boots

Meet Faye: A New Paper Doll Series is Born

Some of you probably remember my Chinese New Year and Valentine’s Day Paper Dolls which I did last month. After I did them, I found myself drawing a lot more for this pose. So, I decided to actually name the first of the dolls. I have named her Faye, after a Chinese foreign exchange student I knew in graduate school. Her wardrobe, like that of my grad school friend, is girly and a hint of boho. I haven’t updated the Printable Paper Doll Index with her yet, but I will be soon. Probably this weekend.

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{Click Here for a PDF to Print} {Click Here for a PNG to Print} {Click Here for the Rest of the Series}

By the way, the new series needs a name. So, I am asking for recommendations for a good name for these little paper dolls. I’ll select my favorite from the comments in a week (Friday the 22nd) and the winner will get a custom paper doll set of their choice.

It’s been a while since I did a contest and so the rules are as follows:

    1. 1. You can enter up to three names.

 

    1. 2. You can only win one contest a year.

 

    1. 3. I will announce the winner on the blog on the day the contest ends. I will also email the winner at their email address attached to the comment. If I do not hear back from the winner within a week, I will use a random number generator to select the next

winner

    1. .

 

    4. The winner will receive a one page custom paper doll based on one of my paper doll series within a month of the end of the contest. Sometimes life gets in the way of this goal, but I will email the winner if that is the case and we can make other arrangements.

So, enter your paper doll series names and we’ll see what we’re going to call this new set of paper dolls.

Jacqueline: A Paper Doll In Four Different Color Schemes

Clearly, I got bored last weekend and decided that what I needed to do was color a paper doll set in three different color schemes, because I couldn’t make up my mind.

Actually, there was a fourth color scheme, but it looked bad and didn’t get as far as being posted.

jacqueline-black-white jacqueline-spring-time

{Click Here for a PDF of Jacqueline: Black and White} {Click Here for a 150 dpi PNG of Jacqueline: Black and White} {Click Here for a PDF of Jacqueline: Spring Time} {Click Here for a 150 dpi PNG of Jacqueline: Spring Time}

jacqueline-winters-day jacqueline-brights

{Click Here for a PDF of Jacqueline: Winter’s Day} {Click Here for a 150 dpi PNG of Jacqueline: Winter’s Day} {Click Here for a PDF of Jacqueline: Brights} {Click Here for a 150 dpi PNG of Jacqueline: Brights}

I think I might have a problem. I can’t keep doing this with Pixie paper dolls, because it’s darn time consuming and yet… I wonder what she’s look like in a red and blue color scheme? See… this is why I have a problem.

So, I put up a Terms of Use statement recently. The truth is that I probably should have done it a while ago, but sometimes I forget that I’m not talking to myself when I write on this blog. So, none of the terms on it are really different than they ever have been, but I think it clarifies a few things. As always, if you have any questions about anything, feel free to email me. I check my email every most days. I’m working on recoding the FAQ page as well.

Autumn Color: A Paper Doll to Print

I have a similiar relationship with blond hair and brown skin as I do with red hair and brown skin. This is to say that I try it and than I don’t like it and swear I won’t do it again and than I do it again. Unlike the red-hair brown skin combination which I never feel like I’ve achieved, this blond hair brown-skinned Marisole is look pretty cute to me.

marisole-autumn-color-2013

{Click Here for a PDF to Print} {Click Here for a PNG to Print} {Click Here for the rest of this series}

I think it’s her braids. Have I mentioned that I am totally in love with her braids?

So, February has come and gone. Last year I noted African American History Month (which is February) by compiling a list of paper dolls around the web. And um… I kinda forgot this year.So, though I don’t have another list of paper dolls, I would like to draw attention to Paper Doll’s by Gail where there are lots of lovely African American paper dolls including Condoleeza Rice, Michelle Obama, Halle Berry and Fantasia Barrino. Also, though unrelated to African American paper dolls, the entire cast of Twlight.

Valentine’s Day…

valentines-day-paper-doll

{Click Here for a PDF to Print} {Click Here for a PNG to Print} {Click Here for the Rest of the Series}

So, it’s Valentine’s Day again.

I have a history of fairly unpleasant Valentine’s Days, but being that as it is, I still enjoy the holiday as an excuse to eat those weird message hearts that taste like chalk. Personally, I almost wish we’d consider returning Valentine’s Day to it’s roots.

By which I mean the feast of Lupercalia which the Roman’s celebrated from the 13th to the 15th of Feburary. The men sacrificed a goat and a dog, then whipped women with the hides of the animals they had just slain all while drunk and naked. How’s that for a good time?

Apparently, the women thought (well everyone thought) that being slapped by a bloody hide of a dead animal would make them fertile.

Anyway, short of getting slapped with straps of wet animal skin, I’ve decided to draw and post a paper doll. Slightly less messy, I suspect, though also, perhaps, less fun. The Chinese New Year paper doll poll got lots of votes for friends to go with the New Year paper doll, so she can share clothing if you want snakes to go with the hearts.

Goats and dogs, you’ll have to draw yourself.

By the way, I have a history of Valentine’s Day paper dolls. I did two in 2011 Marisole Monday and Pixie named Valentina . I didn’t do one last year, so I thought I better do one this year.

Shadow and Light: And then there were Twenty-Four…

I’ve done a lot of futuristic posts over the years. Some I think have been more successful than others. I still consider Shadow and Light Paper Doll 1 to be one of the best in this genre, even if most of her costuming was inspired by Cleopatra 2525.

It was free on Hulu and I didn’t have cable. Don’t judge me.

shadow-light-paper-doll-24

{Click Here for a PDF to Print} {Click Here for a 150 dpi PNG to Print} {Click Here for The Rest of this Series}

My idea with this paper doll was do show off some more “casual” sci-fi inspired attire, but in the end I think it’s a little uninteresting. If I’m not careful, and I don’t know what to draw, I tend to draw the same things over and over again. I think these pieces are to close to those worn by Marisole Monday when she was an alien.

Despite my mixed feelings, I am posting her today, because I think it is important to put up what I have finished, even when I’m unsure about it. As I’m sure I’ve mentioned before, if I only posted what I was certain I liked, than half my posts wouldn’t have ever gone up.

New Full Color Printable Paper Doll Named Madison

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{A Full Set Printable PDF of the Three Page Madison Paper Doll}

I don’t have very many Asian paper dolls, partly because it took a long time before I was comfortable drawing epicanthic folds, which are a characteristic of many East and Central Asian people, though are by no means exclusive to those groups. There is a huge variety the shape of the epicanthic fold and I never felt like it looked right until I got to grad school and ended up sitting across from a Chinese student for an entire semester. I don’t know what she did to stay awake, but what I did was use her as a model for my first Asian Pixie paper doll, named Zoe. Of course, she didn’t have blue hair or such a huge head, but I digress.

So, the Poll is over, since January is done and a child paper doll won to my own astonishment. So, I’ll get on that. In the mean time, enjoy Madison.

Spikes and Pleats… A Colorful Paper Doll to Print

I seriously feel like I should have saved this for Valentine’s Day, but I didn’t have anything else finished, so up it goes.

It’s not like I started with a plan for the obnoxious color scheme, but somehow the traditional black and red thing I do for punk clothing just wasn’t hitting the mark. So, pink, purple and black became the name of the game.

I sort of like it.

marisole-paper-doll-punk-margot

{Click Here for a PDF to Print} {Click Here for a PNG to Print} {Click Here for the rest of this series}

I do wish the fuzzy sweater looked… well… fuzzier. By the way, the neckline of that sweater is low and it’s meant to go over one of the corsets or other tops, otherwise she shows off more of her swimsuit than perhaps is decent for polite society.

So, I think I’ve mentioned my wacky formula for calculating the number of outfit combos a paper doll set contains before which is the number of tops multiplied by the number of bottoms and then by the number of shoes and then by the number of “jackets” plus 1. Now often the formula doesn’t work, because the pieces aren’t really totally interchangeable, but this is a rare set where I think everything really can go with everything else. The result is a total of 146 outfit combinations (not taking into consideration accessories) which is pretty remarkable.

Shadow & Light… Steampunk Paper Doll

Here we are at nearly the end of December and here is another Shadow and Light paper dolls. Today’s paper doll is a bit steampunk-ish (though lacks the gears and goggles that seem to be required), still I hope no one will hold that against her. Truth be told, I can’t draw a gear to save my life, though I have tried on occasion to mixed success.

black-white-printable-paper-doll-22

{Click Here for a PDF to Print} {Click Here for a 150 dpi PNG to Print} {Click Here for The Rest of this Series}

I forgot, living in Alabama, how pretty the snow is, but I also forgot how annoying it is to sweep off your car in the morning in the cold wearing black ankle boots. Toes freezing and fingers freezing and snow sticking to eyelashes under a grey sky with lights from the buildings flickering through, there’s nothing like winter in Southeast Alaska.

It’s a beautiful place up here.

Oh and by the way, there’s a poll on the sidebar. Please fill it out. I do actually pay attention to what people vote for and I use it to decide what I will do in the coming year. If there’s something you’d like to see and it’s not on the list, please comment.

Puck Paper Dolls… For Boys?

Back in May, a reader named Harper told me that I would make a little four year old boy really happy if I did this set. Since I’m always in favor of making small children happy (and because I always need Puck ideas) I decided to go for it. Here we have two Puck superheros in black and white. Tomorrow they will go up in full color, so that people who prefer their paper dolls in color can get their fix as well.

puck-superhero-paper-doll-2-BW

{Click Here for a PDF to Print} {Click Here for a 150 dpi PNG to Print} {Click Here for The Rest of this Series}

I am going to confess right now that I have no real idea if the cape will really work. I tested it once with scrap paper and it sort of worked… I think the application of tape might assist in it’s functionality for the average child. Sorry about that. It seemed like a cool idea at the time, but in hindsight, perhaps it needed more testing. I usually try not to post things which I know don’t really work quite right. Placement of the slits might also need to be altered to accommodate the tabs properly.

puck-superhero-paper-doll-1-BW

{Click Here for a PDF to Print} {Click Here for a 150 dpi PNG to Print} {Click Here for The Rest of this Series}

Additionally, I’d like to wish a very Happy Hanukkah to those readers who, like me, will be lighting candles tonight and mumbling things in Hebrew while trying to fake remembering all the words to those darn prayers you only say once a year. (Maybe I’m the only one who fumbles through the second verse, but surely, I’m not.)

Anyway, best wishes, happy holidays and feel free to drop me a note in the comments. I love hearing from you guys (and see… eventually I do actually do the ideas people suggest… it just takes some time.)

Puck: Trey… he’s a little bit Punk…Paper Doll to Print

So, I know there haven’t been very many Puck paper dolls lately… so here is one. He’s not the superhero I had planned on posting, but I think a little punk fella goes with the various other punky Pixie and Puck paper dolls I promised and posted (and yes, I do like alliteration, thank you much).

As always, Trey can trade costumes with any of the other Puck paper dolls, so you can ger a variety of other costumes if you want them. And I’ve learned from Dover that perhaps I should call them “Paper Action Figures.” I love the robots and their costumes.

Oh and I should had, his skin tone did not look so sickly when I originally chose it and somehow now I think he looks like he suffers from some skin condition… Sometimes I hate skintones.

puck-trey-paper-doll-10-23
 {Click Here for a PDF to Print} {Click Here for a 150 dpi PNG to Print} {Click Here for The Rest of this Series}

So for my question:

AGLOVERELIZABETH asked:
Would you rather be
a) a mermaid
b) a pirate
c) a princess
d) a fairy

Personally, I’m pretty content to be a special collections librarian, but when I was little I remember demanding to be a “magical unicorn fairy ballerina” when playing pretend with my friends in kindergarten. I think this had more to do with wanting to be better than those people who just wanted to be a “magical unicorn”, proving that, even at a young age, I understood the concept of “powergaming.”

Have a question you’d like me to answer? Ask me.

Calla in Colors… Peaches and Ice

calla-peaches-ice-10-18-12

{Click Here for a PDF to Print} {Click Here for a 150 dpi PNG to Print} {Click Here for The Rest of this Series}

Originally, I was going to call this peaches and cream, but I already used cream, so I had to come up with something else to call it. I’d say what I thought of this color set in detail, but I don’t want to influence people. Needless to say, I do really like the two tone blouse and I think it changes the look of the garment considerably.

I think it’s interesting what this soft color palette does for the edgy clothing. Very different look from the other sets. color-swatch-peaches (1)

And since we’ve had the whole set of Calla’s posted this this week, I’m curious if people’s favorites turned out to be the ones they thought would be their favorites based on the swatches. Peaches and Ice was winning the swatch poll, but on the actual paper dolls it’s not my favorite. What do other people think?

Calla in Color: Mango and Strawberry Paper Doll

I will be at work late tonight, so I am writing this post early in the morning. I do evening reference shifts about twice a month and I enjoy it. Since I work down in the Special Collections, I tend to get specialized varieties of questions, but when I’m at the reference desk, I get all sorts of random questions. My favorite was an evening when I got asked about both Chinese acrobats and the economics of fisheries on the Gulf of Mexico.

Anyway, my point is that when writing blog entries early in the morning, you have to lower your standards for my coherence.

 

calla-mango-ice-10-17-12

{Click Here for a PDF to Print} {Click Here for a 150 dpi PNG to Print} {Click Here for The Rest of this Series}

color-swatch-mangoWhen I use these cheery fruity colors, I always find myself thinking of the tropics. I imagine Calla walking the streets of somewhere warm- Miami or Brazil- and drinking something iced out of a coconut. By the way, I totally think Kandi would steal the black skirt with the pink piping.

I seem to have some weird conviction that tropical colors means tropical places.

The only downside of writing posts in the morning is that it makes it so I end up posting two in the same day…. I shall have to think on that one was a problem. Oh well….