evening gowns

A Stylish Paper Doll July: Ruffled Evening Gown

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Source

As I try to find ways to beat the heat, I’m pleased to share this fully frilly gown with some boning that I drew. I drew it because I saw the skirt and I thought… That looks hard to draw.

And then I was like, therefore I should try it, because I should try something that I think looks hard. I did end up changing some of the tiers, but all in all, I think it came out pretty well. I also altered the neckline, because the dolls don’t have on the right underwear for such a low cut neckline.

I do sort of regret not trying to get the texture from the bodice in the source image, but I’m not sure how I would have pulled that off anyway. Need to think on that one.

Also, I am working on adding my remaining prints and paper doll books to Etsy as product listings which means taking photos (not my strong suit, but I am working on it) and so I hope I can debut those soon. Though given how hot my office (and usual photo space) is at the moment, that might not happen until the heat breaks here.

A Stylish Paper Doll July: Evening Gowns 22 and 23

A paper doll evening down to color and cut out.
A paper doll floral evening dress with 3d flowers on it.

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Sources:

So, today’s pair of paper doll evening gowns is sort of an exploration of something I can not imagine attempting if I didn’t/wasn’t working digitally. Both these dresses have the same bodice. I drew #23 first, actually, well… I drew the dress and then as I was inking, I thought….

“Oh, I really like that bodice, I bet it would look cool as a slinky fit and flare gown.”

So, I duplicated the layer, saved it and then once I had finished first dress, I pulled it back up and set to work on a slinky dress that I had in my head.

This is the sort of thing that working digitally allows in ways sketchbooks don’t as easily.

Yes, I realize I should have numbered them with the floral gown as 22 and the slinky gown as 23, but I was not paying that much attention at the time.

All right, tomorrow, there will be fantasy armor and then… well, we’ll be caught up.

So, yay!

Tanya has a Formal Evening

Printable paper doll coloring pages with a black paper doll and her five evening gowns and three pairs of shoes. The dolls has an afro-puff.
Printable black paper doll with her five evening gowns and three pairs of shoes. The dolls has an afro-puff.

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Today, we have Tanya with some evening gowns. This set has actually been sitting on my computer for way longer than I like to admit. However, it’s done now, so that’s okay.

Tanya’s last collection was very fantasy themed, so I thought she should get some more modern things, but I confess now I feel like the poor girl needs some pants. I’m not 100% in love with how her afro-puff came out, but I can live with that. I think that angle is wrong…

I digress.

All right, so yeah, paper doll! I know for like Search Engine Optimization I should really try to write between 300 and 500 words per post, but I haven’t got that much to say here. It’s a cute printable black paper doll. That’s kinda all I got today.

Talia Tuesday and Her Formal Gowns

Two printable paper doll coloring pages with a doll and her wardrobe of eight mix and match pieces.
A paper doll printable with a 11 piece wardrobe of evening gowns in fun spring colors. The doll has red hair and fair skin.

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So, there’s a not so fun side to any new paper doll series involving me figuring out how many pieces of clothing I need to draw to fill in a set. Too many and the clothing won’t fit. Too few and it looks weirdly sparse. I’m still sorting out with Talia Tuesday what I need for each set and evening gowns (because they are large pieces) are always a good way to test and get a feel for things.

Plus, I enjoy drawing evening gowns. Who doesn’t?

A few notes- for those of you who haven’t seen Talia here yet, all of her sets are two pages. I mention this because it’s one download, but there are two pages there. I had a question about that last week, so I wanted to clarify. This is the third Talia Tuesday doll, so if you need a friend (or clone, I suppose) there’s another Talia Tuesday with some retro ski clothing you can check out and a friend named Tashi with some fancy winterwear.

Eventually, this collection will expand to have other paper dolls with T names, but I am not there yet. Slow, but steady and all that. I have one other friend for Talia and Tashi ready and a foray into fantasy clothing I’ll want to share soon.

Meet Citrine! New Paper Doll Whose Name I Keep Spelling Wrong! And her evening gowns!

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Autumnal Evening Gowns with Amethyst

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It feels funny to me to be talking about autumn when the temp hasn’t been above zero here in at least three weeks. Well, it was warmer when I designed these gowns, I guess. The thing about them that feels autumnal to me is the color scheme. Jewel tones feel like winter and fall to me. Not sure that other people agree with me on that one, but that’s how I’ve always felt about it.

Weirdly, I know these gowns have source images, because I almost never draw formal gowns without using my Pinterest Formal Gowns and Cocktail Dresses board (creatively named), but I’ll be darned if I can find the source images. I usually save them carefully… So, read into that one what you like I guess.

Meanwhile, snow is falling, Hanukkah has begun, and I hope those who celebrate a holiday in the coming months have a wonderful one. As I move towards the end of the year, I always find myself beginning to think about the future and what has been done this year. It’s a funny time of the year for me. I plan to take a few months off soon, so I’ll have time to be contemplative.

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The Early Fashions of the 1930s

A 1930s vintage fashion paper doll to print and color with three dresses and two pairs of shoes. She has a coat, a day dress and an evening dress.

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A 1930s vintage fashion paper doll to print with three dresses and two pairs of shoes. She also has two hats and I love her evening dress.

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As often happens with my historical paper dolls, we need to talk about reference images. So, Diamond’s hair is based on the hair of Ann Sheridan in this 1935 promotional photo from Paramount Studios. HHer evening gown came from A Decade of French Fashion, 1929-1938: From the Depression to the Brink of War which I bought for this project. Her underwear is from Simplicity 2288, a sewing pattern from 1930. Everyday Fashions of the Thirties As Pictured in Sears Catalogs provided more source images, because it is one of my go-to 1930’s fashion books.

As I was working on writing up alt-text for my images, I realized this printable paper dolls sort of has a little mini-wardrobe. Since, she has an evening dress, a coat, and a day dress. Plus with the two hats, she’s ready for anything. And, of course, she can share clothing with Amethyst and her 1930s clothing.

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Evening Gowns for Paper Dolls with Diamond

There’s something super relaxing for me in drawing evening gowns for paper dolls. I don’t know if I like it so much because it’s one piece garments or if I just like drawing clothing I am never going to need to wear.

I do not live a lifestyle that makes sense to wear evening gowns very much.

A printable paper doll coloring page with three gowns and two pairs of shoes.

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I really went back and forth about color schemes. I actually did two different color schemes. You can see the other one on my Patreon page. It’s open to everyone, so you don’t need to be a patron to download it. It’s a more light pastel color scheme.

However, maybe because my Spring Evening Gowns set, I thought some more rich colors would be fun. This set feels winter to me, though I don’t really know why. It’s not like these gowns look very warm.

A colorful paper doll page with an elegant Asian lady and her three fantastic evening gowns.

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The dress on the far left comes from Gabriela Hearst Spring/Summer 2019 Ready-To-Wear collection and the dress on the far right is from Christian Siriano Spring 2019 Ready-to-Wear Fashion Show. However the dress in the middle is my own design. You can see a lot more of my evening gown inspiration on my Pinterst Board.

Remember you can hop over to my Patreon to grab the other color scheme. And if you want, consider becoming a patron.

Evening Gowns for the Dolls Du Jour

On my short list of favorite paper dolls are evening gowns. When it comes to printable kids activities, I know not all my paper dolls are super kid designed. However, when I was a kid my favorite paper dolls were the ones with fancy gowns and historical ones. So, I think of today’s paper dolls as being a printable kids activity.

Dusk is only my second Doll Du Jour design. She’s joining Dawn from a few weeks ago.

Printable Kids Activity: Curvy Paper Doll with two evening gowns and two pairs of shoes.

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I knew I wanted to do a set of fancy evening gowns. I wasn’t planning to draw as many purses as I did, but then as I was doing layout, there was a lot of empty space. So, I thought, I’ll fill up this space with clutch purses!

Listen, I don’t judge how your brain works.

One of the fun things about the Dolls Du Jour pose that is that is is really good for showing off trains on dresses. I’m not great at drawing trains, but I do love the idea of them. In practice, I think actually having to deal with one would be super annoying.

A full-color curvy blond paper doll with two evening gowns and two pairs of shoes.

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I went back and forth about the colors for her dresses, but in the end I decided I wanted to focus on some less typical shades for women’s evening wear. I tend to do a lot of red and blue evening gowns, so I decided on yellow and coral. These colors feel fresh to me. Plus, warm and summery.

The sources on the dresses I honestly can’t remember. I suspect they were also David’s Bridal or some other website. I confess that with the disruption to my life from the Covid-19 thing has sort of blurred my brain.

Anyway, what were your favorite paper dolls when you were a child? Let me know in a comment.

Spring Evening Gowns for Paper Dolls

I like starting paper doll series with evening gowns. I don’t 100% know why, but I think because they are fun to draw and everyone needs a few amazing evening gowns, don’t they?

Plus a lot of things I like draw are evening gown adjacent like fantasy dresses and evening gowns help me plot out how many pieces I can fit in a single paper doll page.

See… there is a method to my madness.

A paper doll coloring page with three evening gowns and three pairs of shoes.

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These dresses are all based on designs from David’s Bridal and other online retailers. I could spend hours looking at fancy dresses that I have no reason to wear. My life is not that exciting.

Anyway, some of the inspirational dresses were this corset bodice and this one. Other dresses included this one shoulder gown and several other dresses like this one and this one.

I guess this paper doll could be subtitled: Rachel Spent Time on David’s Bridal Website while Social Distancing!

A paper doll with contemporary spring evening gowns, dark skin and blond hair. Free to print from paperthinpersonas.com.

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And since it is spring, or so the calendar tells me, even if there’s 24 inches of snow on the ground outside, I wanted to focus on a color scheme that was spring colors- pastels mostly, but since I find a lot of pastels overly saccharine, these are pretty smoky.

I am excited by the fact that I can fit three pairs of shoes along the bottom of each paper doll sheet! This is a little thing, but I get joy out of small things.

I hope everyone is staying safe and doing okay in this strange time we’re all living in.

By the way, I am still sharing weekly extra Jewels and Gemstones outfits with my Patrons.