asian paper dolls

Ruffles & Dragons: Cut & Color Couture

A storybook princess paper doll coloring page with a gown decorating with dragon motifs and a fancy hair-do. She has accessories. The doll is Asian and Chinese clothing inspired the motifs on the dresses.

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Happy Friday!

I confess that I’ve been struggling to focus on anything paper doll related this last few days. Had I been on the ball, I would have pre-scheduled things, but I didn’t. Eh. The world keeps turning, so here we are.

Moving on from that, today’s paper doll coloring page is my first Asian paper doll for the Cut and Color Couture series. Chinese clothing inspired the motifs on the dress and the over dress. I don’t like attaching ethnicity to my paper dolls, but describing her as a paper doll with an epicanthic fold on her eyes is probably not going to play nice with the search engines. (And like it or not, a certain amount of playing nice with Search Engines is how I have to roll.)

I originally designed this paper doll’s dress as an experiment in layering two pieces over each other. Back when I was a kid, I really love layered bid skirted dresses. I used to buy this one sticker paper doll over and over again called the Storybook Princess paper doll. It was only 1.50 in those days. It is a sticker paper doll book (which I was delighted to find out you can still buy it.) The doll had tops and skirts you could put together to make princess gowns. It’s a great paper doll.

In honor of that love of princess gowns, I designed my own storybook princess paper doll version. The spiral motifs on both the dress and the overdress are somewhat based on the motifs you see on 19th century Chinese clothing. This Han women’s jacket, this sleeveless jacket, or this Manchu woman’s outer gown all have spiral designs on them. It’s a very loose connection, but that’s what was inspiring me.

The dragons were originally going to be butterflies, but I draw a lot of butterflies. So, I thought dragons would be a bit more of a change of pace. I don’t love the design I ended up with, because it feels a little too aggressive. This doesn’t really reflect that you see with dragons as decorative motifs on actual Chinese pieces.

Dragons show up on a lot as Chinese decorative motifs, you can see some here from the Jin Dynasty or this one from a roof tile or these on a dragon robe. My limited understanding is that Dragon robes, also known as gunlongpao, were worn by Chinese emperors. To count as a dragon, it has to have five claws. My dragons only have four claws, which I think means they are not imperial dragons. (I think? I ended up down a whole four-clawed vs five-clawed dragon rabbit hole and I still don’t totally know that difference in how they were used. I do know one had four and one had five claws. That’s all I got.)

Anyway, I digress.

This is the first of two of these designs, because I was having a lot of fun with that overdress. The second version is more floral. That might be up next week.

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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.

A Paper Doll for a Happy Valentine’s Day 2024

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

Happy Valentine’s Day! I’ve been drawing Valentine’s Day paper dolls for a long long time. So, if this one doesn’t strike your fancy, I have quite a few others. Since I’m off visiting family over this holiday, this’ll be a short post.

My grandmother used to send me and my sister cards for Valentine’s Day which often included paper dolls. So, each year I draw a Valentine’s Day paper doll in her honor. There was also one in this month’s newsletter if coloring one is more your style.

My niece helped me pick out colors for this paper doll and I think she came out very cute.

I hope everyone has an amazing Valentine’s Day. I confess I have a history of awful Valentine’s Days (in college, I got dumped on Valentine’s Day) but I still like to draw paper dolls for the holiday.

Imperial Elegance: An Hanfu and Kimono Inspired Fantasy Paper Doll

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

This pair of fantasy gowns were heavily inspired by hanfu, which are traditional Chinese clothing, specifically those of the Tang Dynasty (618–907 CE). However, this has about as much in common with actual historical Chinese clothing as this paper doll has in common with actual historical English clothing. That’s to say- not a whole heck of a lot.

Rarely have I had a set that I have more trouble with coloring. This gave me fits! I initially planned on the two dresses coordinating, but then decided that seemed boring, so broke out and did two very different color schemes inspired by seasonal Japanese colors. (Yes, I know hanfu are Chinese, not Japanese, but again- this is fantasy clothing.)

In Japan, traditional kimonos are styled with seasonal color schemes. So, I tried to base these color schemes on traditional seasonal colors of Japan. One dress uses February colors, crimson and purple. The other dress uses March colors which are peach and khaki. The Kimono Lady, a defunct blog, has a really detailed write up about March colors here. I had a little more trouble finding references for February colors, but this yukata influenced the colors I chose.

I love color, but I find my own eye attracted to specific color schemes. It’s really valuable to see how different cultures combine colors. I never would have used purple and crimson together in the way that I did, but once I did it- I really loved how graphic it made the dress.

Dark Demigoddess: Some Classic Gothic Fashion

A gothic fashion paper doll printable with a little mini-wardrobe of 15 different pieces.
A gothic fashion paper doll printable coloring page with a little mini-wardrobe of 15 different pieces, long straight hair, and lots of outfits you can make.

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

Not sure what to wear to a graveyard? Need something to carefully cut the roses off a bouquet? Consider this gothic fashion paper doll printable, because even if I think swaning around a graveyard would just get my skirts dirty, I can at least pretend. (Seriously, graveyards are muddy.)

Sources of inspiration for this gothic fashion paper doll printable include Evangeline Ghastly (a Tonner doll I used to want when it first came out and I was broke college student who never could have afforded it.) There’s not a lot about Evangeline Ghastly online, so I used the Evangeline Ghastly Archive. There’s also a nice detailed review of the doll on Toy Box Philosopher. Also, things on my gothic fashion pinterest board, particularly photos of fantasy headdresses like this one and this one.

This all started with me wanting to draw something for Halloween. I had this idea in my head that I would get this done earlier in the month, but that clearly didn’t happen. Anyway, since I work best in “groups” there’s actually four of these dolls which are all part of the Ensemble Eclectica: Gothic Glamor Collection. The librarian in me really values linking together sets that people might correlate with other sets. It’s a little bit Dr. S.R. Ranganathan’s fourth law-Save the time of the reader.

(For the non-librarians among my readers, Dr. Ranganathan’s 5 Laws are core to the mission of libraries and still apply almost 100 years after he created them. Soap Box Moment: Libraries are really under attack right now in the USA, and if you value your public library and the librarians there, please pay attention. It’s a scary time to be a librarian.)

Anyway, not that we’ve had a quick diversion into library science 101, we can return to paper dolls!

The Gothic Glamor Collection was originally planned to contain three dolls, but I ended up with enough content to expand out to 4. Originally, I planned for a “skirts and corsets”, “fancy gowns”, “modern goth fashion” as my themes. So, much fun was being had drawing the various pieces that I ended up with a fourth set.

What can I say? I like drawing corsets and fishtail skirts.

Bows & Pearls in Mauve, Cream, and Green

Printable coloring page of an Asian girl paper doll with clothing.
Printable Asian girl paper doll with clothing.

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

A few thoughts on today’s Asian girl paper doll and her romantic wardrobe – I wanted to do a paper doll that would have a pearl feeling color scheme, but I also wanted her to not use pink. I really love pink, but I wanted to get away from pink for this set. Pink just feels like the “easy” way to make things feel feminine. So, instead, I decided to lean into mauve, cream and shades of leaf green. This Design Seeds color palette inspired me.

Honestly, I love all these colors, but I think the clothing is a little too feminine for me. However, I am hardly the most fashionable person on the planet. I went back and forth about the hair style. On one hand, putting a bob on an Asian paper doll feels a little cliche. On the other hand, I really liked the smooth hard lines of the hair in contrast with the hyper-feminine fashions.

Much like Retro Spring some of this paper doll’s clothing comes from the same set Hearts Denims and Bows. I really liked the bow graphic t-shirt in that set and I used it as a jumping off point for the rest of the clothing in this set. With 7 tops and 4 bottoms, there are 28 different outfit combinations here. I guess if I really wanted to maximize my clothing combos, I would draw nothing but crop tops, shorts, and shoes. However, I am trying to be a little more diverse then that.

Personally, I’d really love to get to 100 different pieces of mix and match contemporary paper doll clothing. I think that would be a nice round number for this series, plus I think then I could put together a book or something with all those pieces. I’ll get there eventually, but in the mean time, enjoy this latest addition to the Ensemble Eclectica series.

By the way, if there is a contemporary clothing theme you’d really like to see for these little ladies, let me know in a comment. Right now, I am thinking about a gothic set (because drawing skulls is a good challenge and also October seems the right month for that) and something sci-fi with cute little aliens.

A Colorful Tropical Beach Printable Paper Doll

A cute little asian paper doll with a ten part mix and match wardrobe of beach themed clothing options.
A cute little asian paper doll coloring page with a ten part mix and match wardrobe of beach themed clothing options.

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

I rarely get a chance to do something that has this many different outfit possibilities while also being just a one page set. This has 19 different outfits while also being only 10 mix and match pieces. Could it be more? Yes, I did the math once and realized that the most outfits you could ever get from 10 pieces was 25. That would be 5 tops and 5 bottoms which gets you 25 different clothing options.

I have a whole post about calculating clothing options if you feel like having some fun with math. There’s a formula. My best friend in college went on to become a math teacher and while I never will be a big math person, whenever math comes up I think of her.

I got some great name suggestions, but ended up deciding on Ensemble Eclectica, after trying out a few different options including “Wardrobe Wonderland Wanderings” or “Fashion Fantasy Frolics”. I think those two were a little too long.

Anyway, for technical reasons (and because I had a fantasy dress that I could not fit on the page), I ended up resizing these dolls down a bit and redoing some of the formatting. So, the next few after this one will looking a wee bit different. I already updated the PDF files and things from last week’s version.

A Stylish Paper Doll July: Another Little Summery Paper Doll with a Floral Dress

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Super pleased this with little paper doll. Originally, the floral pattern was going to go on her undies, but it was too large and looked weird. So, I put in on the dress instead.

Very happy with the dress. It was based on one I just bought for a trip, but then didn’t end up wearing. Oh well… I have a conflicted feelings about dresses. I love the idea, but never seem to wear them.

That’s kinda all I got today! Enjoy the printable paper doll coloring page!

Jewels & Gemstones: Floral Elves Paper Dolls

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Well, when I decided to shift to this newsletter and monthly update schedule, I did not consider the downsides. The biggest one being that it’s much harder for me to step away as might be needed from time to time. I need to think on that, but I am enjoying the newsletter most of the time.

This month has just been very busy with non-paper doll related tasks. The statewide library conference was in-person for the first time in years, so I went to that. And I have two more library related conferences I’m attending this year. Plus, I’ve been working on a side project that isn’t quite ready for prime time (soon it will be and I couldn’t be more excited). And I’ve been prepping things to become prints for the paper doll party in May. Any leftovers from the party, I plan to offer for sale on Etsy, so maybe that’ll be an interesting change of pace.

Anyway, about this paper doll set- I admit that I started on these paper dolls largely, because I wanted to work with an old Marisole Monday set- Fabulous Fairy that I’ve always had a fondness for. Originally, I had planned on drawing wings, but actually ended up running out of paper in a sketchbook and not having a back up one. Opps. I really didn’t want to deal with paper I didn’t like. So, needless to say, the wings never happened.

Influences were largely flowers and the fact that I like gardens. I’m not much of a gardener, though I keep thinking I should take it up. I rent, so I don’t really know if tearing up the yard would be okay. I do keep herbs on my porch when spring comes and I like flowers. Flowers are pretty, useful to insects, and smell nice. It’s hard to be opposed to them, really. Plus, you can eat some of them.

The other big influence over this drawing fantasy hair which I don’t get to do nearly as much as I’d like. I love complicated hairstyles. You can check out some of my influences on my fantasy section of my Hair pinterest board.

If you’re a patron, there will be a Vivian gown sometime next week (exact date depending on how life shapes up) and we’ll continue on from there.