that the identification as Helena Snakenborg has never been proven.
First rule, I gave myself was that I was not going to make any dresses black. Don’t get me wrong, black fabric was wildly expensive in the 1500s and therefore very popular for portraits and people of wealth. Black is, however, one of my least favorite colors. It obscures line work, so I only used it for her hair and the veil for the French Hood. I didn’t see any French Hood’s that had veils of other colors. Also, I have no idea if French Hood is a proper noun and should be capitalized, but I am anyway.
I wanted to use colors I knew were common/referenced in source materials. According to sumptuary laws of the time only nobles could wear blue and there’s references in The Art of Dress by Jane Ashelford to tawny colored gowns. That’s why I chose to make one gown blue and the other a sort of beige color.
Topaz’s underwear is based on illustrations from the Tudor Tailor by Ninya Mikhaila and Jane Malcolm-Davies. The bodies are based on the famous Pfaltzgrafin Dorothea Sabine von Neuberg’s pair of bodies from around 1598. All of her shoes come from Stepping Through Time by Olaf Goubitz. Her underwear, as I noted on the paper doll, has been simplified to facilitate playing with the paper doll. An actual extant 16th century shift is at the V&A and you can see it here.
Other books I consulted about Tudor clothing were, in no particular order, were Tudor Fashion, The History of Underclothes, In Fine Style: The Art of Tudor and Stuart Fashion, and Tudor Costume and Fashion. And you can see some of my reference image so on my 16th Century Dress Pinterest board.
You can see all my Tudor paper dolls here. Up next on the historical paper doll front will be the 1970s and the 1890s. That was the other winners when I polled my Patrons.
Over the years, I have done many story and fairy tale paper dolls. Several years ago, I did a whole series of Alice in Wonderland inspired pieces and a bunch from classic fairy tales like Little Red Ridinghood and Rapunzel.
Along with my nursery rhymes and fairy tales, there’s the novel Divergent and the Harry Potter world, though I confess I am not particularly impressed with the authors more recent works or her politics, but then Lewis Carroll had his own issues and I have plenty of Alice paper dolls. Many of which you can see in the gallery below.
Story & Fairy Tale Paper Dolls
I also did a whole series of magnetic paper dolls based on fairy tales, though I haven’t included those here- as they are not terribly functional as printable and really are meant to be magnetic. You can see them in the Flock Fairy Tales Series.
Anyway, I hope you enjoy these! Did you have a favorite fairytale when you were a kid? Mine was always the 12 Dancing Princesses (which oddly, I’ve never done a paper doll of, I think the whole 12 part of that title intimidates me). I also loved East of the Sun, West of the Moon, Tsarevitch Ivan, the Firebird and the Gray Wolf , and The Wild Swans, all a bit esoteric. Also, I don’t think most of them would translate very well into paper form. Knitting with stinging nettles doesn’t seem like an easy to create paper doll trope, you know?
Do you have a favorite fairy tale? Which one is it? Let me know in a comment. Who knows? Maybe it will become a paper doll someday.
Awesome cosmic power needs amazing dresses, don’t you think?
I love designing sorceress paper dolls. It’s been a while since I’ve done any for the blog, though I regularly share them on Patreon with my Vivian paper doll. My love of designing over the top fantasy dresses is will documented and sorceresses are an excuse to play around with themes like the seasons or the elements or being a dragon.
30 Sorceress Paper Dolls in Color & Black and White
I had a lot of fun with these and it made me realize I haven’t done an evil sorceress in a while. I should work on that for one of the paper doll series. I think maybe Doll Du Jour?
Meanwhile, if you want yet more paper dolls head over to Patreon and consider joining us. Not only does it support the costs of sharing my free content, but there’s several neat projects on going!
Let me start with this disclaimer: I do not watch Anime. As my partner would attest, I know nothing about magical girls, except what I vaguely remember from having friends obsessed with Sailor Moon in the 1990s. I wasn’t super into Sailor Moon, but they sure as heck were.
Magical girls, as I understand it, is a sub-genre of Japanese anime/manga/other stuff that feature girls using magic. (Yeah, you might have guessed that from the title, huh?) The primary feature of Magical Girl anime is the idea of a transformation. Most Magical Girl characters have a magic object (called a compact, I think?) which they use to transform into their magical selves.
Then- they fight evil/crime/playing cards? This genre mystifies me on occasion.
Features of Magical Girl outfits seem to be lots of ribbons, ruffles and asymmetry. Our magical girl, Dawn, has double buns (a nod to Sailor Moon), a compact version of her staff (as seen in both Sailor Moon and Cardcaptor Sakura) and several outfits.
So, the primary source for inspiration for her costumes was Cardcapture Sakura. There is also some Mahou Shoujo Madoka Magica in there as well. One of the things I liked about Cardcapture Sakura was that it has lots of different outfits. That was a fun thing to look up. I noticed asymmetry in many of the outfits, hence the knee sock and the ankle sock with ruffles and a ribbon.
The baggy shorts were my attempt to draw something not a dress (there’s lots of dresses in the world of Magical Girls), but I openly admit this set is less mix and match then I like. Still, dresses tend not be very mix and match. I can live with that. She can always borrow jeans from this set.
Drawing a genre I know so little about it both fun and a bit scary. I don’t know what I don’t know, but I had fun finding images and adapting them. I hope folks who do know more about this style than I do will let me know how I did in my foray into the land of Magical Girls.
Anyway, if you like what you see around here, consider popping over to Patreon and supporting it. If you’d like to let me know what you think about today’s paper doll, I always love to read comments.
As some of you may recall, I’ve been doing a whole collection of these big skirted fantasy gowns since last year. I knew I wanted to continue the series in 2020, so I have been resizing the dresses for the Jewels and Gemstones 2.0 while also drawing some princesses with amazing hair to get to wear the dresses. I’m calling this the Princess and Their Gowns Collection and this is the second one.
Of course, any of the paper dolls can wear the dresses, as long as they aren’t in historical underwear which will likely show under some of these gowns. Re-posting some of my historical dolls in the new 2.0 format is definitely on the to-do list.
There’s two gowns here- one is a ball gown with a truly impressive skirt. The other is a music dress which could be any type of dress, but comes with a random instrument. The ballgown was originally a Patron design from last year.
The first of these princesses and their gowns was Opal and her princess gowns who I shared back in March. Now, this is the second and I’ve also got a version with Lapis finished. I’ll hopefully share that version soon.
Do you have a favorite of these two gowns? I think I like the music dress, myself. Let me know in a comment! I love to hear from you.
And remember that if you want to get more paper doll clothing, head over to Patreon where I share an extra paper doll or dress on Fridays. There’s other fun projects as well, including my 365 day project where I’m sharing some of the results of my foray into Idea Roulette.
The pollen count in this part of Alaska is worse than Alabama. I am constantly taking allergy medication and sniffling. As if the world isn’t hard enough right now, I also need sinus headaches and itchy eyes. Most of the time, my allergy medication keeps it under control, but I am not enjoying spring.
On the upside, it’s not over 100 degrees outside. So, I guess I need to look at benefits of Alaska.
Meanwhile, let’s talk paper dolls. Today’s creation is an elf paper doll. I will confess my images of elves were probably forever changed because of watching the Lord of the Rings movies a lot in high school and college. My friends and I in college binged those movies on several occasions. Except binge watching wasn’t a term yet, so we called it having a marathon. I digress. The pioinis that when I design an elf paper doll I always end up thinking of those costumes, for better or for worse.
I like to think for better.
Today’s paper doll was also an experiment in how many gowns I can fit in on one set and what the best way to arrange them is. I am pretty happy with this layout, I think. It’s not perfect, but I am still getting back into the grove of drawing sets, not individual pieces.
I decided for Diamond to show off these. Her cheekbones feel elf-like to me. I don’t know, but I think elves probably have great cheekbones.
I’m trying to have each of the Jewels and Gemstones dolls have their own new Jewels and Gemstones 2.0 version. I haven’t gotten all of them yet. Amethyst, Pearl and Lapis still need their sets, I think. Pearl’s set is in progress- it’s some 1980s inspired fashions. Fingers crossed, I will get some drawing done this weekend.
I think the bow is a short bow and I measured the arrows against her arm. I think they are close to the right length, but I’m not 100% sure. Listen- I know very little about archery, except this- Never ask about bow hunting in Alabama around deer season unless you really really want to know. Bow hunters are passionate folks.
When I think elves, I think monstrous creatures that you bribe with milk so they don’t kill your cattle. Wait… that’s fairies. Sorry.
Elves, in a Tolkien sense, are sort of peaceful and wise. (Hopefully, as I don’t have that much milk on hand.) So, I decided to go with what I thought was a really calm color scheme. I somehow can’t imagine fantasy elves in day-glow orange, though as I write that I wonder if I should try to draw one anyway. Just to stretch myself.
What about you? What colors make you think of elves? Also, is it elven? Or Elfen? I have no idea and my computer tells me both are not words. Let me know in a comment if you have an opinion on that one or the color scheme or anything else.
And so I thought it would be fun today to celebrate alien paper dolls! Not just scifi, but specifically aliens. That means lots of blue skin, colorful hair and impractical space suits!
15 Alien Paper Dolls to Print
I haven’t done an alien paper doll in a while, I realized after I put this collection together. Maybe I need a “meteorite” member of the Jewels and Gemstones family. Until then, I hope you enjoy these paper dolls from my archives.
Any themes you’d like to see me gather up? I’d love to know in a comment.
It’s tough to write about paper dolls right now. There’s a lot going on in the world- protests, some violent, a pandemic, economic uncertainty… It’s a lot, but it would be disingenuous of me to just post another paper doll, because to do so would be to suggest that this tiny niche hobby I participate in (I sometimes call it the niche-ist of niche hobbies) is somehow insulated from the structural white supremacy that pervades the rest of the culture of the United States. It is not and that is what I am going to talk about today.
To demonstrate it’s insidious presence even in paper dolls, I am going to discuss something I have never spoken about publicly before. I want to talk about three things I have been told in regards to paper doll skin-tone and how I see these things perpetuating white supremacy.
I have heard all of these more than once, both in conversations, comments and through emails. Let me begin by saying that I am a cis white woman. I know that I do things and think things that perpetuate racism. I try very hard to fight this tendency, but I know it is there. This is not an attempt to suggest my experiences are in anyway comparable to those of a people of color. Benefiting from the system of white supremacy means I am insulated from many harsher realities. Having said that, I hope sharing this will help illustrate how insidious this is.
1. That I should do more white paper dolls, because I have fewer white paper dolls and it should be even.
What this highlights is a tendency of people to lump diversity into a binary- white folks, all other folks. That’s really not accurate. Why should a person who has red-brown skin have to play with a paper doll that has yellow-brown skin? Why does society treat those as the “same”? They aren’t. There are hundreds of skin tones. All deserve to be depicted. Two white dolls, one black doll and one asian doll isn’t equality of depiction. White supremacy teaches that white is the logical default skin tone and other skin tones should be grouped together as one. This in turn creates an normal vs abnormal mentality which reinforces structural racism.
2. That my historical paper dolls aren’t accurate if they aren’t white.
This highlights the tendency of people to perceive the historical past as white. This isn’t true. There have been people of African descent in Europe since Roman times. History is a lot more diverse than school taught most of us. It feels off to many to see a brown paper doll in Regency dress, because structural racism tells people that history was white. Anything which violates the narrative of white skin being the historical default is automatically suspect.
3. That it’s nice that I draw so many brown paper dolls, but maybe I should stop for my own good.
This is usually phrased as a helpful suggestion. “Have you considered how much more popular your site would be if you did more white paper dolls?” Or “It’s great that you value diversity, but have you thought about how much better your work would sell if you made X paper doll white?” The message is- if you want to be popular, make more white paper dolls. White skin is the gateway to gains and benefits.
I do want to note that the vast majority of the feedback I get is from happy people who are over joyed to have found a paper doll that looked like their grandchild/niece/daughter/friend. Those comments are lovely, but today I wanted to speak about these. I doubt anyone who has written to me in the last ten years was intentionally perpetuating white supremacy. That’s what makes it scary and that’s what makes it hard to fight- internally and externally. It’s so insidious.
So, let me close with this, I can do better. I am trying to do better. I believe anyone can learn and do better. Below are some of resources I have found really useful. Maybe some of you will find them useful, too.
So You Want to Talk About Race by Ijeoma Oluo which I haven’t read all of, but what I have read is great. I wish this book had existed when I first was trying to work out these issues in my head, because it is such a useful roadmap. And each chapter is very digestible.
I Can’t Talk About the Trees Without the Blood by Tiana Clark is an amazing book of poetry, much of which deals with race. For pleasure, I read a lot of poetry. I decided last year to try to read mostly books published within the last two years written by women of color. This one is my favorite of them, so far.
Am I perfect about all this? Nope, not at all. Am I working on it? I am trying.
And if you want to follow some amazing black illustrators doing wonderful work who deserve attention, I would recommend the following on Instagram (where I get most of my art these days): @renaldo_barnette (he also does paper dolls!) ; @asieybarbie; @melmadedooks; @gdbee and @artofedge.
Lastly, I know these are scary times. I’ll still be creating and sharing my paper dolls and I’ll still be thinking about these topics as I go through my life. I believe society can get better, but the first step is identifying and speaking openly about the problem.
I have neither the skill or mental capacity right now to moderate a discussion on this very complicated topic, so I am closing the comments. Stay safe everyone!
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