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Unlock with PatreonTwenty 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
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
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.
A Works-In-Progress Preview for my Patrons
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Enchanted Elegance: A Fantasy Paper Doll
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.
Retro Refinement: A Vintage Fashion Inspired Paper Doll for my Patrons
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A Purim Paper Doll for 2024!
Download Black and White PDF | Download Color PDF | More Paper Dolls from the Ensemble Eclectica Series
Today’s paper doll is a Purim themed paper doll. So, I historically have saved holiday paper dolls for the actual day of the holiday, which for Purim this year is March 24th. However, this year, I decided that if people were going to print these off and use them for any sort of Purim kids activities, posting them early made sense. So, I’m trying this out to see how it feels.
My niece loves purple. She inspired this color scheme. I had a much more sedate color scheme in mind and then I thought, “What would my niece like?”
And this where I ended up. A lot more bright and colorful than I tend to go under normal circumstances, but still a lot of fun.
I won’t recap the entire story of Esther here (because you can find that elsewhere). Our paper doll has most of the things I think you need to celebrate the holiday. There’s an Esther scroll. The Book of Esther is not in the Torah, so it is held on a separate scroll. There’s a grogger for making noise and a big plate of hamantaschen. Plus, an Esther costume for dressing up (which is traditional). Technically, you can dress up in any costume that suits you, but when I was kid the person everyone wanted to dress up as was Esther. So, there you go.
I’ll be dusting off my hamantaschen baking skills this week to make up some for work, because I love making them and the recipe I have from my grandmother makes a huge amount. Personally, I like poppy seed ones, but most people I know prefer apricot. I had such a hard time finding poppy seed filling last year, that I ordered extra from Amazon. It’s been quietly waiting since last year, so it’s time for it to get used.
St. Patrick’s Day Paper Doll for 2024
Download Black and White PDF | Download Color PDF | More Paper Dolls from the Ensemble Eclectica Series
I usually save Holiday paper dolls for the actual date of the holiday. The Saint’s Day for St. Patrick is March 17th, which is a few days from now. But the more I thought about it, the more I realized that folks might want these paper dolls early. That way they can print them and actually give them kids on St. Patrick’s Day. So, it makes more sense to post it early, I think.
Plus, I can post on social media on the day of the actual holiday, because that’s how social media works. (I’m still learning how social media works.)
St. Patrick’s Day is the feast day for St. Patrick, patron Saint of Ireland. From what I’ve seen it is mostly celebrated in the United States by parades, dying the Chicago river green, and drinking green dyed beer. Now, you might be wondering why I like drawing St. Patrick’s Day paper dolls when I am neither Irish nor Catholic, and don’t drink beer (green or otherwise). The thing is I studied in Illinois and became friends with many very Irish-Catholic people and I started drawing St. Patrick’s Day paper dolls.
And then I got requests for more of them when I missed a few years, so there you have it.
Since I don’t know enough (read: anything) about the actual traditions of St. Patrick’s Day from a religious perspective, I keep my St. Patrick’s Day paper dolls strictly secular. I chose rainbows and clovers as the primary motifs.
By the way, my favorite St. Patrick’s Day paper doll ever was this one, where I drew clothing from historical eras that connected to the holiday. I should really re-draw that one… I think I’d have fun with it. Well, there’s always next year.
Neo-Noir Threads: A Little Futuristic Fashion Paper Doll
Download Black and White PDF | Download Color PDF | More Paper Dolls from the Ensemble Eclectica Series
Maybe this is just me, but when I draw any cyberpunk fashion paper doll designs, it feels a little absurd. My paper dolls are playful and cute. Cyberpunk is neither playful nor generally cute. However, my art is and I like drawing cyberpunk fashion, so here we are.
Besides a free printable cyberpunk fashion paper doll could be a commentary on the capitalistic society we live in and the commodification of childhood… or it could just be that I wanted to draw improbable zippers. I’ll leave the art analysis to others.
I really do love the cyberpunk aesthetic. Maybe it’s the zippers that don’t quite make sense or the straps that also don’t quite make sense. Maybe I read too much William Gibson in high school. Either way, I’ll always have an affection for cyberpunk and neon. As I’ve gotten older, I confess that I find the whole thing more dystopian than I did as a teen, but then I guess growing up gives one perspective on these things. Truthfully, I don’t read as much of it as I used too, I think it hits too close to the actual state of the world sometimes.
This paper doll was made around the same time I was working on all my aliens (Galaxy Glamour, Interstellar Seas, Stardust Styles, and Astro Allure), but she took a distinctly darker turn than they did, so I don’t consider her part of the series.