A Curvy Retro Inspired Space Alien Paper Doll


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Today’s Printable Paper Doll Inspirations: Retro Space Aliens and Pink Boots
A blue skinned curvy retro alien paper doll printable with pink boots and a pink dress. Free to print from paperthinpersonas.com.

A curvy retro alien paper doll to print with pink boots and a pink dress. Free to print from paperthinpersonas.com.

I like retro sci-fi. I like all sci-fi really. I’m loving Dark Matter at the moment and I have a deep spot place in my heart for Star Trek and Star Wars. Still, as much as I enjoy Dark Matter, I don’t really enjoy drawing the “gritty” sci-fi aesthetic.

There’s only so many pairs of black pants you can draw for a paper doll.

So, today’s sci-fi paper doll is very retro inspired. She’s blue skinned and her dress is very much of the 1960s retro feel. She’s got pink boots and shaggy hair. Now, my only major regret about her is that to make her hair “work”, you really need to print two, cut one’s head off and paste the head over the first head, because the drape of the hair would cover the high neckline of the dress.

Almost makes me wish I used Boot’s separate head method of paper doll creation.

Anyway, the pink dress is designed to wrap around the dolls legs and be visible from behind. There’s something kinda Jane Jetson going on with the dress. Maybe a bit to sexy for Jane, but you know what I mean.

If you think she needs some more sci-fi inspired clothing here’s another foray I made into retro sci-fi or some candy colored cyberpunk looks might be more your style. Also, if she needs a friend, here’s my other retro inspired alien girl from earlier this year.

So, what do you think? Fun? Do we need more fashions from space! Space fashions. Spashions, you might say.

Need to get some more clothing for this Bodacious & Buxom paper doll to wear? Pick out some clothing here

Marisole Monday: A Tudor Fantasy Gent


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Today’s Printable Paper Doll Inspirations: The Character of Sid from Galavant
A princely African-American paper doll with a Tudor inspired suit. Free to print from paperthinpersonas.com and he has lots of other clothing options too.

A princely African-American paper doll with a Tudor inspired suit. Free to print from paperthinpersonas.com and he has lots of other clothing options, too.

There’s a show on Netflix that I adore called Galavant. It’s a musical and it always makes me laugh. The second season is far better than the first season, but both are pretty entertaining. (If you decide to watch it, give it like four or five episodes, the first few are a little rough.) The very good looking Luke Youngblood plays Sid, the squire and inspired this paper doll’s hair. I admit it is not quite as awesome as Sid’s hair, but I did my best.

Drawing male paper dolls will probably never be my favorite option, but I am trying very hard to create more gents in 2017 and the Sprites series has given me more practice in designing and drawing men’s clothing.

I’m trying something different this week. I was going through my media library where all the paper doll content lives before I get it scheduled and ready to go out into the world and I realized that I have a lot more dolls then I have clothing sets ready to go. So, this week I am shaking up my “dolls on Monday” policy and posting nothing but dolls all week!

You can look forward to a Mini-Maiden mermaid, a pair of Medieval fantasy Sprites and a B&B curvy space alien. Should be fun, I hope.

Need a more outfits for today’s Marisole Monday & Friends Paper Doll? Find More Guys Clothing Here

B&B’s Paper Doll Sorceress Gowns Continue!


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Today’s Printable Paper Doll Inspirations: Tridents, Water and Ancient Greece
A water based fantasy gown for the curvy B&B printable paper doll series. Part of the Sorceress Gown Collection.

A water based fantasy gown for the curvy B&B printable paper doll series. Part of the Sorceress Gown Collection.

So, back in early April, I posted the first part of my   (I always come up with the most creative names.) In that intro post, I explained that I had a variety of potential long term projects, tossed them out to my Patrons and this was the winning idea. 

I had kinda been hoping Space Princess would win the poll, but you can’t have everything in life. And nothing is stopping me from embracing Space Princesses as a future plan.

Anyhow, today’s sorceress gown is based on Water, just like my last gown was based on Fire. I wanted to pair fire and water with a similar ancient Greek influence. Mind you, this a very Hollywood idea of Ancient Greek clothing owing more to Xena: Warrior Princess than actual history.

I wanted to capture the shades of water I tend to think of which are not light blues. I tend to associate water with such a dark teal that it looks nearly black which is what I remember from Southeast Alaska where I grew up.

Her magical staff is based on a trident which is a nod to Poseidon, the Greek God of the Ocean. It’s probably not a very functional trident, what with the center prong being a jewel encrusted thing, but there you have it.

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Need to get a Bodacious & Buxom paper doll to wear these fabulous clothes? Pick one out here.

A Fancy Outfit For A Paper Doll’s Fancy Events


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Today’s Printable Paper Doll Inspirations: Prom Season
A paper doll prom dress with a cropped top and full floral skirt. Free to print from paperthinpersonas.com.

A paper doll prom dress with a cropped top and full floral skirt. Free to print from paperthinpersonas.com.

It is prom season and while I am not in an age group that is going to prom, I have noticed a strong trend towards crop tops and full skirts.

While I did enjoy the proms I went to, I will openly confess that there is no force in the universe that could make me want to go back to high school. That was just a dreadful part of my youth.

While I was helping a close friend shop for a wedding dress, I noticed a lot of prom dress styles were showing off the midriff. This isn’t a new thing, by the way, midriff revealing evening wear dates back to the 1940s- here’s one example from the movie Lady Eve. It’s a hard dress to find a decent picture of, I confess. There’s also one in Casablanca, but I can’t seem to find a picture of that dress. Sigh.

Anyway, the point is the showing of your midriff in evening wear is not a new thing, but certainly hasn’t been in style for a few decades. It certainly wasn’t “in” when I was in high school heading off to Prom. That was the era of dressed based on the movie Titanic’s Jump Dress and also styles like this from Buffy the Vampire Slayer.

Seriously, I knew at least three people who wore short satiny dresses under sheer layers to formals in high school.

I digress.

I had way to much fun drawing the huge oversized floral on the skirt of this outfit. I really wanted something that the full skirt to accommodate, so giant floral seemed like it would be fun.

Other then that, I’m just glad I got to share this dress before Prom season was completely over, though I strongly suspect it has mostly wrapped up by now.

So, tell me fearless readers, did you go to Prom? I did, but not my Senior year. We had a joint Junior and Senior prom at my school. I also went as a Sophomore, because I was invited by a Senior. That was actually the most fun one since many of my friends in High School were older then me.

Not bad memories, but, as I said above, no force on this planet could make me want to go back to high school.

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Need a paper doll to wear today’s outfit? Pick out a Ms. Mannequin Paper Doll Here

The Sprites Explore Tudor Fantasy Clothing


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Today’s Printable Paper Doll Inspirations: Tudor Era Clothing, Kinda
Ladies and gents fantasy paper doll clothing to print based on Tudor Era dress Free to print from paperthinpersonas.com.

A pair of fantasy paper doll outfits based on Tudor Era dress to color and play with. Free to print and color from paperthinpersonas.com.

I go through phases. This probably isn’t any different from anyone else who does something creative. There are no double periods when someone really feels like playing jazz on the piano or when someone really seems to be into crocheting hedgehogs.

I, on the other hand, seem to fall into patterns where a specific paper doll theme seems super fascinating to me. During this stretches, I often add images based on the theme to my pinterest boards with abandon. About half the time, these spasms of interest don’t actually lead to paper doll outfits, because I have the attention span of an ADHD raven sometimes. However, on occasion, they do.

So, after a few weeks of being really into Tudor influenced fantasy clothing, I actually drew some for the Sprites paper dolls. See? There was a point to that weird ramble that I started today’s post with.

If you hop over to my Pinterest fantasy board, you will not doubt notice the large number of Tudor influenced dresses there. A few of the ladies dresses that inspired me are this one, this one and this one. I also really liked this men’s doublet and this men’s doublet.

The lady Sprite outfit is really only fantasy, because I couldn’t be bothered to do any real research and I refuse to call something historical unless I actually have sources I can cite. The guy Sprites on the other hand… well, that outfit has a lot more fantasy going on. I just think a lot of men’s clothing from the Tudor period looks pretty absurd. What can I say?

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Looking for some Sprite paper dolls to wear these outfits? Pick out Sprite paper dolls here.

A Printable Paper Doll Fantasy Outfit Inspired by Turkish Dress (And Accidentally by a Movie)


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Today’s Printable Paper Doll Inspirations: Turkish and Persian Clothing and This Picture on Pinterest
A black and white printable paper doll fantasy outfit based on 19th century Turkish clothing with a caftan coat, plus boots from paperthinpersonas.com.

So, I rarely draw things that are as close to the reference image as today’s paper doll fantasy outfit. I saw this picture on Pinterest and I really liked it. I later realized that this it is basically Kiera Knightly’s costume from Pirates of the Caribbean: At the World’s End. I was almost ashamed that I drew it after that, because I really dislike that film.

Still, once it was done and saved and ready to go, I didn’t want to just abandon it, because it was based off an awful movie costume. The costume is okay I guess, but the film is just so bad. Anyway, I decided I should just get over it and treat it like any other paper doll creation.

So, a little background- the coat in the picture and in this paper doll is based on a traditional Turkish clothing from the 19th century. Here’s an example from The Met, another one from The Met and a Victorian era rendition of the same garment.

There are, of course, a lot of differences between my version of the caftan, the biggest being that it closes all the way up to the neck. This was not how women really wore them back in the 19th century, but that’s what fantasy clothing is for, isn’t it?

I couldn’t see the bottom of the picture, so I decided mine was a gown and the wide leather belt and layers of armor were likely decorative. The paper doll’s boots were my attempt to draw upturned toes on shoes such as these ones and were another nod to Turkey.

What do you all think? Good paper doll outfit? Bad Movie? Thoughts? Let me know in a comment. I love to hear from you all.

Meanwhile, if you want to support the blog, then think about becoming a Patron or picking something up from the Etsy store.

Need a Mini-Maiden paper doll to wear today’s outfit? Pick a Mini-Maiden Paper Doll Here.

A 1920s Poppet Paper Doll to Print and Play With


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Today’s Printable Paper Doll Inspirations:1920s Children’s Clothing & Frannie Fisher on PBS
A 1920s paper doll with underwear and two pairs of shoes. Part of the Poppet printable paper doll collection from paperthinpersonas.com.

A paper doll coloring page to print with underwear and two pairs of shoes based on 1920s clothing. Free printable in black and white to color from paperthinpersonas.com.

So, with all the 1920s paper doll clothing I have been drawing lately, it seemed dumb not to have a 1920s Poppet paper doll to wear it. This is the first of what I hope will end up being two or three 1920s Poppet dolls, but for now I am calling one a victory.

I am also a huge Miss Fisher Murder Mysteries on PBS fan and it seemed to me that the best 1920s doll would be one with Phryne Fisher’s coloring which means dark hair and pale skin. This was very fashionable look for women of the 1920s thanks to the movie star Louise Brooks. The paper dolls hair is based on Louise Brooks.

I gave our 1920s paper doll a period slip with attached drawers and lace accents. I also wanted to give her two pairs of shoes to wear with any of the 1920s collection dresses or any of the other Poppet clothing. She has the same skintone as Poppy, Paradisea and my Vintage 1950s one.

Her side-glancing eyes are a nod to Lenci dolls, one of my favorite doll companies of this era.

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Need a paper doll to wear today’s outfit? Pick a Poppet Paper Doll Here.

Favorite Novels: Treasure Island and a Fantastic Pirate Paper Doll Outfit


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Today’s Printable Paper Doll Inspirations: Treasure Island, One of my Favorite Novels
A black and white paper doll coloring page of a pirate outfit inspired by the novel Treasure Island.
As some of you may recall, in January, Boots, Julie and Myself started a collaborative paper doll project, all drawing clothing for a shared base doll. Missy joined us shortly there after and we have continued to create, each month, an outfit for our shared paper doll lady.

For month four, our theme was Favorite Novels. For me, I knew immediately that Treasure Island was the novel I was going to work with. I fell in love with Treasure Island when I was a child. It has everything- a coming of age story, pirates, buried treasure and lots of adventure and betrayal.

The lack of ladies in Treasure Island never bothered me, but since our paper doll is a lady, I created some fantastic pirate attire for her to wear. And there were plenty of lady pirates in the real world, though I doubt many of them wore things like this.

Back when this whole year long collaboration project was proposed, I thought there was basically no chance it would survive four whole months. Call me a cynic, I suppose, but here we are in March of 2017 and there’s another batch of paper doll outfits on the horizon for my wonderful fellow paper doll creators- Boots, Julie and Missy.

So, check out Popculture and Paper Dolls, Miss. Missy and Paper Doll School for three other literature inspired paper doll outfits.

Need a doll to wear this stylish outfit? Grab the Doll here. 

The Poppet’s Get a 1920s Spring-Time Dress and Matching Cloche


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Today’s Printable Paper Doll Inspirations:1920s Children’s Clothing- One of my True Loves
A 1920s inspired paper doll dress for the Poppet printable paper doll series. Free printable in black and white or color from paperthinpersonas.com.

A 1920s inspired paper doll dress for the Poppet printable paper doll series. Free printable in black and white to color from paperthinpersonas.com.

Today’s Poppet 1920s Children’s Wardrobe Collection contribution is a spring time dress. I sort of thought of it as an Easter dress when I designed it, but Easter was a few weeks ago. I chose a pale color scheme with soft blue and pink for the dress. With the dress is a matching cloche, because lord knows the 1920s loved a good looking cloche.

I know I’ve spoken before about how much I adore 1920s children’s clothing. There’s just something about clothing of that era that I adore. I have equal love for children’s clothing of the 1930s, but I haven’t had as many opportunities to draw that.

Maybe that’s a project for another time.

I openly confess that I don’t have a good record of what I used as reference when I drew today’s dress. I am pretty sure I used Children’s Fashions 1900-1950 As Pictured in Sears Catalogs, 1920s Fashions from B. Altman & Company and/or Everyday Fashions of the Twenties: As Pictured in Sears and Other Catalogs. All of these books are from Dover which is a great source of reasonably priced fashion history books. I think I own almost all their 1920s fashion books.

The realization that fashion history books are a justifiable business expense has made it a lot harder to talk myself out of buying them.

I do realize that recently most of what I have posted for the Poppet’s paper dolls to print have been either from the Fairy Tale project or the 1920s project. Never fear, there are also normal clothing on the horizon. I mean, even paper dolls need jeans.

So, what do you think of today’s 1920s paper doll dress? Love it? Hate it? Wish it was purple? Let me know in a comment.

Meanwhile, if you want to support the blog, then think about becoming a Patron or liking it on facebook and tune in tomorrow for a paper doll outfit inspired by one of my favorite novels.

Need a paper doll to wear today’s outfit? Pick a Poppet Paper Doll Here.

Meet Shirou the New Sprites Gent in a Stylin’ Suit


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Today’s Printable Paper Doll Inspirations:  Suits! All the Suits!
An Asian guy printable paper doll with a dashing three piece grey suit. Free to print from paperthinpersonas.com.

An Asian guy printable paper doll with a dashing three piece suit. Free to print and color from paperthinpersonas.com.

While my second doll ever in the Sprites printable paper doll collection was Yumiko, I haven’t done an Asian guy yet for the Sprites and I wanted to do that today. I am pleased to introduce to everyone Shirou. Shirou is a Japanese name which means Fourth Son. It’s traditionally given to the, wait for it, fourth son. I though it was super fitting, because Shirou is my fourth male Sprites paper doll. The others are (in order of “birth”) Zachary, Xavier and  Víctor.

I also ended up making his suit grey which is the same color as yesterday’s suit for Teresa. Anyone want to guess my favorite suit color? (Hint: It is not Navy. 🙂 )

Back when PTP began, I was petrified of trying to draw Asian features. Mostly, it was the epicanthic fold that worried me. I was also self conscious that, as a non-Asian, I didn’t want to draw a caricature. While it has taken me a long time, I’ve gotten pretty comfortable with the whole epicanthic fold thing and come to realize there is huge variation in this feature.

See, more then you wanted to know about the epicanthic fold.

So, what do you think of today’s Sprite paper doll? Let me know in a comment. I love hearing from you all.

Want to help keep the blog on the internet? Donate on Patreon.

Oh, and tomorrow, there will be another installment of the Poppets 1920s series and on Friday, come around for the next piece in the 2017 Collab paper doll project.

Looking for something else for today’s Sprite paper doll to wear? Pick out some clothing here.

Meet Teresa the New Sprites Latina Paper Doll Lady in Stylin’ Suit


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Today’s Printable Paper Doll Inspirations:  Suits! 
A printable Latina paper doll with a grey suit named Teresa and two pairs of shoes. Part of the Sprites printable paper doll series she can wear any of the ladies Sprite paper doll clothing.

A printable Latina paper doll with a suit named Teresa and two pairs of shoes. Part of the Sprites printable paper doll series she can wear any of the ladies Sprite paper doll clothing. Print and color this paper doll.

It seemed past time to me that I should share a new Sprites face. Today I am pleased to introduce Teresa, the newest member of the Sprites printable paper doll family. In my head, she’s a Latina paper doll, but her skin-tone and coloring could be from a variety of places.

The name “Teresa” is Spanish and is one of those names where the meaning is a little unclear. It has been the name of several Catholic saints though and I’ve always had a fondness for it.

I’ve been wanting to create a printable paper doll set with suits, so today Teresa has a beautiful grey suit. I chose grey for the suit, because I love grey suits. I think it would be beautiful in a color as well. Maybe a strong purple or soft blue would look really nice.

Her shoes either match her purse or are meant to be nice basics. They do have pretty high heels… but then I love a good pair of high heels.

Yesterday, I posted this blog income report for the first quarter of 2017. I get erratic questions from folks who want to start a blog, so it might be interesting if you haven’t looked at it and care. If you don’t care, then feel free to ignore it. 🙂

Want to help keep the blog on the internet? Donate on Patreon.

Oh, and tomorrow, there will be a new guy paper doll to be added to the Sprites paper doll family. I’m super excited to introduce him and his dashing suit.

Looking for something else for today’s Sprite paper doll to wear? Pick out some clothing here.

2017 First Quarter Blog Income Report For Paper Thin Personas

I am interrupting the regular paper doll content to share some numbers in the first ever Paper Thin Personas Blog Income Report. Paper dolls will resume tomorrow.

I went back and forth and back and forth about today’s post. I was raised in a family where you do not talk about money, so talking about money and business openly is pretty counter intuitive for me. However, when I first started blogging I saw some really distorted income reports and I wanted to share one that wasn’t from someone who was trying to quit their day job. (Seriously, I adore my day job, why would I want to quit it?)

Let’s start with expenses.

Expenses for Paper Thin Personas

The blog income report expenses chart for the First Quarter of 2017 for PTP.

The PTP’s expenses I keep in three categories- fees, advertising and blog expenses.

Fees are the costs Etsy and Patreon both charge for processing payment. Fees cost me about 72 dollars this month.

I chose to try out Pinterest advertising for the first time this quarter. It was most a bust with a click-through rate (how many people who saw it and then clicked) of less then 1%. I also promote the Etsy Store and that costs a little too.

Total expenses for advertising were 43 dollars.

Blog expenses include the server hosting costs, paying for social media management tools, security and backups. My hosting is super cheap and very bare bones, but I really should switch companies and/or upgrade. Once I do that, my hosting costs will jump from about 12.00 per month up to the 30 to 40 dollar range.

I also pay about 21 dollars a month for a security company to monitor the blog (it was hacked last year), provide a firewall, cacheing and daily backups. All things I really need.

Blog expenses cost me about 144 dollars this last quarter and this will increase if I change hosts.

You will note I don’t have supplies in this pie-chart. I am horrible at tracking my supplies, but my resolution for next quarter is to get better at it.

Income For Paper Thin Personas

The blog income report income chart for the First Quarter of 2017 for PTP.

My income was a little odd this quarter. I got my last payout from a licensing deal with HP Printers, which was for 497 dollars. I also got a deposit for a commission which I’ll be finishing up this April. That was 100 dollars.

The Etsy store debuted and actually did better than I expected. I made 12 sales and a total of about 88 dollars.

The most important income piece is Patreon. Patrons donated 290.00 dollars this quarter. They paid for the blog to stay on the internet and there was a little left over to do some ads. In short, I am very grateful to all of them. You guys rock!

If you want to join… here’s the link to do that.

To sum up all the numbers, it cost me 258 to run the site. I made about 948. The net income is 690.

However, this includes 497 dollars from HP which will not happen again, plus commission funds, if you take out the one-time payments, the net income becomes 93 dollars.

A slightly less impressive number for sure.

Paper Thin Personas Sales Data

The blog income report sales chart for the First Quarter of 2017 for PTP. The most popular clothing sets have been the black and white Steampunk clothing set, the black and white Medieval Princess Gowns set, the color Medieval Gowns Set (red & blue color scheme), all having sold three copies.

The most popular dolls have been the redhead with the orange base and the blond with the orange base. None of the black and white dolls have sold more than one copy. I think it is interesting that the clothing sells in black and white, but the dolls don’t seem to move much.

As you can see from the chart above, clothing sales far out pace doll sales.

Paper Thin Personas Site Stats

The blog income report stats chart for the First Quarter of 2017 for PTP.

I am averaged 36,000 views per month, 5368 users per month and 9,000 sessions per month. These numbers aren’t bad, per say, but they haven’t changed a great deal in the last few years. Last year, for example, I averaged 5,018 users per month and in 2015, I averaged 4750 users per month.

Not bad numbers, per say, just not great numbers. If I want to grow PTP, I need to get more eyes on the blog.

I have 3462 Pinterest followers which is steadily growing and remains my highest social media referral site. The Facebook page had 46 likes at the start of April. The twitter feed is… well, it remains pretty unpopular, but I am trying to not totally give up on it.

Where to Go from Here?

I’ll admit the math has made me do some thinking. I swore long ago that I wouldn’t put advertising on the site and I still don’t want to do that. I stand by my belief that keeping the site ad free is important, but it massively reduces sources of income.

Affiliate programs are another option for income streams, but I need to discuss that with a lawyer. The blog is in a strange position as far as the Child’s Online Privacy Protection Act is concerned. I need to make sure I am not running afoul of that law.

It is my belief that the only way to really increase my income is to get more eyes on the blog and that means gritting my teeth and paying something for advertising, even though I hate doing it. I just need to decide what the best form that would take.

Pinterest remains my top referrer with Facebook coming in close behind. The possibility of a Facebook ad has occurred to me, but I’m not sure if I want to spend the money. I have heard mixed things about Facebook ads.

So, I think that’s everything. Regular paper dolls with resume tomorrow. 🙂

Thoughts? Questions? Let me know in a comment. This is my first ever year to track all this stuff. I don’t know if I’ll do a report like this every quarter, but it was a really healthy exercise I think.