It used to be that when I didn’t know what to name a printable paper doll set, I would fall back on using colors as name inspiration. This doesn’t work when the paper doll page doesn’t have any color.
In short, this is how I ended up entitling today’s set “Fabulous Fairy” which is a pretty dumb name.
Anyway, it might not be my most inspired paper doll naming moment, but I do really like the set. It’s also one of the sets that I consider being an “other friend” set to the Marisole Monday & Friend’s paper dolls. I wanted to give her a more angular face and so I altered the jaw to be narrow and sharp and her nose a bit, as well as her lips. I wanted her to seem more angular and more alien.
I drew this set at the same time as when I drew my Monica elven set. I’ve done another fairy set of Mia as a fairy. I don’t think these two fairies associate much. I think this fairy was much more elegant than the my Mia fairy. Just like with that paper doll, the wings can be pasted to the back of the doll using the white strip in the middle. As long as you just glue down the white strip, all the clothes tabs should still work.
At least, I hope they do, though I confess I have not tested them.
Happy Monday and enjoy the fairy paper doll. 🙂 She’ll be in color next week.
I really did not think I was going to get a Halloween paper doll done this year. I was certain I wouldn’t and then I was going through my logs and I noticed that I have done a Halloween paper doll every Halloween since 2010. Over the years, there have been a vampire, a costume set, another vampire, and a collab between me, Boots, Liana and Toria. So, that’s a lot of Halloween paper dolls.
This Halloween, we have a ghostly Greta of the Mini-Maidens. I do a lot of Mini-Maiden paper dolls for holidays. I think because they are black and white and I can get them done quickly.
I often forget about holidays until they are upon me.
I created this paper doll set thinking of ghosts and the idea of ghostly women. They exist in all sorts of cultures. White Lady ghosts are from Europe and usually have been betrayed by a lover. The Leanan sÃdhe is less a ghost and more a fairy, but according to Celtic lore they inspire their loves, but also induce madness and early death. In Japan, there are the Onry? vengeful ghosts of women wearing white marriage kimonos with long unkempt hair. They appear in a lot of Noh theater.
Anyway, I was channeling all that when I created this paper doll set. I made the set for Greta, because she hasn’t gotten a set in a while and I thought she needed some love.
Also, it was an excuse to draw some flowing gowns. I imagine the stuff on her feet is blood, but you can color it anyway you wish.
Maristela is a Spanish/Portuguese name coming from the title of the Virgin Mary, Stella Maris, meaning “star of the sea” in Latin. I thought it was such a pretty name that I had to use it, though I don’t know if there is anything “star” or “sea” like about today’s paper doll set.
I wanted to draw a “traditional” princess- sort of the Disney variety with two simple fantasy gowns. I wanted the paper doll to be pretty- pretty is not something I normally try to achieve, but that was what I wanted to get out of today’s paper doll set.
Maristela has two gowns and two pairs of shoes, giving her a total of four different outfit combinations. Her hair is long and wavy. I had fun drawing her harp, a rather unusual accessory for me to draw. I was going to draw a flute, but I was not successful.
I decided against drawing her a crown. I think my crowns usually come out poorly.
Intitally, I was going to go with pink as my color of choice for this monochrome color scheme. Really embrace the idea of “girly” paper doll sets. Instead, I decided to go with purple. It’s fairly girly, but it’s also not too girly.
In my mind, Maristela is latina, but there’s no reason she has to be.
Also, I’d like to say that I have been overwhelmed and very grateful to the wonderful responses to Marcus 2.0.
Fall always seems to come slowly to Alabama. It’s finally here now and I am very happy with the crispness in the air when I pad out of the house in the morning to drive to work. I enjoy this crispness and it makes me want to bake pies or cookies.
Her Ladyship, on the other hand, is strictly spring based this morning with a Spring frock and a Breakfast Gown. Taking my cues from Victorian dress, the Breakfast Gown would be the least formal sort of dress. I’m not sure about the formality of the Spring Frock. I had fun with the wigs in this set and wigs are some of my favorite things to give a paper doll set. I think every set is more fun with wigs.
I’m still debating if I will post one of these paper doll pages on next Friday or something more Halloween festive. I haven’t got anything ready for Halloween and, unlike Liana who writes wonderful tales about her gowns, I rather don’t have much of a story inspiration. I’m very jealous of the creativity behind the stories behind her paper dolls.
Mine can mostly be boiled down too… “Pretty dress.”
Or in the case of today’s dresses, “Two dresses that I don’t like that much, but posted because they were done and part of the set and I liked the wigs to much to abandon them.”
Not really stirring stuff, but perhaps I get points for honesty.
Among other things I did last night, I took the time to tabulate the number of pages of paper doll content on the blog and update my sidebar. I’m up to 527 pages of printable paper dolls, including my magnetic paper dolls and my random stand alone paper dolls. Yay!
So far this year, I’ve posted 44 different Marisole Monday & Friends sets. For anyone interested, that’s 19 sets in color and 25 sets in black and white. Today’s set in color is totally a favorite. I love her braids, the color scheme and how her bow came out.
So, when I finished a bunch of Marisole Monday & Friends paper dolls, I was initially totally proud of myself. Now, it’s several weeks later and I truly couldn’t tell you what I had planned on saying about this paper doll set when it really comes down to it.
I suppose I could say something about how the colors are based on the sunset or about how important I think it is to have fantasy characters with brown skin, but really I don’t know that I haven’t already said all of that before.
I could also express my shock when I once asked a student what she was doing over the weekend and she told me going to the salon to get micro-braids put in.
And I said, “But that won’t take your whole Saturday.”
And she said, “Yeah it will. About six hours.”
And I was stunned into silence.
So, let us hope that the elves have magic or something to speed that process along. If I had magical powers, I would totally use them to make sure I never had a bad hair day and also do my dishes. If you had magical powers, what would you use them for?
I remember my surprise when I first found out that archery was considered a socially acceptable sport for women of wealth in the 18th century.
Never the less, women have been doing archery for many years and I wanted to make sure that Her Ladyship had some sporting attire. So, I selected two sports I knew have long been considered “okay” for women of means- riding and archery.
(Plus the Hunger Games gave archery this strange new allure amongst the young folk, or so I am told.)
In page three here, we have the riding habit on the left, complete with hat and a slightly shorter skirt that would have been useful on a horse. I should add that I have never ridden a horse. In fact, horses are huge and they kinda scare me.
Her archery costume was inspired by similar costumes from the Regency period. I don’t know how practical it would be for archery, but I really think practicality is over-rated and paper dolls never complain.
Monica is the newest member of the Marisole Monday & Friends family and she hasn’t gotten to have as many adventures as some of her paper doll friends.
I might be a little obsessed with the wigs. Not confirming that, just mentioning it.
As I know I have mentioned in the past, I just love the idea of having different outfits for different occasions. I want a dinner dress and a visiting costume and a carriage gown.
I simply love the idea of getting to change my clothes several times a day, plus trying to decide what exactly “business casual” means can be very trying. I think if my outfits were labeled than it would make getting dressed in the morning much easier.
Also, it should be noted I am not in anyway a morning person.
So, today in our second page of the mini-series, I am pleased to present a second dinner dress, this one perhaps more formal than last week’s version, and a visiting gown. I really wanted to make these gowns fun to color, so there is a fair bit of pattern in Her Ladyship’s wardrobe. For accessories, today there are two wigs, a choker, a book and a goblet of wine. Well, I think it’s wine, but it could be poison or water or the tears of the innocent. Whatever.
I have realized that I have not given credit where it is due. I was inspired to do this revamp of the Lady of the Manor, because one of my readers named Amy confessed that she had colored six different versions of that set. I remember reading that and thinking… Well, clearly I should do something like that again.
Last week, as you may recall, I posted my Court Alchemist paper doll. This week I am posting three more printable paper doll dresses and two pairs of shoes which gives her five outfits in total. I really do think the clothing makes the paper doll. I was always that kid who would have rather have had dozens of outfits over dozens of paper dolls.
In fact, I remember when American Girl magazine published paper dolls and I used to get so annoyed that the dolls were “almost” in the exact same pose, but not quite. So, they couldn’t perfectly share clothing. Drove me just nuts as a kid. Here is a picture of one of the paper dolls.
Are there any children’s magazines left that still publish paper dolls?
I recall with much fondness the feeling to getting to check the mail for my American Girl magazine and it’s promised paper doll. In fact, if you want a similar experience (and you have an HP web enabled printer), then you might consider my HP Paper Thin Personas Printer Ap which prints a full color or black and white paper doll every Monday, automatically. You can also print the paper dolls on demand directly from the printer which is, I have to confess, pretty neat.
So, there are three dresses in this set. In my head, these are all fairly informal dresses. And who doesn’t need socks held up by some odd sock suspenders? (There is something inherently hilarious to me about sock suspenders… I might have a problem.)
I went back and forth about the patterned dress. I wanted it to look like a pattern that could be woven on a simple loom, but it ended up looking sort of like abstract eyes and now all I can think is, “The dress is staring at me…”
As for tools, along with last week’s tool collection, this set adds a sextant, which is a tool for measuring the angle between any two visible objects, most often the horizon and stars. It was crucial for navigating back in the days before high levels of technology. As a girl with NO sense of direction, I am totally grateful to whoever invented GPS. If I had to navigate via sextant, I think I would end up lost way more often than I already am.
So, Friday there will be another page of Her Ladyship and Monday there will be an elf.
Meanwhile, you can follow me on twitter @paperpersonas for blog updates, random paper doll thoughts, and a smattering of librarianship.
In life, there are certain rules, like stopping at red lights and not stealing library books. One of my rules is: Don’t waste blog content.
In that vein, I’ve decided to make my new fantasy set, Her Ladyship, a mini-series. There will be a new page every Friday until sometime in December. (I haven’t decided if I am going to skip Halloween to post something more festive.)
My plan (though we all know about the best laid plans of mice and men) is that I will post these Friday paper doll updates in addition to my regular two posts a week. For those keeping score, that means three paper doll updates a week.
Also for those keeping score, Her Ladyship is the update of the Lady of the Manor paper doll set that I have mentioning for the last several weeks. You can see some of the early doodles and a sketchbook page. This is what she turned into, though there’s nine more pages to share.
She’s not a princess, though she may yet marry a prince. Rather, I imagine she is a noble women and she may or may not be married. Her dresses are all based on fantasy versions of Italian renaissance dress and, of course, she has wigs. Only one wig today, but I promise in later pages there are a lot more wigs to be had. Most of the wigs have floating tabs to help keep them on the paper doll’s head.
Thoughts? Opinions? Feelings about my ten week plan? Feel free to let me know.