curls

Marisole Monday: Sweater Style

marisole-sweaters-paper-doll-150

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

Usually, I come up with a color scheme for a post and then work it into the costumes. There’s almost always something with a pattern which I can use multiple colors in. Addison (one of the Pixie paper dolls) and Marisole: Wings & Petals are both good examples of this principle at work. However, since there wasn’t any pattern on today’s Marisole and no ways I could imagine incorporating a coherent color scheme, I just sort of picked colors that reminded me of winter and went with them.

Winter always makes me happy, because I means I can break out my gray clothing and not feel guilty about it. Of all the neutral colors in the world, gray is my favorite. It has all the features I like about black, but it’s not black. It’s like a delightful lighter better black (which I rather suppose is the definition of gray).

Update 8/11/2014: This paper doll is now available in black and white for coloring. You can find her here.

A Black Paper Doll Named Addison

A black paper doll with a nine piece mix and match wardrobe. She's free to print from paperthinpersonas.com

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

addison-exampleSometimes I don’t know what to say about a paper doll. I sort of started drawing Addison with the head- since each Pixie paper doll gets a new head, that’s often where I start- and I knew I wanted her to be a black paper doll with afro-puffs and big earrings. The paper doll’s wardrobe sort of evolved from there. The color palette for her clothing is distinctly fall and autumn oriented which seems fitting for this time of the year. I think it looks warm and cozy. Her striped shirt was confusing as far as which colors and in which order to put them in, but I think it turned out well, though I can’t shake the feeling I messed up the stripes of one of her sleeves.

I, obviously, got bored and ended up playing with her a little- you can see the results of my time wasting on the left with a dressed up version of this Addison paper doll.

Ancient Chic: Goddess Printable Paper Doll

marisole-ancient-greece-paper-doll-150

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

I loved Greek mythology since I was a child. Ancient Greek costume is interesting as well. I should state as a very clear disclaimer that today’s paper doll has about as much in common with Ancient Greek costume as the average Chinese take out place has with actual Chinese food. However, there are some excellent Ancient Greek costume sources available on the web. The interest in all things Ancient in the Renaissance gave rise to a whole series of pottery and sculpture studies, many of which are available online for free since they fall before the 1923 US copyright cut off date.

The Ancient Greek Costume Bibliography was my primary source. Though her start date of 1784 cuts out a lot of very early works, many of the sources are available online. I like Greek dress from 1908 and Rehberg’s Drawings faithfully copied from nature at Naples and with permission dedicated to the Right Honourable Sir William Hamilton which is a book with an insane title, but is a collection of reproductions of Roman and Greek statuary. So, those are a couple good sources to start with. I should say Rehberg’s has been reproduced a few times under different titles, so make what you will of that.

Edit 4/6/2014: This set is now available here in black and white for coloring. Yay!

CyberGirl 2: Printable Paper Doll Coloring Page

paperdoll-cyberpunk2-150
{Click Here for a PDF to Print} {Click Here for a 150 dpi PNG to Print} {Click Here for The Rest of this Set}
One of the stranger things about posting older paper dolls is that fishing them out of my files brings back memories. When I was in college, I had two wonderful roommates, one of whom was a fantastic cook (the other couldn’t boil water, bless her heart). And I remember working on this paper doll while eating homemade sausage and mushroom lasagna. Of course, I got some of the grease on my notebook and ruined the page I was working on. I ended up re-drawing two pages of paper dolls because of that mistake.

These days I eat or I paper doll. I don’t usually try to do both.

Though I do think this is sort of cyberpunk, I’m not sure how much it really is. It’s mostly an excuse to draw the clothing of the near future vs. the far future where, as we all know from early 90’s tv shows, they wear jump suits.

Modern Girl: Marisole Monday Printable Paper Doll

ne of the challenges of drawing clothing for the Marisole paper doll is to make sure things seem to fit together thematically. It’s easy to do when the theme is zombie or fantasy or steampunk, but it is harder when I’m dealing with contemporary clothing. So, I try to do it with color. By making sure I use a consistant set of colors throughout the paper doll, I can make it look like an actual set of clothing that a person might own… if, you know, they were the most color organized person on the planet.

paper-doll-marisole-tailored-150

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


paperdoll-tailored-miniLiana has written before about how when she is paper dolling everything seems to fall into “paper doll” form. I find the same thing is true for me. When I am in the midst of thinking in terms of paper dolls clothing, everything I see becomes me wondering if I could draw it. I love the fall and spring when the big name fashion houses are putting out their new collections. Magazines are always full of clothing, so I can pick up one or two and sit on my couch looking for ideas.

As with last week’s Marisole paper doll, I ended up playing with the paper doll a little. I shouldn’t make a habit of it, because it just creates more work for me. And more work is not what I need when I’m trying to keep this site up and running. Still, it is fun to play when I have time. I’m fairly excited about this Marisole paper doll, because I think I finally got a caucasian skin tone I like which is fairly exciting. Skin tones are very difficult. I want them to be the same, so the dolls can share shoes among each other, but I also want to like the skin-tones.

Wings and Petals: A Printable Paper Doll with Curls

marisole-full-color-printable-paper-doll-150
{Click Here for a PDF to Print} {Click Here for a PNG to Print} {Click Here for the rest of this series}
I try to think about how the paper doll would be played with while I’m coloring in Marisole’s clothing. I know it seems sort of strange, but it seems important that the doll be playable even if I don’t cut her out. The nice thing about these sets of the paper dolls is that they can be layered. It’s important that tops can go over bottoms, though it’s not something I double check with everything even though I should.

I ran a bunch of errands today and it took longer then it should have. I get lost a lot here in Illinois, though I am getting better at finding my way around. I used to hit soybean or corn fields whenever I was truly lost and then I knew I need to go back the other way. I swear that pretty much sums of my entire driving life. Somehow living somewhere flat “on a gird” is way more confusing to me than living in a place with hills and wacky streets. Never the less, it is home for the next few years- than onto something new.

Truly Trudy: A Comic Inspired Paper Doll Coloring Sheet

truly-trudy-paper-doll-1-150

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

Truly Trudy is based on the classic comic paper dolls of the fifties like this butterfly basedKaty Keene from Marge8’s Blog. Katy Keene had lots of friends who got paper dolls too. I never read the Katy Keene comics since they were a bit before my time, but I do remember reading Archie and Veronica on commercial fishing trips and trading the comics back and forth with my sister.

The Paper Collector also has a bunch of these old newspaper and comic paper dolls including Katy Keene And the newspaper paper dolls Mopsy Modes or Boots or Brenda Starr by Dale Messick who was the first women syndicated cartoonist.

Though I’m not totally pleased with everything about Trudy, I do think there are some strong points. Her pose is perfectly comic book, though I don’t know if she’s busty enough to really have that fifties pin up look. Her face I feel mixed about. I don’t really draw open mouths very often and this is really why. She was a bit of an experiment and is one I may come back too another time.

Sugar and Spice Version 2.0: A Gothic Lolita Paper Doll

So, yesterday, I had a Sweet Lolita paper doll and today we have a Gothic Lolita version of the same doll. Once again, you’ll want to slit along the dotted line on her hair, so she can wear the bows and hat and other hair accessories. Hair accessories seem to be very important in the whole Lolita thing. I openly confess to not being an expert, but I did my best. You can check out the Sweet Lolita paper doll for the list of sources I used.

marisole-gothic-lolita-paper-doll-150

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

While I was researching Lolita fashion, I did find this cute paper doll by Ninipowwaa on Deviant Art. She also has her own blog which I can’t read, cause I think it’s in French. In high school, when most people I knew were failing to learn French, I was busy failing to learn Spanish. I love how she colored the paper doll. Someday, I might actually try to shade Marisole. I mean… not in the near future, but it could happen.

And, I should say, doing two different color schemes was really actually difficult. Don’t expect it to become a theme, but by the time I realized how long it was taking me to recolor the whole set, I’d already gotten so far along that I wasn’t stopping. I don’t think I’ll be doing Lolita fashion again in the future for the paper dolls unless I get lots of requests and start to feel guilty. I have a very well developed sense of guilt.

Sugar and Spice: Sweet Lolita Paper Doll in Pinks & Blue

So, I’m a bit late with Marisole Monday, but I think it was worth the wait. I may have gotten a little carried away with these Lolita style paper doll clothes. Just, you know… A bit. See, I got this new paper which is designed for pen and ink (it’s a hot press smooth Bristol with lots of sizing in it) and the result is that the inking goes so smooth and so I sort of was having a lot of fun and kinda forgot that I had to fit everything onto a certain amount of space.

It happens.

marisole-sweet-lolita-paper-doll-150
{Click Here for a PDF to Print} {Click Here for a PNG to Print} {Click Here for the rest of this series}
On the list of other confessions to be made about today’s printable paper doll include that I really don’t know anything about Japanese street fashion. I don’t speak/read/understand any Japanese and so most of my information came from the Wikipedia article on Lolita style and a dozen Japanese clothing brand websites like Angelic Pretty and Baby, The Stars Shine Bright. Navigating them while not speaking Japanese was an adventure to say the least. American stores like Candy Violet and Sweet Rococo.

I think I’ve mentioned before, I’m trying to work on improving my art by doing things that scare me and what scared me about these paper doll dresses was the ruffles and the ribbons and the general high level of detail. I didn’t draw any patterns because I didn’t know if I wanted Sweet Lolita (full of pinks, ruffles and floral patterns) or Gothic Lolita (full of black, ruffles and a distinct lack of floral patterns). In the end I settled on Sweet for today’s paper dolls, but there will be an Extra Special Not on Monday, Marisole Monday post tomorrow which the darker Gothic version of the paper doll and her clothing.

On one last note, cut along the dotted line in Marisole’s hair, so that she can wear her bows and hat.

Prom Night 2010: Printable Paper Doll with Dresses

When I went to prom back in highschool, the dresses seemed to echo the movies of the time. Lots of Titanic-like high waists and layers of black net over red satin.

marisole-promnight-paper-doll-150
{Click Here for a PDF to Print} {Click Here for a PNG to Print} {Click Here for the rest of this series}

There was only one store to really buy a prom dress at and the women who owned it would only sell one of each style during the prom season, so that you could be assured you were wearing the only one of your dress at the dance.

These days, according to the internet, short styles are much more in fashion, but I had to draw a long traditional dress for my own preferences in that regard. All of these dresses are based on actual styles. Though I would never wear it, my favorite is the layer purple on with the strapless bodice. It’s very 1908’s which seems to be the decade that has come back to haunt us now. I’m not sure how I feel about this.