fair skin

Celestial Night Blooming: A Fantasy Paper Doll

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I have no clue where to start when talking about today’s paper doll. I rarely give up on paper dolls (semi-finished projects not withstanding, that’s using a loss of interest, not frustration), but this fantasy princess night blooming paper doll came close. Twice.

To start with, there were serious layout issues. Confession: I don’t plan my layouts while I’m drawing my paper dolls.

(I had a lovely chat with at a pervious paper doll event and got advice that planning layouts while penciling is a much easier way to get around layout issues. This was such brilliant advice! And then I absolutely failed in all ways imaginable to actually follow through on the advice in anyway what-so-ever. Anyway, I should do it that way and I totally don’t. This is entirely a “me” problem.)

So, anyhow, when it came time to do the layout, I realized that none of these paper doll pieces were going to fit on the page! The dresses were too big. The wig/crown was weirdly sized. The extra bodice… anyway, I wracked my brain to sort out how to make this all happen. It was miserable. It took seven tries.

In the end, my solution was to go right up to the edge of my layout, because I work on an 8 by 10.5 inch canvas and surely no one needs more than a 1/4 inch margin on the page, right? Right… I got it done.

So, yay! Time to color. That would be easy, right? Wrong.

It started well. I found this beautiful color scheme from Sarah Renae Clark. When I saw it, I thought “What a perfect color scheme. It’s dark, but also kind of fun and unlike the colors I usually use.” But halfway through coloring, I thought it looked so awful I nearly threw up my hands and abandoned the entire thing. I came so close to just saying- Welp, this one was a dud.

Anyway, yesterday, I knew I didn’t have anything to post to the blog for this week and I said, “Just color it. Even if you hate it at the end, at least it will be done and you can never look at it again.”

I set a timer (I work well under the pressure of a timer) and I pushed through.

And you know what?

I absolutely love it. The gold and yellow I think goes beautiful with the black and pink. I really think it feels “night” but doesn’t feel gothic at all. I wanted night, but whimsy. Night, but also floral.

So, yes, this paper doll gave me fits. And yes, I nearly gave up, but here I am and I am so happy with how it came out.

Ensemble Eclectica: Vacationing in 1936

A 1930s fashion paper doll with clothing from a 1936 issue of McCall's style news including a six piece mix and match wardrobe to color.
A 1930s fashion paper doll with clothing from a 1936 issue of McCall's style news including a six piece mix and match wardrobe to cut out and play with. She has blond hair and a summer inspired color palette.

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Happy Labor day! I can’t quite believe August is over. Wow. That was an unexpected month off! But life has quieted down a tiny bit (okay, not very much). The least I think I can do is share the last of my 1930s sets, before I potentially disappear again.

(Nothing bad, but I’m teaching this semester for the first time and it’s a lot!)

Out of every 1930s fashion paper doll I’ve created, this one stands out with the most cohesive theme. This paper doll design hopefully captures the essence of a vacation wardrobe in around 1936. She showcases clothing for sports and summer activities. I keep thinking beach vacation, probably because of the swimsuit. (I could have labeled things here, but I’ve delayed in so long in sharing this that I decided to share and move on.)

For my 1930s fashion paper doll, I picked out pieces from the McCall’s Style News magazines of 1936. I really wanted to try to make a cohesive set. So, the mini-wardrobe has a stylish sports dress, ideal for casual daytime activities, with matching jacket. There is also a playful split skirt romper, which I assume you wear while playing tennis or other athletic activities. The trousers with top are there for golf or whatever a girl might do in trousers at the time. I’d say horseback riding, but an actual riding habit would be more for that.

To complement these outfits, I added a straw hat. It can be mix and matched with any of the clothing pieces. I decided on just one hat, though of course, hats were crucial for the era of the 1930s. Feel free to draw more or steal them from other paper doll sets.

This 1936 photo of Carol Lombard inspired this paper doll’s hair. Just in case you were curious about where that came from.

I have an amazing time at the 2024 Paper Doll Convention in Indianapolis. I didn’t take nearly as many photos as I should have, but I will try to put together the small number I have into something. Overwhelmed for a million non-paper doll reasons at the event by other “real life” things that were happening at the same time, I just haven’t managed to quite get my feet back under me.

(Real life should not intrude on paper dolls, darn it! Though I am trying hard to be kind to myself about it, because as one very nice and friendly blog reader reassured me at the convention with something like, “I’ve been following along since the beginning and I know your life has gotten more complicated. Please don’t feel bad about missing posts.” )

As with all my 1930s paper dolls so far, I have a second page I’ll be sharing for my patrons at some point this month.

Enchanted Elegance: A Fantasy Paper Doll

A printable medieval princess paper doll coloring page with two fantasy gowns and accessories. She has braided hair and two fantasy gowns, along with other accessories.
A printable medieval princess paper doll with two fantasy gowns and accessories. She has long blond hair and two fantasy gowns.

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I don’t know why this paper doll looks Russian to me. I have no explanation for that one, but something about the hair just screamed “slavic fairytale” to me. Once I decided that, than she needed to be blond, because if I was going to go slavic fairy tale, I might as well lean into all the stereotypes.

For some reason, and I don’t know why, I’ve found that working digitally means I am less drawn to doing fantasy as I was in pencil. Again, I’m not sure why. I suppose I’ll figure it out.

Actually, I’ve been frightfully unproductive over the last few weeks/months. I mean, I’ve been very productive, but not paper doll related. I’ve been working on a million other things. I have some work to get done for the convention and so that’ll get me motivated I hope.

Meanwhile I do have lots of thing “in-progress”, but I am struggling quite a lot to get those things over the finish line. We’ll see where it all ends up, I suppose.

Retro Refinement: A Vintage Fashion Inspired Paper Doll for my Patrons

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St. Patrick’s Day Paper Doll for 2024

A black and white printable paper doll celebrating St. Patrick's Day!
A colorful printable paper doll celebrating St. Patrick's Day!

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I usually save Holiday paper dolls for the actual date of the holiday. The Saint’s Day for St. Patrick is March 17th, which is a few days from now. But the more I thought about it, the more I realized that folks might want these paper dolls early. That way they can print them and actually give them kids on St. Patrick’s Day. So, it makes more sense to post it early, I think.

Plus, I can post on social media on the day of the actual holiday, because that’s how social media works. (I’m still learning how social media works.)

St. Patrick’s Day is the feast day for St. Patrick, patron Saint of Ireland. From what I’ve seen it is mostly celebrated in the United States by parades, dying the Chicago river green, and drinking green dyed beer. Now, you might be wondering why I like drawing St. Patrick’s Day paper dolls when I am neither Irish nor Catholic, and don’t drink beer (green or otherwise). The thing is I studied in Illinois and became friends with many very Irish-Catholic people and I started drawing St. Patrick’s Day paper dolls.

And then I got requests for more of them when I missed a few years, so there you have it.

Since I don’t know enough (read: anything) about the actual traditions of St. Patrick’s Day from a religious perspective, I keep my St. Patrick’s Day paper dolls strictly secular. I chose rainbows and clovers as the primary motifs.

By the way, my favorite St. Patrick’s Day paper doll ever was this one, where I drew clothing from historical eras that connected to the holiday. I should really re-draw that one… I think I’d have fun with it. Well, there’s always next year.

Fall Fashionista:A Printable Brunette Paper Doll

A printable paper doll coloring page with a mix and match wardrobe.
A Printable Brunette Paper Doll with a mix and match wardrobe.

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I worked on this printable paper doll while I was visiting my family for a week. My niece helped me pick out the colors for her and I was happy to create a printable brunette paper doll for her.

My niece’s choice of this color scheme from my Pinterest board injected a splash of vibrancy into the project, particularly with her love for the color purple. I found that I needed more than the four colors of the scheme, so added the pink in for coordination. Like many kids, she loves bright colors with strong contrast. She also asked for brown hair and blue eyes.

Any time spent with my niece and nephew are highlights of my trips. We played paper dolls, went swimming, and went to the theater.

While I thought of this paper doll as being autumnal when I drew her, I suppose she could also be a spring paper doll- transitional clothing for the warming weather. I did give her a rather autumn themed title. Anyway, she’s here and she can share clothing with all the other Ensemble Eclectica paper dolls.

The weather is warming where I live, but it’s still very cold. However, it’s above zero and that’s something to celebrate.

Haunting Couture: A Foray into Gothic Fashion

A gothic wardrobe paper doll template printable for coloring. She has a 13 piece mix and match wardrobe. A little Halloween fun.
Gothic wardrobe paper doll template printable. She has blond hair, blue eyes, and a mix and match wardrobe. Some fun halloween things for you to enjoy.

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Today’s paper doll with her gothic wardrobe was inspired by a lot of different things from my my gothic fashion pinterest board, including this corset, this top and this dress. I really wanted to do a take on Morticia Addam’s famous dress, but I added a bit of a puff sleeve, as those are very popular right now. Of course, Morticia Addams is timeless, but I didn’t want to copy the gown in all the details, in part, because I don’t love the bottom of the skirt. It reminds me a little too much of tentacles (true to the comic, but still.)

(Speaking of Morticia Addams, Julie Matthew’s did a nice write up about her paper doll of Morticia Addams.)

Lastly, I wanted to make a gothic baby doll dress which was 65% just a chance to play around with lace and a new procreate brush set. My first plan was to do see through lace sleeves, but then I couldn’t seem to get a version of that which I liked, so I ended up abandoning that idea. I did keep the lace around the neckline with the openings for some detail.

I can’t claim that I meticulously assembled my gothic wardrobe paper doll, because really this was not that organized (am I ever that organized?). I do think of all the pieces of the Ensemble Eclectica: Gothic Glamor Collection as sort of. mixing and matching together. I think the ruffled skirt from Dark Demigoddess, for example, would go well with any of the tops in this collection.

Anyway, stay tuned for more gothic paper doll fun Friday and Tuesday of next week.

Dark Demigoddess: Some Classic Gothic Fashion

A gothic fashion paper doll printable with a little mini-wardrobe of 15 different pieces.
A gothic fashion paper doll printable coloring page with a little mini-wardrobe of 15 different pieces, long straight hair, and lots of outfits you can make.

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Not sure what to wear to a graveyard? Need something to carefully cut the roses off a bouquet? Consider this gothic fashion paper doll printable, because even if I think swaning around a graveyard would just get my skirts dirty, I can at least pretend. (Seriously, graveyards are muddy.)

Sources of inspiration for this gothic fashion paper doll printable include Evangeline Ghastly (a Tonner doll I used to want when it first came out and I was broke college student who never could have afforded it.) There’s not a lot about Evangeline Ghastly online, so I used the Evangeline Ghastly Archive. There’s also a nice detailed review of the doll on Toy Box Philosopher. Also, things on my gothic fashion pinterest board, particularly photos of fantasy headdresses like this one and this one.

This all started with me wanting to draw something for Halloween. I had this idea in my head that I would get this done earlier in the month, but that clearly didn’t happen. Anyway, since I work best in “groups” there’s actually four of these dolls which are all part of the Ensemble Eclectica: Gothic Glamor Collection. The librarian in me really values linking together sets that people might correlate with other sets. It’s a little bit Dr. S.R. Ranganathan’s fourth law-Save the time of the reader.

(For the non-librarians among my readers, Dr. Ranganathan’s 5 Laws are core to the mission of libraries and still apply almost 100 years after he created them. Soap Box Moment: Libraries are really under attack right now in the USA, and if you value your public library and the librarians there, please pay attention. It’s a scary time to be a librarian.)

Anyway, not that we’ve had a quick diversion into library science 101, we can return to paper dolls!

The Gothic Glamor Collection was originally planned to contain three dolls, but I ended up with enough content to expand out to 4. Originally, I planned for a “skirts and corsets”, “fancy gowns”, “modern goth fashion” as my themes. So, much fun was being had drawing the various pieces that I ended up with a fourth set.

What can I say? I like drawing corsets and fishtail skirts.

Bows & Pearls in Mauve, Cream, and Green

Printable coloring page of an Asian girl paper doll with clothing.
Printable Asian girl paper doll with clothing.

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A few thoughts on today’s Asian girl paper doll and her romantic wardrobe – I wanted to do a paper doll that would have a pearl feeling color scheme, but I also wanted her to not use pink. I really love pink, but I wanted to get away from pink for this set. Pink just feels like the “easy” way to make things feel feminine. So, instead, I decided to lean into mauve, cream and shades of leaf green. This Design Seeds color palette inspired me.

Honestly, I love all these colors, but I think the clothing is a little too feminine for me. However, I am hardly the most fashionable person on the planet. I went back and forth about the hair style. On one hand, putting a bob on an Asian paper doll feels a little cliche. On the other hand, I really liked the smooth hard lines of the hair in contrast with the hyper-feminine fashions.

Much like Retro Spring some of this paper doll’s clothing comes from the same set Hearts Denims and Bows. I really liked the bow graphic t-shirt in that set and I used it as a jumping off point for the rest of the clothing in this set. With 7 tops and 4 bottoms, there are 28 different outfit combinations here. I guess if I really wanted to maximize my clothing combos, I would draw nothing but crop tops, shorts, and shoes. However, I am trying to be a little more diverse then that.

Personally, I’d really love to get to 100 different pieces of mix and match contemporary paper doll clothing. I think that would be a nice round number for this series, plus I think then I could put together a book or something with all those pieces. I’ll get there eventually, but in the mean time, enjoy this latest addition to the Ensemble Eclectica series.

By the way, if there is a contemporary clothing theme you’d really like to see for these little ladies, let me know in a comment. Right now, I am thinking about a gothic set (because drawing skulls is a good challenge and also October seems the right month for that) and something sci-fi with cute little aliens.

A Little 1970s Retro Inspired Floral Spring

Free coloring page featuring a lovely paper doll and her retro paper doll clothes with jeans, funky florals, and matching purse. A free printable coloring sheet for you to enjoy.
A beautiful redheaded paper doll and her retro paper doll clothes with jeans, funky florals, and matching purse. A free printable paper doll for you to enjoy!

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Today’s member of the Ensemble Eclectica is a cute little redhead with a retro paper doll clothes vibe. She’s not from any specific decade, but there’s something that feels 1970s about the color scheme to me.

I’m having a bit of artists block over the last few weeks. I wanted to draw, but I had no idea what to draw and the idea of trying to think of something to draw just made me sort freeze. So, instead of torturing myself with indecision, I decided to go back to my own archives and draw some things inspired by pervious sets I’ve created.

This set was inspired by Hearts Denims and Bows, a set I first drew a decade ago. One thing I did miss while I was drawing this set was having a paper doll with a side facing foot, so I could really have more fun with shoes. I like drawing shoes. Anyway, given that I have over a thousand paper dolls on this site, I might as well use my own work to feed new work.

Part of the purpose of Ensemble Eclectica is to try out color schemes. So, I turned a little retro for these paper doll clothes.

One of the things I’ve been trying to mimic is the printing styles of vintage materials and since I’ve been trying to play with that and what better way to do that than with some vintage color inspiration. I was heavily influenced when coloring this set by the shades of the 1970s- mustard and coral and a little avocado (though not too much, I leaned into teal instead, which is also a color I associate with that decade.)

Anyway, a fun part of the continuing Ensemble Eclectica series has been color. I love picking out color schemes for my paper doll and trying them out. I’m always fascinated at how color really changes the feel of a paper doll set.