braids

Pantheon Gowns: A Fun Ancient Greek Inspired Paper Doll

Digital paper doll download with braided hair and two elegant ancient Greek–inspired gowns, plus matching accessories. A fun, artful printable from Paper Thin Personas. Perfect for fans of historical or fantasy paper dolls.
Digital paper doll download with braided hair and two elegant ancient Greek–inspired gowns, plus matching accessories. A yellow and pink color scheme. A fun, artful download from Paper Thin Personas. Perfect for fans of historical or fantasy paper dolls.

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

This is the second of two digital paper doll downloads I designed with an ancient geek inspired theme. The first one went up last week, so you can go download that paper doll too, if you feel so inspired. I don’t think two paper doll is enough to make a series right? We’d need at least four, I think?

It’s not really the “second” one, because my brain doesn’t work like that. It’s more like, I drew three dresses, remembered that three dresses is one two many for my usual paper doll layout and then was like… well I guess I better draw a fourth dress and make that work.

Lately I’ve been very into wig designers for interesting hairstyle ideas. I think wigs are fun, because they don’t have to be realistic, much like paper dolls don’t have to be realistic. Over a decade ago, I interviewed Liana of Liana’s Paper Doll Blog (anyone else on the planet remember that one?) and she told me that drawing paper dolls made her “feel like I’m getting away with warping reality for fun.” I 100% agree.

Also, I cannot believe that interview was over a decade ago. It feels like yesterday. Wow.

There’s been a lot of talk lately about the “end of the internet,” and when I think about how old this site is (17 years now!), I realize it really is kind of old-school. It’s from the days when one person could just make a website about something they loved and share it. The internet is so different now, which makes sense. 17 years is a long time. Were this website a person, it would be able to vote next year.

Increasingly, keeping a site up like this is hard. There’s a lot of costs associated with running a site like this (especially one this big) and it is occasionally janky and slow (I know, I know.) Still, when I go back to old interviews like that one, I’m reminded why I did this in the first place.

That makes me want to keep going.

If you’ve been enjoying my paper dolls and want to help keep the site running (and ad-free), I’d love if you considered becoming a patron. Your support really does make a difference and helps me keep creating.

I don’t think I’ll ever have the budget to hire someone to totally “clean up” the site, but Patreon makes it possible to cover the basics (like server space) and to pay for help when something breaks that I just can’t fix myself. That’s been happening more often lately; turns out websites have gotten a lot more complicated in the last 17 years. Shocking, I know.

Celestial Fashionista: A Fantasy Astronomer Paper Doll

A paper doll coloring page with braided hair, wearing corsets and bodices. The set includes two gowns, a pair of boots, an armillary sphere, books, and notepaper.
A red-brown skinned paper doll with braided hair, wearing corsets and bodices. The set includes two gowns, a pair of boots, an armillary sphere, books, and notepaper.

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

Today’s paper doll is a fantasy scientist I think. Some sort of astrologer or astronomer paper doll perhaps? I’ll leave that up to others to decide.

Netflix did a version of Cinderella back in 2021 and honestly, it was not a film I enjoyed very much. The attempt to modernize the story fell a bit flat. The costumes were cool and I love a musical, but I didn’t actually think it was a very good movie. The film’s excessive close-ups and awkward staging make it feel less like a true musical and more like a disjointed movie where people randomly burst into song. It was a jukebox musical, but not one that worked very well. I thought Pierce Brosnan was quite funny as the king and Camila Cabello was charming enough as the lead.

Even though nothing will ever replace the 1997 Brandy version of Cinderella in my heart, I did find some of the costume designs in the Netflix version interesting. I created this printable paper doll inspired by those looks—specifically the main outfit Cinderella wears for most of the movie which is a heavily boned set of stays over a skit with a wrap belt of some sort.

After designing the two dresses, I started thinking about the character behind them. There was something practical about the costumes that made me imagine this astronomer paper doll. That’s when the idea to draw the armillary sphere came in, and the concept evolved from there. The color palette was inspired by what I think of as “galactic” colors. Not colors I tend to use that much, I don’t think.

This photo from Pinterest inspired her hair. I added some dramatic earrings.

This month has absolutely flown by. It’s been one of those stretches where I keep thinking “I’ll do that when I have a moment” but those moments are in short supply lately. I’ve been teaching, attending a historical conference, catching up after August travel, and taking a class.

I have been scheming on a October project, so that might be happening. We shall see!

Straps and Lace: Steampunk Paper Doll For Ensemble Eclectica

A black steampunk costume paper doll printable coloring page with a wardrobe of ten pieces. She can share clothing with the other paper dolls on Paper Thin Personas.
A black steampunk costume paper doll printable with a wardrobe of ten pieces.

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

Today’s steampunk costume paper doll has a mix and match wardrobe of ten pieces. There are about 12 different outfit combinations here. I really wanted to experiment with drawing lace and lace like patterns using some lace brushes I have in Procreate. I use the brushes during the penciling stage and then I ink over them. I don’t like how they look “raw”, but they really help when I’m trying to draw a repeat pattern that runs along something- as lace often does.

I feel like I am getting much more confident in rendering lace in my digital ink style, which I am really happy about.

I will save you all from my “steampunk” vs “Victorian fashion inspired” language musings from last week. Instead, I will simply say that that steampunk is a combination of modern styles and Victorian looks. It is both fun and whimsical and usually brown. I find brown boring, so I tend to lean into color with my steampunk costumes.

(This is why I never could have been a Goth. I just find all black so uninteresting.)

For the holidays, I treated myself to a set of Color Cubes by Sarah Renee Clarke to help choose color schemes for paper dolls. I randomly selected a beautiful teal, cream, and blue palette (Color Card 101) and added yellow for extra contrast. The new pieces can mix with last week’s Victorian Whims paper doll, though the colors don’t coordinate perfectly, so some creativity is needed, but the black and white versions work well together. If you combine these two steampunk costume paper doll creations together, you’ll end up with 72 outfit combinations, before you even add in hats and purses.

As some folks know, I have a coloring book out from Colouring Heaven and I’ve heard that it’s popping up in the occasional Walmart. I am still going to recommend you order it directly, if you want a copy, because as far as I can tell distribution in the USA is not consistent at all. However, if you happen to see it in a Walmart, I’ve love a photo. I am psyched to see it “in the wild” out there in the world.

Purim is this Friday. I confess that I have been do wrapped up with other things that I completely forgot about my favorite Jewish holiday, but if you need some Purim paper dolls in your life, I have several. If I remember I’ll see about drawing a new one for 2025, but life has been a roller coaster these last few weeks.