Paper Thin Personas • Page 97 of 148 • Rachel Cohen's Paper Doll Creations

Lady in a Castle: A Printable Paper Doll

May 22, 2020February 9, 2015

One of my pet peeves is that fantasy movies always default to the assumption that the characters involved are white-skinned. I just saw Into the Woods which I recommend highly- I am a huge Sondheim fan- and I noticed they had some brown-skinned extras which is great, but all of the main characters were white skinned.

I know one of the common arguments against skin-tone diversity in classic fantasy or fairy tales is that they are often European in origin and it wouldn’t be accurate to have brown skinned characters; however, I’m not sure the argument for “accuracy” really holds up. First of all, there was a lot more diversity in Europe a lot earlier than most people realize. Secondly, if there are going to be giants and magic, can’t we accept the idea that some of the characters might be darker skinned? Does that really deeply violate suspension of disbelief? We are talking about a genre of story with singing harps, talking animals, and pumpkin coaches.

This is all a really complicated way of saying that I try to give my fantasy paper dolls a variety of skin tones, including weird ones like green, more green and orange. Um… Is it bad I just noticed I have two green skinned paper dolls? I could have sworn one of those had blue skin. I should keep better track of these things.

A fantasy paper doll with brown skin and four gowns. She also has two pairs of shoes. Free to print from paperthinpersonas.com

{Click Here for a PDF to Print} {Click Here for a PNG to Print} {Click Here for More Marisole Monday & Friends Printable Paper Dolls}Moving on from her skin tone, I stuck with the pale scheme I had planned and tried to focus on greens, blues and purples while using yellow and pink as accent colors. I think it came out pretty well, though coloring those detailed patterns took forever. Every time I add a bunch of pattern, I promise myself that it is the “last time” and then I do it again- because I really do like pattern.

Changing topic a bit, one of the most common questions I get is “Why don’t you sell your paper dolls?” I decided to answer this question for Abby of While She Naps. Abby took my thoughts about hobby and business, combined them with those of some other very talented crafters, and created a really great post about business, craft, and why we do what we do. I recommend going and reading it post-haste.

Meanwhile, Vikings are winning my “What historical period should B&B visit” poll which means, I suppose, I should go learn something about Viking dress. If you have not voted, please do. It is highly likely that I will not totally ignore the outcome. It is also highly likely it will take forever for me to get it done, because I am me.

An Interview with my Featured Paper Doll Artist: Lina of Lina’s Paper Dolls

May 22, 2020February 6, 2015

For my first paper doll artist to feature in 2015, I knew I wanted to feature a newer artist on the scene, so I interviewed Lina. Lina, of Lina’s Paper Dolls, has been posting her paper dolls for just about a year and ahalf, but her work is wonderful. She focuses on historical paper dolls based on various periods throughout history. Her paper dolls all share the same basic body and are in black and white for coloring.

In Lina’s black and white paper dolls, there is clearly a love of history. Her each of her paper dolls has one to five outfits relating to the story of the paper doll and their stories span the globe and time.

There’s Carolyn Collins who is in DC during Watergate and Elizabeth Tanner, who lives in Maryland, or Susanne Merritt, who lives in Canada, both during the War of 1812. Simone Spencer is a telephone operator during World War 1. Kalani Hikaru witnesses Hawaiian statehood in 1959. Basia Sienkiewicz survives the Swedish invasion of Poland in 1655. I could go on and on with more of the fascinating historical events Lina ties to her paper dolls.

For more information about her paper dolls and our interview go to my Featured Artist Page and you can read about Other Featured Paper Doll Artists as well.

1940’s Vixen: A 1940’s Fashion Paper Doll

May 22, 2020February 5, 2015

There are some periods of fashion I’m naturally drawn too. I love the regency era and the 1870s. I have a strange soft spot for the 1920s and the mod looks of the 1960s. However, 1940’s fashions just doesn’t do so much for me. Still, one of my goals for my paper dolls in 2015 is to do more historical paper doll sets and to stretch myself into eras that I’m not naturally interested in.

As a result, today’s paper doll is clad in 1940’s fashion finery.

Truly, the 1940s is a fascinating time in fashion history. World War Two interrupts the middle of the decade and the end of the war welcomes in a whole new style of clothes thanks to Dior’s New Look. Prior to 1947, however, there is cloth rationing in many countries, most notable England, and an emphasis on “Make Due and Make Mend”. Magazines would publish articles on how to transform a man’s suit into a woman’s suit or how to turn dishtowels into aprons.

A printable paper doll with 1940's fashions including three diereses, three hats, purses and shoes. Free to print and color from paperthinpersonas.com.

{Download a PDF of this paper doll to Color} {View a 150 dpi PNG of this Paper Doll to Color}Hats were still required for day wear. Our paper doll is sporting three different hats and two purses. Marie Claie UK published these wonderful photos of 1940s fashion on their blog- photo number 27 inspired one of her hats. Her black purse is from 1945 and is based on this purse from the V&A. Her shoes are from 1943, based on this pair at the Met.

A red-headed printable paper doll with 1940's fashions including three diereses, three hats, purses and shoes. Free to print in color from paperthinpersonas.com.

{Download a PDF of this paper doll in Full Color} {View a 150 dpi PNG of this Paper Doll in Full Color} {More Bodacious and Buxom Printable Paper Dolls}All of her dresses come from vintage pattern covers- Vogue 5667, Simplicity 3296 A (one of my favorite designs, I used it here too) and Vogue 5802 A. My 1940s fashion Pinterest board contains more images that influenced this set.

A Quick Poll…

[poll id=”4″]

Lady in a Castle: A Paper Doll Coloring Page

May 22, 2020February 2, 2015

So, I usually manage to get these paper doll sets up on schedule to post early Monday, but clearly today I wasn’t so on the ball. Never the less, I’m not technically late, just a little delayed I suppose with today’s paper doll coloring page of a princess and her four paper doll dresses- everyone needs paper doll dresses, right?

This week’s Marisole Monday & Friend’s paper doll features Marisole and some pretty traditional fantasy gowns. Fantasy sets seem to be the favorite of my readers and I enjoy them. I wanted to play with pattern for these, so they are heavily patterned- much more than I usually do with my paper doll sets. I’ve been challenging myself to use more patterns lately.

Should you think Marisole needs some paper doll friends, I’m sure she can hang out with Marcus the Warrior or the Coastal Princess. I know she’ll have a light colored, pastel based color scheme, though I’m not sure exactly what colors yet.

A fantasy paper doll coloring page with a princess and her four paper dresses. Free to print from paperthinpersonas.com

{Click Here for a PDF to Print} {Click Here for a PNG to Print} {Click Here for More Marisole Monday & Friends Printable Paper Dolls}The crown is less a “crown” and more a simple circlet. I wanted to do something simple that would accent her very patterned dresses.

And since it’s later than I usually get these done and I am very tired, I am going to call this post finished. Thanks everyone for your kind wishes while I was ill last week and hopefully we’ll have a normally updating blog this week.

If you want, let me know what you think of her in a comment. 🙂

Baton Twirling Majorette Paper Doll in Color

May 22, 2020January 26, 2015

I’ve been pretty sick this weekend, and I wasn’t sure I was going to get this up, but I’m on antibiotics now and am writing this between naps.

(When I’m sick, I nap a lot.)

I always say that I don’t do a lot of blond paper dolls, but I think I might do more than I realize. I do have a deep love of red hair. Anyway, I’ve done maybe thirty blond paper dolls over the years and a lot of those were because of multiple colored hair like on my Delaney paper doll or Spikes and Pleats paper doll set. Anyway, the girl who asked for this paper doll is blond, so I decided a blond paper doll made the most sense.

{Click Here for a PDF to Print} {Click Here for a PNG to Print} {Click Here for More Marisole Monday & Friends Printable Paper Dolls}An random interesting fact- The the white and red uniform is actually based on a photo of what the majorettes at the university I work for wore in the 1960s. We no longer have majorettes. I thought about doing the uniforms of some of the other area university majorettes, but a lot of the costumes were bit too skimpy or involved a lot of illusion netting. Because I want the paper doll outfits to be interchangeable among the various paper dolls regardless of skin tone, I tend to steer clear of putting skintone on the outfit pieces…. except shoes, where I can’t seem to avoid it.

As I mentioned earlier, I am sick, so I don’t know if I’ll get much posted this week. I have some stuff ready, but nothing pre-scheduled.

Meet Paradisea: Printable Paper Doll

December 6, 2020January 21, 2015

Today’s printable paper doll is nearly the last of my 2014 backlog. Not to suggest I don’t have half finished paper dolls sitting around my hard drive waiting to be finished, because I have those dating back years and years, but this is the last piece of finished work from 2014.

It feels good to get her up and shared. I’m very pleased that the blog continues to chug along quite nicely. I got a lot of work done with my three day weekend. There will be some Buxom and Bodacious soon and a Pixie post, I think and some sketch book previews this week. All fun stuff.

Meanwhile, we have our latest Poppet paper doll here. She’s named Paradisea, one of the last of the P flower names that I have on file. I might have to switch to other names starting with P or to other flowers. I’m divided on which is a better solution.

I do love me my alliteration.

{Download a PDF in Color} {View a 150 dpi PNG in Color}{Download a PDF to Color} {View a 150 dpi PNG to Color} {More Poppet Printable Paper Dolls}

Paradisea has a t-shirt and jeans. Her paper clothes are in the way color scheme as Petal’s clothing, allowing the dolls to mix and match. After all, paper doll friends should be able to share their clothes with each other.

Twirling Majorette: A Printable Paper Doll

December 6, 2020January 19, 2015

There are a few perks of knowing me in the real world. One of those perks is that when you ask for a paper doll set, it is a lot more likely to actually happen. It might take a little while, but eventually it will happen.

This request only took me a year to get to. I was asked to do a baton twirling or majorette paper doll by a young women I know who was one in high school.

Now, I’ll admit that I had no idea there even were baton twirlers anymore. I think it might be a Southern thing. I certainly don’t recall any on the West Coast and definitely not in Alaska where I grew up. If you have a chance though, do check out youtube for baton twirling. It’s pretty amazing watching someone who really knows what they are doing. Definitely a remarkable skill.

So, while I know nothing about baton twirling other than what I could learn on the internet, this paper doll was fun to draw and I hope I didn’t mess up anything too badly. After all, I’d like my baton twirling fans (if I have any) to be pleased. By the way, one thing I did notice, is a lot of baton twirling outfits are similiar to skating costumes, so I think Margot could share with my ice skating Marisole.

{Click Here for a PDF to Print} {Click Here for a PNG to Print} {Click Here for More Marisole Monday & Friends Printable Paper Dolls}One thing I did notice is that a lot of modern majorette costumes use a lot of illusion netting. I decided against the appearence of illusion netting in my costumes. I also found that my favorite outfits were those from the fifties and sixties, much more than I liked the costumes today. Margot has a few old fashioned outfits, along with boots with tassels, and a few modern outfits.

I gave her a normal baton, a sword baton and one on fire. Everything is better on fire.

So, any majorettes (current or former) out there want to tell me how I did?

Audra: 2 Different Color Schemes, 1 Paper Doll

May 22, 2020January 15, 2015

First things first, I’m sure many people are curious about who won the contest (I mean, at lease the people who entered it.) As I did last year, I decided to have two winners of my end of the year drawing/contest. Congrats to Mag15 and Kitrona who were selected by the highly scientific process of counting the unique comments and using Random.Org to select a winner.

Meanwhile, onto the paper dolls…

Sometimes, I get a little carried away playing with color schemes. I think the color scheme can really change the whole look of a paper doll set. It can go from sweet to saucy to historical. It’s a fun aspect of drawing and designing paper dolls.

The first color scheme is winter white with pale blue/grey in neutrals. The various colors to set off the neutrals are a deep grey purple and two shades of pink. The doll’s skin color is a warm redbrown and her hair is black. The darker skin tone will be set off by the winter white.

{Download a PDF to Print in Color} {Download a PNG to Print in Color}{More Pixie & Puck Printable Paper Dolls}I rarely do blond paper dolls, but I really loved the bright pink coat and it reminded me of Barbie. Barbie is blond, so Audra became blond for this set. The neutrals are several shades of light warm grey. The accent color is a denim blue.

{Download a PDF to Print in Color} {Download a PNG to Print in Color}{More Pixie & Puck Printable Paper Dolls}Clearly, I was enjoying my pink and blues. Both these sets came out much more similar in color scheme than intended. I had a great deal of fun coloring these sets.

Audra: A Printable Paper Doll in Black and White and in Color

May 22, 2020January 14, 2015

It has been a long time since I did a paper doll devoted to coats (my last one was Delia), but there are so many cute coat styles out this year. I just went recently (okay, two months ago) and bought myself a bright purple winter coat, which I totally love, but there are tons of over beautiful coats on the market.

I also wanted to go with boots, since it is boot season. Most Pixie paper dolls get one pair of shoes, but since Audra’s wardrobe is pretty exclusively coats, I thought two pairs of boots would stretch things out a bit. I didn’t notice how crooked the dress’s neckline was until I posted it. Sorry about that. Asymmetrical is in, right?

Remember to cut along the doll’s shoulders, so she can wear the coats. I think some of them will fit over things and some of them won’t. I wanted to do a few fitted jackets, though I tried to make them large enough for layering. (I confess I didn’t test them extensively.)

{Download a PDF to Print and Color} {Download a PNG to Print and Color}{More Pixie & Puck Printable Paper Dolls}I wanted to play around with coats and also with different color schemes. I actually colored this set three times. This is the first version, I’ll post two more next week. The version below is all blues and purples.

{Download a PDF to Print in Color} {Download a PNG to Print in Color}{More Pixie & Puck Printable Paper Dolls}I tend towards warm colors myself- reds and pinks and things. I wanted to try to do a set with none of those colors, except in her red hair. I went with purples, blues and pale green. Grey is the neutral in this set and I do love the color grey. I must own at least a half-dozen grey pants.

Tomorrow, I’ll announce the drawing winner (it closes tonight at midnight) and show off my two other color schemes for this set.

Marcus the Warrior Printable Paper Doll

May 22, 2020January 12, 2015

This is going to be an uber short post today, because I really have a million things to do. Still, I have neglected the blog for a week and I didn’t want to keep neglecting it.

Sometimes, I feel like it is a small monster. If I don’t feed the blog monster, it might someday hunger for the souls of children or possibly lollipops. Either way, it is in my best interest to make sure that it is fed.

Anyway, today we have the Marcus paper doll from last way up in full color. The designs are based on my whole pseudo-Medieval/Viking thing. I really wanted to stick with earth tones and simple colors, nothing too crazy or vivid.

{Click Here for a PDF to Print} {Click Here for a PNG to Print} {Click Here for More Marisole Monday & Friends Printable Paper Dolls}Right now, there’s a little drawing/contest and it’ll be wrapping soon so go enter if you haven’t. It closes on the 14th, winner announced on the 15th.

Marcus as a Warrior: A Paper Doll for Coloring

May 22, 2020January 5, 2015

Starting off 2015 with a Marcus 2.0 paper doll as my first Marisole Monday & Friends set. I wanted to do a Marisole doll for 2015, but I didn’t have done finished and this was finished, so up it goes. In total, there were 23 new Marisole Monday & Friends designs posted last year which I think is fairly close to a personal best. I haven’t checked my previous years to find out.

Today, we have Marcus 2.0 as a warrior. I wanted to do something fairly generic fantasy which would set Marcus up for when he might need to slay dragons or something. It’s not real armor, but closer in style to my Lord of the North set for Marcus 1.0 or he could be a companion for my Spirit of the North (though he won’t have blue skin) or my Anglo-Saxon paper doll, though there’s nothing historical about him. I’m sure there are other fantasy paper doll sets he would fit in with.

He does have a statement necklace and some useful swords.

{Click Here for a PDF to Print} {Click Here for a PNG to Print} {Click Here for More Marisole Monday & Friends Printable Paper Dolls}I’m pleased with how he came out. I really like the boots and the two pairs of leggings give him more outfit options for a total of six. Not bad for a six piece set. He’ll be up in full color next week. After that, I hope to have my Majorette paper doll done which I promised someone. Before moving to the South, I didn’t actually know that anyone did baton twirling anymore. You learn new things everyday, I suppose.

Right now, there’s a little drawing/contest so enter that if you wanna.

Greta’s Trousseau: Traveling to the Seaside

May 19, 2020January 2, 2015

First paper doll of 2015! Yay!

Okay, so as I mentioned, I’ll be posting some stuff in the next few weeks with the 2014 date on it. That’s because I date things from when I save them, not when I post them on the blog and I’ve got some backlog to go through. Never the less… first post of 2015 and I am going to celebrate that.

In 2015, Greta’s Trousseau is steadily growing. She’s traveling to the seaside with her paper wardrobe to deep sea dive, swim and also, you know, walk around looking fashionable.

Her costumes are, left to right, a diving suit (because who doesn’t have one of those in their wedding trousseau?), a traveling suit, slightly fancier than the last one I posted, a swimming costume with flippers and a spear for fending off aggressive sea-life and a walking dress, because sometimes a girl just wants to look good while walking along the beach.

{Download a PDF} {View a 150 dpi PNG} {More Mini-Maiden Printable Paper Dolls}For those counting this takes Greta’s Trousseau to just over sixty pieces and 21 distinct outfits. Wow. Of course, she can share with her friends Isadora, Hazel and Faye. It’s not like she’s the only one who can wear these outfits.

Next up for her paper doll wardrobe is probably going to be more sporting outfits, including golf, croquet and tennis. I also have a set with a morning dress and a nightgown in the wings.

Here is the rest of Greta’s paper trousseau for those who’d like to see it. Also, there’s a drawing/contest open at the moment, so check that out.