I’ve mentioned before my “skintones make shoes a pain” thing, and so I wanted to give this Marisole a skintone that was shared by another doll so that she could share shoes. I chose Candy Coated Couture, but I don’t think the skintones are actually the same. In fact, a quick check with photoshop’s eyedrop tool tells me they aren’t. This has something to do, I think, with how Photoshop saves things for the web.
So, I did a little internet research and found a lovely article
I am going to try a few other methods and see if they help. It’s a strange problem indeed.
Since it’s Christmas Eve, I wanted to wish a everyone a lovely Christmas. Be safe and be merry. I am back in Alaska with my family celebrating.
I don’t think I’m that great of an artist. This isn’t a plea to be reassured or an attempt to fish for compliments, I’m just being honest. And I say this because what I draw rarely looks like I wanted it to look in my head. I’m often satisfied with my work, but I rarely look at it and think, “Yeah, that came out just like I wanted it too.”
Marisole’s hair today is a rare case where I can say that it came out just like I wanted it too. It looks natural, bouncy and cute. I am quite pleased.
There were originally a few more pieces on this set, but than there was a tragic run in with a glass of egg nog and well… now there are a few fewer pieces on this set.
Opps.
Oh well… I hope everyone is having a lovely holiday season.
By the way, this is the 100th Marisole paper doll post… though not the 100th Marisole design, since she has been posting in both black and white lately… still, not a bad achievement.
I have to confess that this was a paper doll of contrasts. I like certain parts (her hair and her shoes) and I dislike other parts, but I think all in all, it came out well enough for me to post it. I wasn’t totally pleased with her mouth, so that got changed a bit with Photoshop to make her look less angry. Her hair style is based on one a student in one of my graduate courses wore her hair in. I always thought it was neat and I loved how huge the side buns were with her hair teased out a bit.
Somehow, she made it look sophisticated rather than absurd.
Enjoy the paper doll. There will be another one up on Monday.
In a fairly unrelated note, check out these beautiful kimono’s made from African fabrics. I am totally in love with these, but then I am obsessed with anything which mixes cultural garments.
This printable paper doll set began as a chance to experiment and practice drawing pattern. It ended as an experience best summed up as… “Why did I ever decide I wanted to draw that stupid scrawling floral pattern and it’s a total pain to ink and it’s a total pain to color and I hate my life…”
Not shockingly, this set took me longer to finish than it should have. The full-color version goes up next week and you can all decide if it was worth the agony of the floral pattern from the pits of Hell.
Seriously, my hatred for that floral pattern is still fresh and warm.
Moving rapidly along, the paper doll that was supposed to go up with week was going to be Halloween themed, but since she didn’t get finished, we have a back up fantasy paper doll set instead.
Also, can I add, that from this paper doll’s accessories she leads a really surreal life- a sword for fighting, a letter for writing, a book for reading, yarn for knitting and a pitcher for… I don’t know… recreational water pouring? There’s no glass so I guess… she drinks from the pitcher? Hmm…
Clearly someone (and that means me) didn’t think this through. She wasn’t going to have a sword, but I had an extra from Silk and Steel and I figured that she could share the love.
By the way, if you have an opinion on the fate of the Dictionary Girls let me know.
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.
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?
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.
When 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….
So, Calla started out as a hip-hop infused paper doll project born out of my own ignorance of the genre. I don’t think that, in the end, she looks terribly hip-hop, but I did my best.
Calla began when one of my student workers and I got into a conversation about Chicago hip-hop style that ended with her giving me the names of several brands including Apple Bottoms, Rocawear and Baby Phat. Using their designs as a starting point, I carefully researched and then drew Calla’s face.
For the next three days, I’ll be posting a different version of this paper doll in color each day.
Somewhere between the “head” being drawn and the clothing being drawn my own natural inclination for pin-tucks and pleats took over. So… I guess Calla is less of a hip-hop paper doll than she was meant to be. I still think she’s really really cute. Each of these swatches is a little different. And each one was adapted and became one set of colors I used when coloring a version of Calla including the skin and hair colors, but not the eye or lip colors.
I’m curious about which one people like the best, so I have a poll in the sidebar. It will be up for a few days. 🙂
So, I was pawing around the internet, as I do, and I stumbled across this wonderful German website that contained some beautiful vintage German paper dolls. The word for paper doll in German is “ankleidepuppen” which literally translates to something like “dress up doll” according to my good friend from Germany, but, she told me, its usually used for paper dolls rather than normal dolls. Paper dolls and paper models are still pretty popular in Germany, though not in the United States.
Right after college, I got a fairly dead-end job working at a local bookstore and toy store. One of the catalogs we received, though never ordered from, was a German catalog that sold beautiful paper models. The prices were far above what we could have possibly sold them for, so we didn’t stock them normally, though I seem to recall a customer who would come in and special order them.
I love beautiful paper toys of all kinds, though paper dolls are, understandably, my first love.
So, I went out to the movies tonight and saw “Snow White and the Huntsman” with some friends. I concluded that the Twilight Chick (whose name I had to look up on IMBD) can’t act, that I rather liked Charlize Theron when she’s evil and that the movie was better than Mirror Mirror, but I’ll take the Disney version over either any day. The costumes were pretty beautiful, especially the Evil Queens, but there’s apart where Snow White rides into battle not wearing a helmet- apparently being a princess means you’re immune to concussive head injuries.
So, before I crawl into bed, I should answer a question.
Monica asked: Do you prefer online paper doll research, or real book research? Internet or Library? =]
Well, that’s a kinda complicated question. The answer is: It depends on what I am researching and why.
If I want inspiration for a modern or a fantasy set, than I usually stick to the internet. I use it for looking at clothing websites or checking out the latest designer shows a Style.com. It’s really useful.
If I want historical costume, I usually go to books. I own about a dozen different costume books in my own collection, plus I regularly have at least a dozen checked out from the library. The exception to this are the websites of museums and libraries, which often contain digitized primary source documents or photos of items in their collections. Books are great for context. The internet is great for pictures. Some of my favorite internet resources are linked on my Research Resources page which I just finished updating, though I have some more to add later.
The truth is that I don’t really like staring at a computer while trying to draw and I would much rather have a book open in front of me than a computer screen. Though I usually draw from drafted tumbnails, so even with fantasy costumes, I rarely have a computer open when I am actually drawing.
Today’s printable paper doll is so bright, you might find yourself thinking “Good god, it’s radioactive” and you wouldn’t be wrong. She’s extremely a little eye-watering, I confess, but I had a lot of fun. Like Kandi, I wanted to play with the contrast of bright color to dark skin. Also, once I colored all the clothing and I looked at my Marisole skin tone color palette, I realized that most of them clashed with that obnoxious delightful green color.
Seriously, if there was ever a good post to do in black and white and in color… this was it. I doubt I would have had the gumption to go this bright if I wasn’t going to also post her in black and white.
So, B asked: Are you going to make another set of Flock dolls? It’d be pretty cool to see fairy tales, or maybe cyberpunk!
The short answer is: Yes.
The longer answer is that the next set of Flock paper dolls will be modern and will consist of the six dolls and a over a hundred pieces of clothing. After that I want to do smaller sets, because seriously the whole “hundred” pieces of clothing was a bit much. I have a “noir punk” set in process and a sort of futuristic set as well. Neither is close to being done though and the casual set is very close. As in, I hoping sometime this week or next, close.
I have to say I love the idea of doing something fairy tale inspired… sort of a bad ass Red Ridinghood and Cinderella set… I shall have to think about that more.
Speaking of the Questions, Tuesday is the last day to enter my drawing. I know I said yesterday that I would draw a name on Tuesday, but I realized for it to be open for two weeks it was going to have to go until Tuesday until midnight. I’ll announce the winner Wednesday. Hopefully along with a Dictionary Girls update, but since I don’t have one yet… well… we’ll see.
I’ve been thinking about doing a series of posts about things I wish I knew about paper doll blogging back when I started paper doll blogging… is that something people would be interested in? I mean, it’s not terribly paper doll related.
