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DDJ: A Renaissance Fantasy Princess Printable & Her Gowns
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Maybe because I saw Ever After at a young age, but I have a deep affection for Italian Renaissance inspired gowns and these are a few of them. Fantasy paper dolls rival historical paper dolls as some of my favorites to draw. This set of printable fantasy paper dolls is from my Dolls Du Jour series, lovingly known as DDJ. Named by a Patron (thank you!) these paper dolls are part of my goal to make some more curvy paper doll ladies. Each doll is named after a time or day, so this is Twilight.
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Ninja Paper Doll for the End of 2020!
It’s the end of year and I am happy to wrap up with this little cute ninja warrior. You might be wondering- why a ninja paper doll? There’s nothing winter thematic about a ninja?
And you are right! There isn’t.
However, I have a new logo which I love (see top of the site) and I want to start putting it on all of my printables and that means some reformatting. So, rather than try to make something wintery to end out 2020, I decided to use my last finished piece and then have a clean slate for 2021.
Hence the ninja paper doll, who has been sitting quietly in my “to be posted” folder for longer than I like to admit. Poor Diamond deserves better than that, but these things happen.
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I originally planned to do this a very traditional ninja set with lots and lots of black, but in the end, I concluded that it was sort of boring. So, I guess my ninja is just really into the color blue. I don’t see why ninjas have to wear just black. The origins of which I think have to do with Noh theater, but I’m not 100% positive. If you know, feel free to correct me in the comments.
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As 2020 comes to an end (and thanks goodness for that), I am so pleased to say I will be taking a few days off to rest and recoup. Patreon will be on pause during January (no content, but no one is being charged either, a feature I love of Patreon), but feel free to join us to check out the wrap up for the 365 Day Project!
Okay, it was 366 days, because when I named it I forgot that 2020 was a leap year.
Also, it will be available as one huge download on Etsy once I get it all combined. It’s um… pretty large.
My big new project for 2021 is an email newsletter. I am so excited! Sign up here if you’d like to or read more about it, if you’d like. There will be a paper doll coloring page in every issue and links to neat stuff and ramblings from me.
1890s Dress Up Time with Pearl
I couldn’t be more excited to share my second Jewels and Gemstones paper doll to have some 1890s dress up fun. A few weeks ago, I share Lapis with her At Home and bicycle outfits. Today, we have Pearl with her walking suit and tea gown. These paper dolls can, of course, share outfits.
While I was researching this era, I kept seeing floral patterned corsets. So, those inspired me. This pale blue one from the Chicago History Museum and this black one from Augusta Auctions. Drawers that inspired the paper doll’s underwear include this set, this set, and this combination set. All shoes come from Harpers Bazaar, but not from an online source. I used one of my fashion plate reprint books.
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Promenade or Walking costume from the Delineator from 1894. The actual illustration is here. One thing you see a lot of in the 1890s are tailored suits for women and I am a sucker for a good looking cut away coat. So, that was clearly my favorite.
The tea gown is also from 1894. The dress comes, again, from this plate in the Delineator. Teagowns might look super soft and comfortable, but that’s a lie! They were heavily boned, meaning they weren’t as relaxed as they appear.
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The color scheme is more pastel than I used for my Lapis 1890s dress up doll. At first, I was going more sedate with the colors. Then, to my surprise, something about the pale blue corset inspired the spring colors. Now that the paper doll is all colored, I keep thinking of Easter cards. Wrong time of the year, but I’ve never let that stop me before.
I really do recommend looking through Delineator Magazine if you have any fondness for historical fashion. It is a fun read.
Huge shout out to my Patrons, because they chose this era! And because I had a lot more fun illustrating the huge sleeve madness of the mid-1890s than I thought I would. Almost makes me want to draw the 1830s, another era of big-sleeve madness (also hair madness- 1830s hair was bananas.)
Evening Gowns for Paper Dolls with Diamond
There’s something super relaxing for me in drawing evening gowns for paper dolls. I don’t know if I like it so much because it’s one piece garments or if I just like drawing clothing I am never going to need to wear.
I do not live a lifestyle that makes sense to wear evening gowns very much.
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I really went back and forth about color schemes. I actually did two different color schemes. You can see the other one on my Patreon page. It’s open to everyone, so you don’t need to be a patron to download it. It’s a more light pastel color scheme.
However, maybe because my Spring Evening Gowns set, I thought some more rich colors would be fun. This set feels winter to me, though I don’t really know why. It’s not like these gowns look very warm.
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The dress on the far left comes from Gabriela Hearst Spring/Summer 2019 Ready-To-Wear collection and the dress on the far right is from Christian Siriano Spring 2019 Ready-to-Wear Fashion Show. However the dress in the middle is my own design. You can see a lot more of my evening gown inspiration on my Pinterst Board.
Remember you can hop over to my Patreon to grab the other color scheme. And if you want, consider becoming a patron.
Fashionable Lady Of The Regency: Paper Doll To Print
Some of you may recall that in 2019, I posted a Regency Fashion Week. I’ve taken some of those pieces and reformatted them into a paper doll with Regency dresses. I specifically chose pieces from the 1810s as a starting place. I am always conflicted about calling this era Regency. The styles we think of as “Regency” stretch from about 1805 through about 1825 when the waist line begins to drop. It lowers steadily through the 1820s before settling at the natural waist around 1828 or so. The actual period is 1811 to 1820, only about 19 years.
A Quick Primer on Regency Fashion is a nice overview of the era, I think.
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Now let’s talk clothing! There’s a myth that in the early 19th century women didn’t wear corsets/stays. This is not true. Women totally wore corsets/stays, but since the styles were changing rapidly, there wasn’t a single silhouette. No woman with actual curves wants to not wear some sort of bust support. It is true corsets weren’t boned as heavily as they would be in later decades. This pair from the Met 1811 and this fashion plate from 1813 are the sources for her stays/corset/whatever you call it. Under that, she wears a shift like this Shift from the MFA.
Shoes at the Met like this pair and this pair inspired her shoes. These boots from the London Museum inspired her walking boots. Her two dress come from the late 1810s. This Dress from 1818 inspired the evening gown and the walking dress is based on this Dress from an 1817 fashion plate at the London Museum. The bonnet is from the same fashion plate.
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The original color scheme came from specific items that inspired the paper doll outfit. Turkey red was a very popular color in this early era. Another popular color was cerulean blue, which was a very unstable color that tinted towards green. More about regency colors on this website.
Anyway, one of my personal missions has always been to draw historical clothing for paper dolls (because I love it) and especially for models that aren’t white (because it bothers me that history tends to be depicted as all white people until 1950). I think we’re getting better about this, but there’s still a long way to go.
Meanwhile, I hope you enjoy today’s paper doll with Regency dresses. There’s more where this came from, but I haven’t yet decided how to put those outfits together into a set.
The 1980s & Corset Tops: A 2020 Fashion Trend
One of the major trends of 2020 is polka-dots (and I did a paper doll celebrating that already) and then my other trend that I have been super interested in is the 1980s and the tendency as corset tops. Plus, I think when it comes to celebrating fashion, paper dolls are pretty much the perfect fashion paper craft. They allow us to not just explore trends, but kids can draw their own paper doll clothing.
Personally, I don’t really remember the 1980s, because I was both very young and living in Alaska. Alaska is not exactly trendy as a other parts of the country. We’re a little behind in fashion. Also, we all wear lots of rainboots, polar-fleece and puffer vests. Puffer vests might have trended last year, but we were wearing them long before they were trendy.
Anyway, the big trends in this paper doll are the 1980s styles, corsets, bra tops, and Bermuda shorts. The bra tops and corset tops seemed like similar ideas to collapse together. The suit jacket works with either the lose trousers or the skirt, but I colored it as though these were separates for more flexibility. You can, of course, color them any way you choose.
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Color wise, I wanted to use the Pantone 2020 palette called Snorkle. I’m not a huge fan of pantone’s color of the year– Classic Blue. It’s just kind of… boring? Can I admit that. I’m not against it, but it’s not super exciting to me. I guess given how 2020 has gone people are not super into exciting these days. Anyway, there’s also a trend for the return of some neon colors and the bright green was my nod to that trend.
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Among my favorite things about this version of Pearl is her hair. I’m always working to learn to draw hair better and I feel like this hair came out particularly nice. It’s a process, after all.
Are you into fashion trends? I confess I’m pretty boring in my clothing choices, but I do like drawing them for paper dolls. I try to stay at least aware of what’s happening in the world of trendy clothing.
A Celebration of Tudor Clothing
Today’s paper doll is my second Tudor clothing paper doll. My amazing patrons voted for Tudor as a historical era to explore, hence the focus on Tudor. Also, I realized I still didn’t know a lot about the clothing of this time period. My first Tudor clothing paper doll from the Jewels and Gemstones was Ruby and today’s paper doll is Topaz.
A little about this Tudor clothing- this portrait of a young woman from 1567 and this portrait of Susan Bertie inspired the dress on the left. The dress on the right is a Henrician gown. This portrait of Mary I and this portrait of Katherine Parr feature this style of dress in lighter colors than you usually see it. These portraits also show off French Hoods, a very popular headdress style. This portrait, often identified as Helena Snakenborg, is where I saw the court bonnet. I should note that the identification as Helena Snakenborg has never been proven.
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First rule, I gave myself was that I was not going to make any dresses black. Don’t get me wrong, black fabric was wildly expensive in the 1500s and therefore very popular for portraits and people of wealth. Black is, however, one of my least favorite colors. It obscures line work, so I only used it for her hair and the veil for the French Hood. I didn’t see any French Hood’s that had veils of other colors. Also, I have no idea if French Hood is a proper noun and should be capitalized, but I am anyway.
I wanted to use colors I knew were common/referenced in source materials. According to sumptuary laws of the time only nobles could wear blue and there’s references in The Art of Dress by Jane Ashelford to tawny colored gowns. That’s why I chose to make one gown blue and the other a sort of beige color.
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Topaz’s underwear is based on illustrations from the Tudor Tailor by Ninya Mikhaila and Jane Malcolm-Davies. The bodies are based on the famous Pfaltzgrafin Dorothea Sabine von Neuberg’s pair of bodies from around 1598. All of her shoes come from Stepping Through Time by Olaf Goubitz. Her underwear, as I noted on the paper doll, has been simplified to facilitate playing with the paper doll. An actual extant 16th century shift is at the V&A and you can see it here.
Other books I consulted about Tudor clothing were, in no particular order, were Tudor Fashion, The History of Underclothes, In Fine Style: The Art of Tudor and Stuart Fashion, and Tudor Costume and Fashion. And you can see some of my reference image so on my 16th Century Dress Pinterest board.
You can see all my Tudor paper dolls here. Up next on the historical paper doll front will be the 1970s and the 1890s. That was the other winners when I polled my Patrons.
A Magical Girl Paper Doll
Let me start with this disclaimer: I do not watch Anime. As my partner would attest, I know nothing about magical girls, except what I vaguely remember from having friends obsessed with Sailor Moon in the 1990s. I wasn’t super into Sailor Moon, but they sure as heck were.
Magical girls, as I understand it, is a sub-genre of Japanese anime/manga/other stuff that feature girls using magic. (Yeah, you might have guessed that from the title, huh?) The primary feature of Magical Girl anime is the idea of a transformation. Most Magical Girl characters have a magic object (called a compact, I think?) which they use to transform into their magical selves.
Then- they fight evil/crime/playing cards? This genre mystifies me on occasion.
Features of Magical Girl outfits seem to be lots of ribbons, ruffles and asymmetry. Our magical girl, Dawn, has double buns (a nod to Sailor Moon), a compact version of her staff (as seen in both Sailor Moon and Cardcaptor Sakura) and several outfits.
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So, the primary source for inspiration for her costumes was Cardcapture Sakura. There is also some Mahou Shoujo Madoka Magica in there as well. One of the things I liked about Cardcapture Sakura was that it has lots of different outfits. That was a fun thing to look up. I noticed asymmetry in many of the outfits, hence the knee sock and the ankle sock with ruffles and a ribbon.
The baggy shorts were my attempt to draw something not a dress (there’s lots of dresses in the world of Magical Girls), but I openly admit this set is less mix and match then I like. Still, dresses tend not be very mix and match. I can live with that. She can always borrow jeans from this set.
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Drawing a genre I know so little about it both fun and a bit scary. I don’t know what I don’t know, but I had fun finding images and adapting them. I hope folks who do know more about this style than I do will let me know how I did in my foray into the land of Magical Girls.
Anyway, if you like what you see around here, consider popping over to Patreon and supporting it. If you’d like to let me know what you think about today’s paper doll, I always love to read comments.
A Fantasy Princess Paper Doll & Her Gowns
As some of you may recall, I’ve been doing a whole collection of these big skirted fantasy gowns since last year. I knew I wanted to continue the series in 2020, so I have been resizing the dresses for the Jewels and Gemstones 2.0 while also drawing some princesses with amazing hair to get to wear the dresses. I’m calling this the Princess and Their Gowns Collection and this is the second one.
Of course, any of the paper dolls can wear the dresses, as long as they aren’t in historical underwear which will likely show under some of these gowns. Re-posting some of my historical dolls in the new 2.0 format is definitely on the to-do list.
There’s two gowns here- one is a ball gown with a truly impressive skirt. The other is a music dress which could be any type of dress, but comes with a random instrument. The ballgown was originally a Patron design from last year.
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I do love drawing these sorts of gowns. I do keep a “Rococo/Big Skirted Absurdity” section on my Fantasy Pinterest Board for a reason. I mean, I think they’re pretty fun to create. The music dress began as this doodle. This dress from the 1870s and this dress from the 1870s were inspirations for the ballgown. There’s also a doodle version of that gown.
The doll, which is new for this set, is Sapphire and I wanted to give her a natural hair updo inspired by this hairstyle and this hairstyle and this hairstyle.
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The first of these princesses and their gowns was Opal and her princess gowns who I shared back in March. Now, this is the second and I’ve also got a version with Lapis finished. I’ll hopefully share that version soon.
Do you have a favorite of these two gowns? I think I like the music dress, myself. Let me know in a comment! I love to hear from you.
And remember that if you want to get more paper doll clothing, head over to Patreon where I share an extra paper doll or dress on Fridays. There’s other fun projects as well, including my 365 day project where I’m sharing some of the results of my foray into Idea Roulette.