black hair

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.

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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 Spring or Autmn Little Cottage Core Paper Doll

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So, most of the clothing for this paper doll began it’s life as clothing for the Dark Victoriana themed paper doll, but that was back when I thought I was going to make all these dolls two page sets. I have since decided I just didn’t feel like drawing two page sets. So I drew a few new pieces and then ended up here.

This whole series is heavily inspired by a long running paper doll series Julie Matthews did called Fashion Doll Fridays. Those dolls were vector drawn and ran weekly on her site from around 2012 until 2016. I think this is the first one. (Did I get that right, Julie?) She still occasionally shares a set that matches like these football paper dolls. Now one of the things I realized over the last few months is that the only way I will get better at digital drawing (and I do want to get better) and more skilled with Procreate (which is the program I am using) is to draw in it.

However, I really dislike how it manages color, so that I am still doing in Photoshop.

As for shadows… I dunno. I’m unconvinced I like them. I do want to try some more digital techniques and see where I end up. I’m particularly curious to play around with pattern brushes in Procreate and also with a more painterly look.

But in the meantime, my line-work needs work and the best way to do that is to keep drawing and just keep drawing.

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.

Pastel Winter Printable Paper Doll

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Something about winter and pastel colors makes me really happy. I think it might be that where I grew up in Alaska, there was a very long dusk, especially in winter. The sun would never get very high in the sky and so the snow on the mountains would turn the most brilliant pink color as it reflected the light.

Maybe that’s why I associate pastel colors with winter. They feel softer and somehow more mellow and quiet- all things I also associate with winter.

The truth is, if I maybe honest, I wanted to do this set in pastel, because I had this idea of experimenting with texture and I wanted to see how the texture would look on different color schemes. So, this is the first of several dolls I made for this purpose.

Now, since I don’t think I should call this series “Texture Experiment 2.0”, please let me know if you have a series name suggestion. There will be, at least, three of these ladies.

Edit: For a million reasons involving layout and dresses and other things, I ended up resizing and redoing the layout on these paper dolls, so I’ve updated the PDF files. – Rachel 9/12/2023

Galactic Fashions: Another Printable Paper Doll

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So, I wanted to experiment with texture and style. I wanted to see if I still liked the effect of noise texture if the style was less romantic and more something else.

And well, clearly, that something else should be space princesses.

I’m actually really happy with how it came out. I played around with the texture in a way that I think worked well- a larger scale noise effect in the background, but something more subtle for the doll herself. I’m actually very pleased with that part.

Something about this paper doll keeps making me think of 1980s and 1990s cartoons of my childhood like the X-Men and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and She-ra. I was a huge She-ra fan as a kid. One of my friends had a bunch of the She-ra action figures and we would play with them for hours in her bedroom and on her porch. I have a lot of fond memories of that.

All in all this was an successful experiment. I confess I’ve been frustrated a bit with working in Procreate lately (which I think is 100% normal when trying to learn a new skill), so we’ll see how I feel about everything in a few more days.

Nordic Winter Wishes: The February Printable Paper Doll

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For those of you who have been following along in my newsletter, you’ll likely notice there’s a few extra pieces on this set (specifcally the winter coat and one pair of the shoes). I went back and forth about what to do with that coat. I’m not 100% sure it will layer over all the sweaters and I didn’t feel right giving just one of the dolls a coat (what if the other dolls get cold?). So, I thought- I’ll just keep it as a fun extra for folks when they get the whole set.

Another little detail I didn’t talk about in the newsletters was the coffee cups. I don’t know why I thought it was a fun idea to draw a mug for every paper doll with a different motif, but I did and so I drew one. To give a secret look at my process- I actually did all this layout and design work before I split it up for the newsletters. I’m very happy with how it turned out.

A few differences in these dolls and my usual stuff- I gave the dolls permanent shoes. I go back and forth on this a lot. I used to be strictly anti-attached shoes. But then I spoke with my 5 year old niece and she was deeply bothered by my paper dolls that didn’t have shoes.

So, I realized that shoes were more important than I had often thought. If you’re an attached shoes fan, you can thank her for showing me the error of my ways (though I still think I’m a bit ambivalent on the subject.) And I tend to think it depends on the paper doll- like mermaids SHOULD not have attached shoes.

That’s just silly.

Speaking of shoes- largely thanks to the shoes, there’s over 85 outfit combinations- well over 100 if you add in the scarf or the coat into the mix. So, that’s super fun!

Anyway, I hope you enjoy this collection of paper dolls as much I enjoyed drawing and sharing them all with you!

Tanya has a Formal Evening

Printable paper doll coloring pages with a black paper doll and her five evening gowns and three pairs of shoes. The dolls has an afro-puff.
Printable black paper doll with her five evening gowns and three pairs of shoes. The dolls has an afro-puff.

Download the 2 Page Black and White PDF | Download the 2 Page Color PDF | More Talia Tuesday & Friends Dolls

Today, we have Tanya with some evening gowns. This set has actually been sitting on my computer for way longer than I like to admit. However, it’s done now, so that’s okay.

Tanya’s last collection was very fantasy themed, so I thought she should get some more modern things, but I confess now I feel like the poor girl needs some pants. I’m not 100% in love with how her afro-puff came out, but I can live with that. I think that angle is wrong…

I digress.

All right, so yeah, paper doll! I know for like Search Engine Optimization I should really try to write between 300 and 500 words per post, but I haven’t got that much to say here. It’s a cute printable black paper doll. That’s kinda all I got today.

The Vivian Doll Herself

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Post-Apocalyptic Fashion With Dawn

A black and white printable paper doll with seven clothing pieces based on post-apocalyptic fashion.
A printable post-apocalyptic paper doll with a mix and match wardrove of seven different clothing pieces. The doll has many tattoos.

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At the height of the pandemic, I just couldn’t draw post-apocalyptic fashion. It felt somehow too much.

But now that things are starting to feel “normalish” again, I decided I could maybe slip back into that genre for a little paper doll set for the Dolls Du Jour. So, here’s Dawn and her post-apocalyptic fashions.

Also, is post-apocalyptic an oxymoron? Isn’t there not supposed to be anything left after an apocalypses by definition? That maybe overly pedantic.

Let’s move on.

The styles were inspired by my Post-Apocalyptic Fashion pinterest board which is, in turn, inspired by things like Mad Max and Tank Girl and Fall Out (even though I’ve never played Fall Out.)

I need to get to work on the OPDAG prompt for plaids. I am not much of a plaid drawing person, but I have an idea of how I might be able to make plaid work. Julie Matthews has a plaids in photoshop tutorial.

For those keeping count (which I am 95% sure is just me), this is Dolls Du Jour paper doll number seven. Three to go before I hit my 2022 goal.

DDJ: Dawn & “Ancient Chinese” Inspired Fantasy Gowns

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Sometimes I draw printable paper dolls and then by the time I get ready to share them on PTP, I find myself looking at them vaguely and being like, “Why did I draw this? What was I thinking about?”

My hunch, just because I know me, is that there was a distinctly Asian thing happening with this paper doll probably inspired by this weird “ancient Chinese” costumes thing I’ve seen on Pinterest. I find it fascinating, because China has a long and varied dress history (just like everywhere else), but (maybe in part thanks to Video games) there’s a sort of generic “ancient China” look. It’s super cool looking, but kinda like the Victorian view of medieval dress, probably hasn’t got much in common with what people were actually wearing in China a thousand years ago.

I don’t know enough about the history of Chinese dress to speak with any authority, but I don’t think anyone was running around in these, but that’s okay! It’s fun and beautiful. Sometimes, fun and beautiful is enough, you know?

As they do on NPR, I tend to wrap up my posts with two reminders to folks that these paper dolls are made possible by the generous support for my Patrons, so consider joining if you wish.

Vivian’s Steampunk Trousseau Round-Up

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Tanya and Her Princess Gowns

A paper doll printable coloring page with one doll and her eight piece wardrobe. This fantasy inspired paper doll is two pages.
A black paper doll printable with one doll and her eight piece wardrobe. This fantasy inspired paper doll is two pages.

Download the 2 Page Black and White PDF | Download the 2 Page Color PDF | More Talia Tuesday & Friends Dolls

I’m still sort of playing around with getting used to drawing for the Talia Tuesday and Friends dolls. I enjoy the pose and I like playing around with the motion, though I am still not 100% confident with it. It’s a fairly new pose to me and so it’s a bigger stretch than drawing for poses I’m used to drawing for. Since I’m not formally trained as an artist, and I don’t really enjoy drawing figures, it’s always a little scary working with a new pose for me.

So, anyway, this is Tanya. Tanya is the Russian diminutive of Tatiana. I named the paper doll Tanya, because I already have a Talia and a Tashi. I felt like the name Tanya fit in with the other names neatly. So, nothing too fancy there- I picked it because I liked how it sounded.

Tanya here has my first fantasy foray for the Talia Tuesday and Friends dolls, but I do love drawing princess paper dolls. Her crowns are designed to fold around the head, so you have some flexibility, if you want to use them on another doll with different hair.

If the pose is a stretch for me, this style is like cooking a recipe you’ve made a million times and know will probably come out okay. I both like drawing medieval fantasy gowns and am super comfortable drawing these fantasy princess looks. The color scheme was a bit different from many I tend to be attracted too. It feels more autumnal than I intended when I started, but I am super happy how it turned out.

As usual, a big thank you to my patrons who got to see the first proto Talia last year and helped me name Tashi, though I picked out Tanya’s name on my own. You all are the best!