So… this is practically late. I mean… it’s like 11:50 here in Illinois, but I really really wanted to get a Shadow and Light doll up since it’s been a while since I did one and I have been feeling bad about that.
Back in the 1980’s I was pretty young, but I remember wearing overall shorts, which were the latest thing, and having a weird affection for when I was old, because I was going to wear thigh high boots. I don’t know why I was so into the idea, but I remember drawing lots of paper dolls sporting thigh high boots and miniskirts in elementary school. Perhaps I saw Pretty Woman at too young of an age…. Oddly, my mother was never concerned as far as I could tell with my thigh high boot obsession.
As an adult, I have never worn thigh high boots… a pity perhaps.
Needless to say, my love of shoes was founded young and even now I love shoes (which I think comes through on my paper dolls.)
And, as you might notice, our pirate is sporting some pretty darn sexy boots.
Happy Earth Day! There’s an Earth and we should be grateful or else we’d not exist. So, I’m glad for that. Beyond that, I try to avoid politics on this little corner of the web. There are other corners of the web for politics. Here is the corner of paper dolls.
Two of my favorite recent paper dolls are Constance and Prudence, who I’ve always thought of as best friends, and so today I present them both in black and white for coloring enjoyment. Each paper doll was meant to have a distinct casual and slightly indie style. Prudence is a little bit vintage and Constance is a little bit tomboy. The t-shirt styles for the Constance paper doll are based on mandala designs which are simplified for the small size.
So, today, I’d like to also call attention to a new blog with some delightful black and white paper dolls called Inflammation Of…, which is about both paper dolls and raising a child with chrons disease. I have had several thank yous sent to me over the years from parents with health issues in their families who like the paper dolls and I always feel very touched that my paper dolls can help in any small way for people in need. Plus there’s a whole set of clothes for her paper dolls inspired by Scoopy-Doo and who isn’t in favor of paper dolls inspired by Scooby-Doo? I loved Scooby-Doo when I was a kid.
(Actually, I still sorta love Scoopy-Doo, but I try to be more of an adult and not admit these things in public.)
I really am quite pleased with my paper doll Prudence. Her skin tone, like Kadeem’s and Gabriel’s skin tones, was based on my recent searching around for skin tones on the web.
After a few weeks of looking and collecting, I have over 50 different swatches, but I am working on narrowing that down to a manageable number- probably 10 to 15. The truth is that a lot of them are so close in color, I don’t think there would be a visible difference once they were printed anyway.
It’s rare I produce a paper doll that I can’t find anything wrong with, but Prudence is pretty close. I lover her glasses and her vintage wardrobe and the color scheme turned out better then I imagined it would. Her hair didn’t come out quite as I had planned it (afro’s are hard to draw), but I’m still pleased with how it looks.
Personally, I would pop her into her cream dress and put her on a date with Kadeem or Gabriel for a night on the town. Or maybe slip her into something more fancy and have her strut down the red carpet (I’m sure Roxanne or Yasmine would be happy to share). In fact, if you don’t like any of those options, there’s a black and white version of Roxanne and you can color any color dress for Prudence that you think she needs.
Several weeks ago, I did a poll asking what people wanted to see more of and fantasy won. So, today I offer some traditional fantasy dresses. I’ve been fairly ill the last week, so I have been watching Disney movies and drinking lots of tea. Disney movies always make me feel better and I watch them when I’m tired or ill.
I enjoy several other paper doll blogs, but rarely comment. I don’t read the text often which leaves me wondering if anyone reads my text. Since paper doll blogs are really all about the images, it seems to me they share a great deal of similarity with web comics. People come to see the pretty pictures, not to hear me blather on about them.
I find my favorite posts are comments about content and process. I love learning how other paper doll people do their work. I’m fascinated by the process it takes to make a paper doll. I’d like to do more process based stuff here, maybe post pictures of work in progress or something… I’ll have to give it some thought.
Two quick things before I crawl into bed and call it a night. The first is that I didn’t forget about your paper doll Monica, it’s just taking a little longer then I planned. It’ll be up on next Monday. Secondly, I have realized it might actually be possible to reformat the site to a standard blog format in a way that won’t take hours upon hours of work. So, that will be happening in the future, but this also means as I play around with format there might be times when links get broken or things seem a little odd.
I promise these things will be fixed as soon as I see them (or more likely), someone else sees them and tells me.
As for the paper doll post today, um… I’m not totally pleased with this set. I drew these paper doll pieces around the same time I did a few others and this was the last set I drew. I tend to draw paper doll series in clumps, so for a few weeks I draw a lot of Curves or I draw a lot of Marisole or Pixie and then I post them as I clean them and polish them up for the site. These groups of images are always mixed. There are some that I’m really proud of and some that I’m less so.
These guys, I’m less proud of, but I really liked the paper doll herself and wanted to post her. I’m just not a huge fan of the dresses. But maybe other people will like them more then I do. What do people think?
So, it’s nearly spring here and I thought I should post this before it becomes totally inappropriate, because of the weather. I didn’t wear a jacket today, though it was a little chilly for that I still enjoyed having the sun on my face. I don’t have a lot to say about these costumes except that they were fun to draw. I really like ice skating costumes even if I don’t ice skate much.
I do a little, but I wouldn’t call myself skilled… let’s say that I have, in the past, ice skated and leave it at that.
Beyond that, I don’t have anything really intelligent to say tonight. Sometimes, I feel like my posts are afterthoughts and that’s a little bothersome. I should work on it.
So, I’ve gotten a few requests for Marisole in black and white. I will not be posting every Marisole post with a black and white option. Sorry, it’s just too time consuming. However, I will continue to do them erratically. I’ve done one other black and white Marisole paper doll and here we have a second one.
Though two isn’t a huge number, it’s double the number I used to have on the blog. (That sounds so impressive when you don’t think too hard about it. Most things work better if you avoid thinking too much I find.) I hope everyone enjoys the black and white version of yesterday’s Marisole.
Sometimes people make the mistake of asking what my favorite novel. This is a really hard question to answer. Usually, I fall back on Treasure Island by Robert Louis Stevenson. I read it as a child and return to it every few years. Each time, I am struck by the detail, the care and the complexity. It is a story full of questions of honor, betrayal, revenge and greed. Its villain is compassionate and compelling. Its hero’s are honorable, but hard. It’s a fascinating story. I recommend it to any adult or child who likes adventure tales. Really, I recommend it to anyone ever.
Also, there are pirates. And who doesn’t like pirates? Plus buried treasure and madmen and betrayal and fight scenes.
These paper doll pieces are more fantasy then reality, but that is the fun of paper dolls after all. I mean, it’s not like I actually bothered doing any real research in this case. I just had some fun with the fantasy. I mean, have you seen the Ninja side of this set? It’s not like I’ve even tried to be vaguely historically accurate.
I’ve been thinking about completely re-formating the site a lot lately… but then sanity prevails and I realize I don’t really have time. Still, I think I would like to convert it back to a more basic blog format, but then I’m worried I’d lose some of the features I like of this format… So, thoughts are ongoing. I could hand-code it, but it would take so much time and lots of trial and error. I shall have to think about my options a bit more before I decide, I think.
So, as some of you know I had a drawing last Monday and I said I would select a winner this Monday. In the end, I had 8 entries. So I just rolled an 8 sided dice, left over from other geeky hobbies I do, and came up with the number 3. That makes Monica the winner of my little drawing. Monica, please email me (paperthinpersonas (at) gmail (dot) com) with what sort of paper doll you would like. 🙂
Also, come back tomorrow and there will be something fun. I promise.
I wanted to do a set based on winter clothing, but I liked the idea of playing with color. Rather then doing the traditional color scheme, I wanted to do something in pastels and spring colors.
It’s slowly becoming spring here in the mid-west. I don’t know if I’ll ever get used to the idea of seasonal change happening so rapidly. It seems like only a few days ago I needed my hat, gloves and boots to go out and now I can wander around in jeans and a sweater. It’s nice to be coat free, but I always liked the winter, so I shall miss it.
And since it’s supposed to snow tomorrow, I doubt I will miss it for long. 🙂
Today’s paper doll is a little gothic and a little steampunk. That’s okay right? It’s not like mixing oil and water or something.
Erin, who won my little Trivia contest from last Monday, wrote me the following description of what she wanted for her custom Marisole paper doll.
I know that I want my doll to be very pale with brown hair… As for style of clothes and what not, I know that I love Victorian and Steampunk style. Belts, buckles, zippers, lace, keys, and corsets. That kind of stuff. I have included a few links as inspiration I guess, but feel free to disregard them. I dislike the color yellow, LOVE red, black and purple, but other than that… I’m not overly picky.
I asked for a little clarification on shades of brown (she said red brown) and exactly what sort of colors for metals she liked and then set to work. Like a deadline, it was oddly liberating to be paper dolling based on someone else’s guidelines. I’ve done other steampunk sets, but this one quickly got a gothic steampunk paper doll flare- I think the color scheme is what pushed it into gothic territory for me. I’ll always think of those as a gothic colors. I do hope she’s pale enough, because outside of doing another vampire paper doll, I couldn’t imagine going paler than this color. I think it reads as “pale” rather than reading as “corpus.”
Since one of my favorite features of Victorian dresses was the fact that women got to wear all sorts of different clothing for different activities, I decided to treat the paper doll as though she was an actual Victorian lady- all be it in an alternative steampunk universe- in need of costumes for the range of standard Victorian lady activities.
Here we go.
The Morning Dress: Morning dresses were always more casual then other costumes. Erin sent me a reference link to this beautiful costume. I loved the colors and the drape. To make it a little more Victorian feeling, I added sleeves. Though technically a morning dress would never be worn outside the house, I added a hat since the reference costume featured one. Also, I like hats.
The Walking Costume: The other set of reference images I got was for a beautiful 1880’s reproduction bustled suit and I confess the early 1880’s when skirts were tight, before the huge bustle emerged is one of my favorite times in Victorian fashion. I made the suit purple (to match the purple/red color scheme), created a totally non-period hat and added some accents in silver and brass.
The Afternoon Dress: Mostly an excuse to draw a wild leather corset (well, I imagine its in leather, I suppose technically it could be any fabric you like), the afternoon dress was inspired by the corsets of 1910. The net/lace overlay was my attempt at lace, though I have mixed feelings about how it turned out. Afternoon dresses were also often visiting costumes, so she had to have a hat.
The Ball Gown: No costume set could be complete with out a ballgown and as I love drawing corsets, no ballgown couldn’t not have a corset top. The far left costume of this fashiion plate inspired the oddly bondage-esque skirt. I got a little carried away with my lock and key motif I think, but I had fun doing it.
As regular readers know, I’m a wee bit obsessed with Victorian inspired costumes. I’ve done two other steampunk/neo-Victorian Marisole paper dolls. There was the slightly candy like one (a lesson in how colors don’t look so bright before I process the images for Web and then seem to get brighter) and a more traditional color scheme.
I will probably do another trivia contest thing next week. So, keep your eyes open for that.
Hmmm… I just realized I misdated this paper doll… opps. I’ll fix it later. 🙂
I love how the hoop set looks under her skirt, I think they look like bones. Originally I was going to draw the costume on the left for Marisole and I spent a lot of time sketching it and re-sketching it and it never looked right. I’m glad I eventually decided to make it for Curves. I think it looks much better.
There’s something about the heavily shadowed paper dolls that I draw that seems to lend itself to gothic styling. I think it’s the contrast. I first started drawing paper dolls in this heavy shadowed style because I liked the idea of paper dolls in black and white which didn’t need to be colored. I wanted them to stand alone as graphic works without needing the injection of color. I think sometimes they work well and sometimes they don’t.
Also, if I’d done this set for Marisole, it would have been another mostly black set of clothing for her and sometimes I just get sick of that. So, I’m glad Curves got it in the end for a couple of reasons.
I’ve always been interested in and concerned with proportion of printed fabric. I blame it on years of making real life doll clothing. I always am concerned my prints are too big to fit my paper dolls properly. Of course, the size of the dolls and the thinness of my pens limit how detailed I can really be (thank goodness), so I am always somewhat limited.
Recently, I was pawing through fashion shows on style.com (a wonderful source for contemporary designer fashion) and thinking about what I wanted to draw when I cam across Christian Dior’s spring 2009 collection. They were designed by John Galliano, with 17th century Dutch painters serving as the major inspiration. Some of his formal dresses were some of my favorites.
I fell in love with the huge prints on the dresses. The distorted proportions were fascinating and while I don’t think I want to wear a dress covered in tulips the size of my head, I loved that one existed. So, I decided to draw some dresses with giant floral patterns for Curves. After all, why should the skinny models on the runways get to have all the fun?
Among the other things I did for this paper doll was redesign her underwear. While Curves has an illustrious history of wearing her strapless bra and panties (selected mostly because they can easily layered over), I do love undergarments of all eras and I wanted to draw something which might look like it really could support this absurdity of these skirts. Enjoy.
To provide the best experiences, we use technologies like cookies to store and/or access device information. Consenting to these technologies will allow us to process data such as browsing behavior or unique IDs on this site. Not consenting or withdrawing consent, may adversely affect certain features and functions.
Functional Always active
The technical storage or access is strictly necessary for the legitimate purpose of enabling the use of a specific service explicitly requested by the subscriber or user, or for the sole purpose of carrying out the transmission of a communication over an electronic communications network.
Preferences
The technical storage or access is necessary for the legitimate purpose of storing preferences that are not requested by the subscriber or user.
Statistics
The technical storage or access that is used exclusively for statistical purposes.The technical storage or access that is used exclusively for anonymous statistical purposes. Without a subpoena, voluntary compliance on the part of your Internet Service Provider, or additional records from a third party, information stored or retrieved for this purpose alone cannot usually be used to identify you.
Marketing
The technical storage or access is required to create user profiles to send advertising, or to track the user on a website or across several websites for similar marketing purposes.
