fantasy

In Full Armor: A Knight Paper Doll

Printable lady knight paper craft to cut and color includes detailed medieval armor, sword, and dagger. She has short hair. Great for creative play or homeschool activities.

Download Black and White PDF | More Paper Dolls from the Cut & Color Couture Series

So, as I mentioned last time I shared one of these knights, you know that moment when a single idea takes hold and before you realize it, you’ve found yourself fully immersed in a creative rabbit hole? That’s exactly what happened here.

I thought I’d just draw a little fantasy armor, and then things spiraled. Before I knew it, I had created a whole series of knight paper craft designs—more than I honestly knew what to do with. Well, that’s not totally true. I knew exactly what to do: finish them up and share them here. This blog exists because I need a place for all the paper dolls I make, and these knight paper craft creations fit right in.

I should probably always include a disclaimer with these posts: I know next to nothing about how actual full plate armor works, and I’m sure I’ve gotten plenty of details wrong. But hey, artistic license, right?

On my head, this paper doll is the sort of “serious warrior” of the group, since she’s the one with full-plate armor, where everyone else has sort of more light weight armor options. So, maybe she’s a paladin, to put things in Dungeons & Dragons terminology.

If you want to support my work, don’t forget I have a new book, Big Eyed Girlies, from Paper Doll Review, and a Patreon. The book features fun paper dolls and Patreon supporters get an exclusive extra paper doll each month.

Archer of the Realm: A Warrior Woman Paper Doll

Black and white printable paper doll coloring page titled "Archer of the Realm" from Paper Thin Personas. The sheet features a female doll with braided hair in underwear, a medieval-inspired wardrobe with three pieces (a tunic top with armor and puffy sleeves, a tunic with chaimaile over it, and matching armored pants tucked into boots), a sword, a bow, and a quiver of arrows. Decorative border with loops surrounds the page. Instructions on the right side explain how to print, cut, and use the doll. Created by Rachel L. Cohen, 2025. Great for homeschooling, rainy days, or fantasy-themed play!

Download Black and White PDF | More Paper Dolls from the Cut & Color Couture Series

Have I ever mentioned how I tend to get into a “theme” and then realize I’ve drawn way too much of it? Yeah, that’s pretty much what happens to me.

I decide I want to draw armor. The next thing I know, I’ve done like five different versions of a warrior woman paper doll. And I’m just like… welp, that’s getting into series territory, ain’t it?

Part of this was about me learning to draw chainmail on an iPad. Part of it was me just wanting to draw some cool fantasy armor for ladies.

Anyway, this is the first in a little collection of paper doll knights, adventurers, warrior women, and ladies wearing fantasy outfits that include pants… you can call them whatever you like. Fantasy armor and outfits with pants are recurring obsessions of mine. I have an entire Pinterest board devoted to fantasy armor and another one solely for “fantasy outfits with pants.”

Please, don’t judge the clothing of this warrior woman paper doll based on practicality. Because, let’s be honest, could someone survive an actual fight in these outfits? No idea, but they look cool.

I might be defeating my own argument about not caring for practicality when I admit that my obsession with fantasy outfits featuring pants probably started as a child. Back then, I watched Xena and thought, “Someone, anyone, get these women some dang trousers, please.”

I wanted to be Xena really badly, but I also really badly did not want to wear a skirt. So, maybe all my armor drawing is my way of solving this problem for young Rachel.

If you want to support my work (and dress some dolls while you’re at it), don’t forget that I have a new book  Big Eyed Girlies from Paper Doll Review. This one’s close to my heart, and I’d love for you to check it out.

Wardrobes of Whimsy: Fjord Fantasy

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So, back in June of last year, my husband and I went to Norway for a few weeks. Partly a work trip for me and partly a lovely vacation for the two of us. It was very fun. We went to several different cities and lots of museums. Norway is beautiful and reminds me so much of Alaska where I am from. The fjords, the mountains, the weirdly large number of stuffed polar bears in Tromsø, and the presence of lots of plants that looked familiar.

It was a really really fantastic trip.

While I was there, I did a lot of doodling of Viking inspired clothing (especially because I got to see actual dwarf broaches and they were just as beautiful as I suspect they would be) and so here’s a bit of that coming out in paper doll format.

So, these garments are inspired by “apron dresses” over under dresses. As I discussed at great length a decade ago when I wrote about Viking dress, no one really knows for sure what Viking women wore, but man there are a lot of people on the internet who get a lot of joy out of arguing about it. I’m not entering into that debate, but I did have fun creating these fantasy dresses inspired by my limited understanding of Viking clothing.

These aren’t very traditional mix and match dolls, which is kind of the point. As I mentioned last week, the whole concept of these was how layering comes together for a paper doll outfit. I really like the idea, but I’m not sure. There’s more than two outfits here- you actually have 8 different combinations, between the shoes and the various apron dresses that go over the dresses.

I don’t know if I’ll do more of these or not… I’m having many thoughts.

Foxglove & Butterflies: Cut & Color Couture

A printable black and white foxglove princess paper doll coloring page with a doll, a dress and an overdress decorated with foxglove.

Download Black and White PDF | More Paper Dolls from the Cut & Color Couture Series

Last week, I posted Ruffles and Dragons, a paper doll gown that Chinese motifs inspired. After I finished drawing that paper doll, I became fascinated with the idea of doing a totally different feeling dress with the same silhouette of the overdress and a different under dress. So, I ended up with this foxglove princess paper doll.

Stained glass inspired this princess paper doll’s gown. My mother makes beautiful stained glass and I was thinking of stained glass lamps, especially the way the leading on stained glass highlights and breaks things into shapes.

I drew the foxglove, because I really love foxglove flowers. It’s one of the few plants that grows super well in Southeast Alaska where I grew up. Also, as a kid, I thought it was cool how poisonous it is while being so pretty looking. I was trying to stretch a little. I also thought the shape would fit will into the panels of the overdress. So, while it wasn’t really a well planned project, that’s how I ended up with a foxglove princess paper doll.

The underdress I had originally planned to pair with the dragon overdress, but I didn’t think the ribbons really fit in with the dragons. That was when I came up with the idea of the spirals that I used on that dress. So, for this dress, I was thinking about white victorian gowns. Ruching details decorate the sides of the bodice.

I’m really excited about how this gown turned out. It’s been fun to explore new themes and experiment with different influences—stained glass, nature, and princess dresses. While the process wasn’t entirely planned, that’s okay! I think sometimes things are fun as little experiments. As always, feel free to share your thoughts or suggestions for future designs — I’d love to hear what inspires you.

Happy Halloween!

A printable halloween paper doll with a regency gothic fashion style. The doll has two dresses.
A halloween paper doll coloring page with two dresses and a regency paper doll theme.

Download Black and White PDF | Download Color PDF | More Paper Dolls from the Ensemble Eclectica Series

When I was a child, my grandmother always sent me a holiday card for Halloween and usually it was a paper doll card. This is why I always try to do a halloween paper doll.

Generally, when I think of gothic designs, I think of Morticia Addams from the movies. (Too young to have been a child of the TV show I’m afraid) and she’s a very mermaid skirts sort of design. However, I don’t see why mermaid skirts should get to have all the fun, so I went regency for this one. 

All in all, I think the paper doll’s hair is a bit 1920s and her dresses are regency and her border is very much art nuevo. All in all, what time period is this?

No idea, but I think it looks neat!

I hope you have a lovely safe and happy Halloween. Enjoy the paper dolls! I’ll be passing out candy and eating chili.

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.

Cut & Color Couture: Fantasy Huntress

A printable paper doll coloring page of a paper doll with long wavy hair and a set of fantasy warrior clothing with vests and boots and a sword.

Download Black and White PDF | More Paper Dolls from the Cut & Color Couture Series

Inspired heavily by Snow White’s costumes in Once Upon a Time, a TV show which I was watching since I’d never seen it before. However, I confess that I got to the 4th season and I just can’t seem to get up the motivation to finish it. This is partly because of a thing which I genuinely dislike and that is the Disneyification of fairy tales and classic stories. It is as though we can not as a culture engage with them without ending up back at Disney. Now, I realize the show is an ABC show and ABC is owned by Disney, but I think fairy tales and classic stories are such a rich text. I was far more fascinated by the show when it was working within a framework.

So, long story short, I’ve struggled to get motivation to continue watching.

But none of that has to do with this paper doll or the costume design, which has been overwhelmingly excellent.

To give a little backstory on this new paper doll series- I drew this doll for the newsletter before I realized that with all the things happening in my life (new job, house hunting, etc) that I really needed to strip back down to basics. And basics do not include the newsletter.

But I had so much fun coloring my Valentine’s paper doll with my niece that I wanted to do more. She colored the paper doll in a lot of reds and blues and then drew her swords and surrounded her with skulls and told me she was a “goddess of doom.”

And I could not be more proud of my niece.

Anyway, I decided to rename the series the Cut & Color Couture which I thought was a cute name. ChatGPT helped me brainstorm names for the series, so thank you AI for helping me come up with a name, which- while not very inspired- at least is simple and has alliteration.

I don’t want to promise anything in terms of future frequency of posts, but know that I am fine.

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.

Download Black and White PDF | Download Color PDF | More Paper Dolls from the Ensemble Eclectica Series

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.

Snowflake Sophistication: Winter Princess Paper Doll

A winter princess paper doll coloring page with two dresses and accessories.
A winter princess paper doll with two dresses and accessories.

Download Black and White PDF | Download Color PDF | More Paper Dolls from the Ensemble Eclectica Series

When I think of a winter princess paper doll, I think of elegance, but also quiet and soft colors. I like winter and I love bright colors, but this time of year where I live, everything feels muted. The mountains in the distance look pale blue and white and they seem to melt into the sky.

So, when designed a winter princess paper doll, I went for blues and soft purples and lots of layers.

I was inspired by this Winter Princess Dress from 2018. In my little paper doll world, “big gown” is my mental short hand for these 1860s inspired gowns that have bit skirts with lots of fancy layers. I realize that these gowns don’t have to be for princesses, but I watched a lot of Disney at an impressionable age and therefore I will always associate princesses with these big gowns.

In my head today’s winter princess gowns are the sort of thing a fairy tale princess might wear while wandering through a snow covered landscape. Possibly to meet a prince or possibly just because, she felt like it. Princes need not always be involved. 

In fact, princes never really were involved in my princess games as a child. They were not needed. Princess could do everything they needed to do.

So, I will admit that I had to get pretty close to the edge to fit on these big skirted princess dresses, but since the images I made had a .5 inch border, they should still print just fine onto letter sized paper. I would strongly recommend adding floating tabs to the backs of these skirts to help hold them to the doll.

What do you think? Do you love winter?

Imperial Elegance: An Hanfu and Kimono Inspired Fantasy Paper Doll

Download Black and White PDF | Download Color PDF | More Paper Dolls from the Ensemble Eclectica Series

This pair of fantasy gowns were heavily inspired by hanfu, which are traditional Chinese clothing, specifically those of the Tang Dynasty (618–907 CE). However, this has about as much in common with actual historical Chinese clothing as this paper doll has in common with actual historical English clothing. That’s to say- not a whole heck of a lot.

Rarely have I had a set that I have more trouble with coloring. This gave me fits! I initially planned on the two dresses coordinating, but then decided that seemed boring, so broke out and did two very different color schemes inspired by seasonal Japanese colors. (Yes, I know hanfu are Chinese, not Japanese, but again- this is fantasy clothing.)

In Japan, traditional kimonos are styled with seasonal color schemes. So, I tried to base these color schemes on traditional seasonal colors of Japan. One dress uses February colors, crimson and purple. The other dress uses March colors which are peach and khaki. The Kimono Lady, a defunct blog, has a really detailed write up about March colors here. I had a little more trouble finding references for February colors, but this yukata influenced the colors I chose.

I love color, but I find my own eye attracted to specific color schemes. It’s really valuable to see how different cultures combine colors. I never would have used purple and crimson together in the way that I did, but once I did it- I really loved how graphic it made the dress.

Yellow & Blue Medieval Fantasy Gowns

A Fantasy printable dress-up doll with two dresses and a yellow and blue themed color scheme. The doll has brown hair in braids and tan skin. The two dresses are both mevieval inspired with long skirts and sleeves. She also has books and a sword as accessories.
A Fantasy printable dress-up doll color pages with a pair od dresses and braids. There are accessories for the doll like two swords and a pair of boots.

Download Black and White PDF | Download Color PDF | More Paper Dolls from the Ensemble Eclectica Series

Today’s fantasy printable dress-up doll has a pair of medieval inspired gowns with girdles, swords and books, of course. Because all paper dolls are happier with books.

When I’m in the mood for some “basic fantasy,” I tend to go back to medieval stuff. Not the actual medieval period, but rather what the Victorians thought the medieval period was. It’s all big castles, princesses in fancy dresses, dragons, and noble knights. In a nod to actual medieval gowns which were worn over kirtles or underdresses, I like to add the layers. You can see more of this sort of thing on my fantasy medieval Pinterest board if you’re curious.

I confess though that these aren’t the most unusual or inspired pieces for me, but I feel like I am stretching myself enough with the digital art thing without trying something totally new.

I chose the colors for these dresses from classic Norwegian design and old-fashioned children’s book illustrations. I used yellows, blues, and soft ocher shades to make them feel cozy and cheerful, like a sunny day or a calm, clear sky. These colors remind me of curling up by a fire with a big picture book.

And since I was thinking of books, I drew some books to be accessories along with swords. I like drawing books. It’s the librarian in me.

This is the first sort of fantasy set for the Ensemble Eclectica series. My hope is always that this fantasy printable dress-up doll will inspire imaginative play and storytelling. That’s the best part of playing with paper dolls, isn’t it? While I’ll admit that I have been on more of a modern clothing kick as of late, don’t worry. Eventually, I’ll come back to fantasy, sci-fi and other elements. I always do.