corsets

Faye of the Future… A black and white printable paper doll

Among my various hobbies, other than drawing paper dolls, I mean, I play table top rpgs. One of my favorites is Shadowrun which I play on Saturday nights, usually. Inevitably, a bout of Shadowrun playing leads to be drawing cyberpunk inspired paper doll sets. While I agree with the general complaint that Shadowrun isn’t very pure cyberpunk, it is still a lot of fun, plus in how many other games can you have elves with assault rifles? I openly confess I have some reservations about the portrayal of Native American’s in the cannon of the game world, but no more of a problem than I have with how women are portrayed in almost every game book ever, so I can get over it.

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By the way, I updated the Showcase recently and forgot to mention it. My bad. So, there’s some new work in there by Meredith and I have more to add, I just haven’t gotten the files re-sized yet. It will happen soon enough. Thank you, Meredith for participating.

The other thing I wanted to mention is that the blog will be going into hiatus for the month of June. I have travel, work obligations and I’m going to be presenting a paper at an academic conference, all of which leaves me terrified and really busy. I’ll still be checking my email and answering comments when I can, but I won’t be updating. I’ll give a longer announcement about it when we get closer to the date in question.

Thoughts? Comments? As always, I love to hear from you guys. 🙂

Marisole Monday & Friends: Mia at the Bathing Place…

Let me be clear: When it comes to Victorians, the coolest thing to me is the idea of changing your clothing for several times a day. Also, getting to put together a trousseau before you get married. Is it wrong that I love the idea of not having to think too hard about what I would wear for a year?

Anyway, today’s paper doll is a riff on that whole concept. I love reading through old fashion magazines to find out what was proper to wear for a carriage ride or afternoon tea. As a child, I loved the idea of having special outfits for riding or hiking or going for a walk. It felt exotic and fancy.

A jaunty collection of neo-victorian fashions for Mia. her mix and match wardrobe includes 18 pieces for a lady-like day at the seaside,. Free to print and color.

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My original idea was to do a bride and her trousseau inspired by the Victorian inspired styled I love so much. I always think of this as a chance to draw Victorian inspired fantasy clothing with no guilt about lack of historical authenticity. I realized, after I started that I wasn’t sure I wanted to draw that many items, so instead focused on a smaller set of “bathing place” costumes for Mia. Basically, Mia’s off to the coast for a vacation and she’s gotta be dressed appropriately.

So, there’s a yachting costume, a traveling suit with an alternate dinner bodice and a swim suit with slippers to match. All in all, she can handle a weekend in on the coast rather well, I think.

Pixie and Puck: Pirate Nammu in Black and White

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I was asked by a reader to do my Nammu pirate paper doll in black and white. She was posted in full color back in November. So, it only took… um…. six months for me to get my act together. Seriously, it might have taken longer, but I was feeling guilty.

Normally, I save the paper dolls in a file with all the layers broken up. The color is on one layer and the line work is on another layer and than the heavy black borders, which I add last, are on a third layer. This time, I saved the file with those layers merged, so I didn’t have a separate line-work layer to work with. Since I didn’t want to redo a lot of work, I tried using Photoshop to remove the color from the paper doll set. I can sat with utter confidence that this worked better than expected, but not as well as I would have liked.

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{Click Here for a PDF of Nammu Page 2} {Click Here for a 150 dpi PNG of Nammu Page 2}

I will spare everyone a list of the things that I think didn’t turn out quite right, but the quality of the line work is not what I hoped it would be. Never the less, a black and white Nammu is better than no black and white Nammu, so hope whoever asked for it (and I honestly can’t remember who that was) is pleased with the outcome. And besides, once you color her, I don’t think my insecurities about the line work will be obvious.

Some people have expressed fear that the Mini-Maidens will replace Pixie and Puck in my heart and I hope that this Pixie paper doll reassures people that I still love the Pixie and Puck paper dolls.

Maurader Princess: Paper Doll Coloring Page

Today we have Margot and apparently she’d decided to become a brigand and rob from either the rich or the poor… though robbing from the rich does have the advantage that they have stuff unlike the poor who are, generally, poor. I wanted to call this set pirate something, but I didn’t want to use the word pirate, so I went in search of a synomyn and came up with maurader. And yes, I was thinking of Xena: Warrior Princess when I added the word princess to the title.

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I know I’ve mentioned my weird love of that show on this blog before. Speaking of shows I like, I did see the latest Grimm episode on Friday, during which I did draw paper dolls, and while I enjoyed the show, I was struck with how exposition filled it seemed. I thought it was sort of weak. I hope for better things soon enough.

I feel like this Margot paper doll could be friends with my Gypsy Rose who exists in black and white and color. It’s weird to me to think that I posted that set just under two years ago. I can see a lot of things I still need to improve and a few things that have improved.

So, it’s pretty late on Sunday as I write this and I really should be getting into bed since once I start talking about my TV show watching habits, I know there’s a problem. By the way, did anyone else see the new Grimm episode and what did they think?… or you can comment on the paper doll. That would be cool too.

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.

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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.

Spikes & Pleats: A Punk Fashion Paper Doll in Black and White

First of all: Happy Martin Luther King Jr. Day to those in the United States who celebrate.

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I am spending my day off doing exciting things like washing laundry and cleaning my kitchen and getting this slightly belated than usual Marisole post up. I decided to use Margot since she’s new.
After some thought, I have broken down the Marisole Monday category into sections for Margot, Marisole and Mia, my three different “faces” for Marisole, if that makes sense. The dolls can all share clothing.

Sometimes an whole paper doll set comes out of my desire to draw a single outfit. In the case of today’s paper doll set, it was the high-waisted plaid skirt and the tie. So, after I decided I wanted to draw that then the rest of it came together along similar lines- lots of pleats and a sort of “school girl gone wrong” kinda vibe.

One of my favorite paper dolls blogs has a new address. A Time For Paper Dolls used to be Inflammation Of… and I am really enjoying her dolls. I love their clean crisp lines and simple shapes. If I had small children, I would totally print these out for them and I might just color a few on my own for fun.

I totally make my own fun.

In the Mid-1860s… Civil War Era Paper DOlls in Color

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Here we are today with the colored version of last Monday’s post. Color for historical garments is complicated, because colors are very much a matter of taste and a matter of time. Just as the avocado and burnt orange polyester shirts of the 1970’s seem dated to us today, the colors of the past are rarely how we imagine them to be. I always picture the Victorians in tones of sepia, not because that was what they wore, but because I always see sepia photographs. I once had a professor point out that the way we picture the past has little to do with how the past actually was, but I enjoy my fantasies of the past as much as the next person.

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For this set of paper dolls, I chose to use colors from reproduction quilting cottons as a basis for the garment. They turned out to be a little muddier than perhaps I would have chosen on my own, but I wanted something different than the oranges, blue, pink, and green combination of colors I find myself most often drawn too. The ballgown in pink and black is based on the fashion plate which I drew it from, though I made a slightly darker version of the original.

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I’ll confess openly that I’m not entirely pleased with how some of these came out in color. I went muted and I think that was the right call, but I’m not sure that I didn’t lose some of the lusciousness and the vibrancy of the era. They also came out less romantic than I had hoped they would be. I do think Margot is awfully cute with her freckles and red hair (yes, I do have a weird thing for redheads). In truth, I am pleased with both the dolls. I think Marisole is a warm brown this time and I like how Margot came out. All in all, though I had some second thoughts about drawing a new face for Marisole, I am pleased with Margot and I think she’ll show up a bit more around the blog.

On an unrelated note, child paper dolls have pulled into the lead in the polling… a fact which I am very much surprised by.

Mariana… A Steampunk Paper Doll

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First Pixie paper doll of the new year. That deserves some excitement, I think.

Maybe not for anyone but me.

She’s rocking a steampunk/neo-victorian paper doll theme. I think she hangs out with Jian, my steam punk male paper doll and probably makes trouble. Since I’ve had such a positive response to doing Marisole in black and white and in color, I decided to do this paper doll the same way and I might start doing this for all the Pixie and Pucks, we’ll see.

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Also, the poll is up until the end of the month and people should vote. I do actually pay attention to the poll.

I also pay attention to repeated requests (eventually) and I have had two ideas which more than one person has suggested. One is a cowgirl paper doll which has been stalled lately because I wanted to draw a horse and, frankly, drawing animals is not my thing. But last night I managed to sketch out a decent looking horse, so… a cowgirl may yet appear. The second thing I’ve been working on, and I expect this to make some peeps happy, is a male paper doll properly proportioned to hang out with Marisole.

So, depending on what wins the poll this time will depend on what I work on next year.

My point is this, if you want to see one of these things, vote for it, or if you want to see something else, drop me a comment.

In the Mid-1860s… Black and White Civil War Era Paper Dolls

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I have no real excuse for the lateness of this post, except that I was traveling yesterday and somehow I didn’t get as much done on for the blog on my vacation as I usually do. Something about traveling always makes me feel a little drained when I finally return to wherever is home. I’ve lived in several states and it always seems to takes me a year before one of them becomes home. As much as I love Alabama with it’s rolling hills (they call them mountains, but being from Alaska, I can’t honestly call them mountains) and it’s clear blue skies, but returning to Alaska still feels like going home. I suspect, eventually, Birmingham will become more homelike.

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Moving onto paper doll related matters, away from rambles about travel, today’s set is much larger than any set of Marisole Monday paper dolls that I have ever done before. It was not supposed to originally be three pages, but somehow I couldn’t bring myself to remove anything from the sets and therefore decided to keep everything together. The result was that I ended up with an extra page. The swimming shoes repeat because, once the dolls are colored, they will be the only thing that exposes skin and I know I don’t want to do the two paper dolls in the same skin-tone. The corset and drawers repeat, because I feel strongly that both dolls should get a set of underwear. The hoop-skirt doesn’t repeat, because it’s big and, frankly, going to be white.

As some of you might notice, the second paper doll with the freckles is a different face than the original Marisole. I have named her Margot and she’ll be showing up from time to time along with the Asian version of Marisole who I’ve always thought of as Mia, though I don’t know if I have ever mentioned that on the blog.

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All of these dresses are based on garments from the mid-1860s, hence the title. Something about being in Alabama has made me want to draw huge hoop skirts. Not normally my favorite period in fashion history, but it’s growing on me. I had an Addy doll when I was a child, but I honestly can not recall any exposure to real Southern History outside the standard Civil Rights stuff and a little on the Civil War. Strange how moving here has made me fascinated by all things Southern.

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.

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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.

Pirate Nammu: Printable Paper Doll

So, back when I drew this paper doll, I was like “I’ll get her up for Speak like a Pirate Day” and now I’m like… “Clearly, that didn’t happen.” I didn’t even have her inked until last week which is a pretty fast turn around for me. I have been playing around with the Pixies lately, so here is the first two page one. I think I will do this again, I enjoyed building a larger pirate wardrobe than I usually can on a Pixie page.

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Also, I finished inking a few Pucks yesterday and just got them scanned in, so people can expect some Pucks to be posted this month. I have been thinking it would be nice to do some Pucks aimed at boys just like the Dover Paper Action Figures, but I have no idea what little boys might want in a paper doll.

Anyone with a son want to help me out on this one?

Also, I get so giddy and excited when someone I don’t know at all links my site. NZ Ecochick posted pictures of her set of magnetic Marisole’s and it filled me with an unhealthy amount of glee. Paper dolls are so much fun to share and I love it when people do so.

Relatedly, one of the search terms that came up for the blog last month was “purple paper doll” and I am going to be honest. I have NO IDEA what that even means… we live in a strange strange internet, my friends.

Dead Roses: Gothic Paper Doll

I feel a little weird saying this is in color when the color is mostly black…

Not the most cheerful color scheme ever developed for a paper doll. I almost made it all black, but that seemed a bit much, even for Gothic Marisole. If you look closely, you’ll see one of my usual tricks for keeping things from looking totally “flat” is to use shades of the same color. So while everything is “black” there is still some definition between the various parts of the garments. I actually did this Marisole in four shades of very very dark grey which look black, but still allow the line work to be seen.

It’s all an illusion.

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So, Meredith asked: I think a ballerina paper doll would be cool or mabey a pool / summer themed doll also for some ting tiffrent you could do dolls theamed ot colors of the rainbow

how long have you been drawing paper dolls for?
could you do a cow girl paper doll that would be cool and diffrent

To answer the easiest question, I have been drawing paper dolls for as long as I can really remember. It began when my mother would draw me a doll as a bribe for cleaning my room or other activity and then I had to draw the clothing. Eventually, that evolved into drawing my own paper dolls, though I still prefer clothing to the dolls.

As for your requests, I have added them to my list of ideas. I usually keep a running list of ideas, but since most paper dolls are drawn weeks (sometimes months) before they eventually get posted, I can’t promise anything as far as doing any of those ideas. And I probably won’t to the ballerina, because tutu’s scare me.

To answer a related question, Tawny asked: What is your favorite sort of paper doll to draw? I mean… I think eeery thing you do is great, but what do you like to do the most?

I like drawing everything. I do find I tend to return to certain themes a lot. I like things that are a little alt-fashion inspired and a little fantasy inspired. I often draw from fashion magazines, because it makes deciding what to draw simpler. I always fear that I will fall into a rut and draw the same thing over and over again. I try to keep things interesting using reference images and other materials.

Got a question you want me to answer on the blog?Ask me here.