Cut & Color Couture: A Touch of Steampunk

A steampunk printable paper doll with outfits to color. There are five different clothing pieces.

Download Black and White PDF | More Paper Dolls from the Cut & Color Couture Series

Today’s paper doll with outfits to color is the first of two steampunk designs I did for the Cut and Color Couture Series, which are totally interchangeable, should you wake up one morning and want to do that. That other paper doll isn’t quite ready for primetime yet though, so it maybe a few weeks before the steampunk wardrobe gets to expand. I drew these outfits from my Pinterest Board devoted to Steampunk Fashion. As happens often, I did not keep good notes on my sources here.

I have been trying to be more careful when I am designing paper doll with outfits to color. I spent some time coloring with my niece and it was harder than I’d thought to get into some of those tiny spaces. I still had fun, of course, but I was never a big “coloring” kid. I don’t have as much experience with coloring paper dolls as I do drawing them.

For today’s paper doll, I attempted to draw bandu knots (a protective style for natural hair, as I understand it). I think I needed to place the knots more forward on the head to get the right angle… Next time! That’s one of the fun things about paper dolls- I can always try again. Drawing hair is challenging for me (not as hard as hands, but it’s up there) and so I just think you have to keep practicing.

When people ask me how to learn to draw paper dolls, the only advice I have to just draw and then draw more. It’s not very helpful advice, so I usually just keep my mouth shut.

A 1930s Paper Doll Project Preview

A drawing of a woman wearing a 1932 pair of beach pajamas.
A drawing of a woman wearing a dress from 1938.
A drawing of a woman wearing a dress and hat from 1938.
A drawing of a woman wearing a formal dress from 1938.
A drawing of a woman wearing a dress and hat from 1938.
A drawing of a woman wearing a dress from 1938.
A drawing of a woman wearing a dress from 1936.
A drawing of a woman wearing a dress from 1932.

Why the 1930s? Well… this project started as a 1920s project, but I was already doing too much 1920s stuff for the Paper Doll Convention in August and I needed a break. So, 1930s caught my eye.

Anyway, I’ve ended up with three dolls- one set for around 1932, another for 1936, and another for 1938. The 1932 collection is very sporty/beach focused with a swimsuit, split skirt sport dress, and beach pajamas. The 1936 collection is more autumn focused and the 1938 collection is a spring/summer collection. Anyway, once they’re done I’ll write more about each set. In the mean time, I hope you enjoy this little preview of what paper doll related things I’ve been working on.

My next big task is to get some prints ready for the convention… so I have been thinking about what to do about that planning this month and next month. Since I now own the sort of printer that can print beautiful prints, I have a lot more flexibility and ability to print smaller runs of things. That’s really exciting. Ink is super expensive though, so I need to think a lot about ink usage and that’ll impact design decisions.

A Spring Fairy Tale for my Patrons!

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Twenty Favorite Paper Dolls With Some Very Fancy Dresses

A bit of a deep dive into the archives this week. I thought I’d do one today highlighting fancy dresses, because fancy dresses are fun.

I used to do lots of these posts and then I sort of stopped. I don’t know why. They’re fun and often inspiring for me. I often end up seeing things that I drew and thinking, Oh, I could do a riff on that and then… That’s how inspiration works after all.

Anyway, I really love drawing fancy fantasy gowns- “princess gowns” if you will. It’s funny, because as a kid, I was not a princess person. I loved dolls, but mostly I liked how the tiny clothing and details were so neat.

As a grown up, however, I find myself very attracted to drawing fancy dresses.

So, here’s twenty fancy paper doll dresses that you can pick from. Let me know if I missed a favorite dress of yours from the blog! I got most of my favorites, though I’m sure if I had searched around on a different day, I would have found a different set of twenty to highlight.

Rebranding Reveal!

Back in January, I worked with The Reverie Collective to design me a new logo and color scheme for the blog. I have been reluctant to make the changes though for a few reasons. Mostly silly ones, because I don’t like change and what if everyone hates it?

(Please don’t hate it. )

I wasn’t originally looking for a new logo. I was specifically looking for a color scheme that was actually compliant with the ADA web accessibility guidelines for contrast, which my color scheme is not very compliant for (like at all). I went back and forth about doing this myself, but finally decided I needed some professional help.

Mostly, because I knew what I wanted, but I didn’t know how to get there.

I reached out to Mandy, sent her a rather complicated long rambling email explaining what I needed, and she really did a fantastic job putting together a cleaner logo with more emphasis on my actual name – Rachel Cohen.

One of the things I’ve noticed is that a lot of people don’t realize that “Rachel Cohen” is “Paper Thin Personas.” So, I am trying to make that clearer without losing the name recognition that Paper Thin Personas has.

It’s going to be a little bit of a slow transition- I have to rebrand the Etsy Site, Patreon, and this site, so don’t hold your breath or anything, but also don’t be surprised if things start looking a bit different around here soon.

I’ll be sad to say good bye to my long standing colors( especially my beloved #990033), but very excited about the new ones I get to play with now.

Plus, let’s be honest, it’s been over a decade and so it’s not like a little repainting and carpet replacement isn’t long over due.

Cut & Color Couture: Fantasy Huntress

A printable paper doll coloring page of a paper doll with long wavy hair and a set of fantasy warrior clothing with vests and boots and a sword.

Download Black and White PDF | More Paper Dolls from the Cut & Color Couture Series

Inspired heavily by Snow White’s costumes in Once Upon a Time, a TV show which I was watching since I’d never seen it before. However, I confess that I got to the 4th season and I just can’t seem to get up the motivation to finish it. This is partly because of a thing which I genuinely dislike and that is the Disneyification of fairy tales and classic stories. It is as though we can not as a culture engage with them without ending up back at Disney. Now, I realize the show is an ABC show and ABC is owned by Disney, but I think fairy tales and classic stories are such a rich text. I was far more fascinated by the show when it was working within a framework.

So, long story short, I’ve struggled to get motivation to continue watching.

But none of that has to do with this paper doll or the costume design, which has been overwhelmingly excellent.

To give a little backstory on this new paper doll series- I drew this doll for the newsletter before I realized that with all the things happening in my life (new job, house hunting, etc) that I really needed to strip back down to basics. And basics do not include the newsletter.

But I had so much fun coloring my Valentine’s paper doll with my niece that I wanted to do more. She colored the paper doll in a lot of reds and blues and then drew her swords and surrounded her with skulls and told me she was a “goddess of doom.”

And I could not be more proud of my niece.

Anyway, I decided to rename the series the Cut & Color Couture which I thought was a cute name. ChatGPT helped me brainstorm names for the series, so thank you AI for helping me come up with a name, which- while not very inspired- at least is simple and has alliteration.

I don’t want to promise anything in terms of future frequency of posts, but know that I am fine.

A Valentine’s Paper Doll Goddess I Didn’t Finish

I’ve always been someone who finds it easier to begin projects than I find it to finish them.

One thing working in paper, as I used too, really did give me was a structure. I penciled then I inked and then I went to the next steps. Because ink doesn’t erase (anyone ever mention that?) once I’d inked, it often felt like I couldn’t correct my errors, so I didn’t. Sure, I occasionally finished major issues in Photoshop if I noticed them, but often I just shrugged and moved on. I’d get it right the next time and the wonderfully continual nature of my paper dolls meant there would always be a next time.

Digital art makes it way too easy to start projects and way too easy to keep futzing with them until I eventually lose interest and move onto the next thing. I think right now I have a dozen or more “semi-finished” creations on my ipad, some of which I shared for my patrons a while ago.

This was one of those “semi-finished” projects. I was inspired by Larry Bassin’s latest paper doll book- Fun Frocks for Flo, Fanny and Fiona– to make my own attempt at a pin-up-esque 1950s comic sort of paper doll. I thought I would draw her a few dresses and then make her into a tri-fold Valentine’s Day card, but, as you might imagine, Valentine’s has come and gone and she’s still sitting on my i-pad unfinished.

I won’t say I’ll never return to her- I know myself well enough to know that I very well may dust her off next year-but I wanted to share a bit about the messier side of my creative process that people don’t always get to see.

Chic Contrasts: Fun Color Blocking Paper Doll

Printable modern Asian paper doll coloring page with a 14 piece mix and match wardrobe.
Colorful printable modern Asian paper doll with a mix and match wardrobe.

Download Black and White PDF | Download Color PDF | More Paper Dolls from the Ensemble Eclectica Series

As I mentioned a while ago, learning to use Procreate (which I am now using for my paper dolls) has been a learning curve. One of the things I dislike about it is that it is not easy to draw a perfectly straight line between two points as I would like. Either way, I am coming around to it slowly.

When I first started using Procreate last year, I decided that learning to use the program was a large enough ask without adding “create totally original art every time” with it. So, I set about drawing paper dolls inspired by pervious paper dolls I’d created.

This set was inspired by Seagulls & Seaside, a set I first drew a decade ago. I still think that paper doll feels pretty modern, though color blocking is not as strong of a trend as it was at the time. I kind of think color blocking is never not in style. The original set’s color scheme was inspired by signal flag colors for ships. I really loved that inspiration. I hadn’t planned on matching the color scheme so closely, but I realized that it looked really good. So, I kept it.

I really do love nautical and ocean themed things. It’s probably because I grew up commercial fishing.

Enchanted Elegance: A Fantasy Paper Doll

A printable medieval princess paper doll coloring page with two fantasy gowns and accessories. She has braided hair and two fantasy gowns, along with other accessories.
A printable medieval princess paper doll with two fantasy gowns and accessories. She has long blond hair and two fantasy gowns.

Download Black and White PDF | Download Color PDF | More Paper Dolls from the Ensemble Eclectica Series

I don’t know why this paper doll looks Russian to me. I have no explanation for that one, but something about the hair just screamed “slavic fairytale” to me. Once I decided that, than she needed to be blond, because if I was going to go slavic fairy tale, I might as well lean into all the stereotypes.

For some reason, and I don’t know why, I’ve found that working digitally means I am less drawn to doing fantasy as I was in pencil. Again, I’m not sure why. I suppose I’ll figure it out.

Actually, I’ve been frightfully unproductive over the last few weeks/months. I mean, I’ve been very productive, but not paper doll related. I’ve been working on a million other things. I have some work to get done for the convention and so that’ll get me motivated I hope.

Meanwhile I do have lots of thing “in-progress”, but I am struggling quite a lot to get those things over the finish line. We’ll see where it all ends up, I suppose.