So, when I was rounding up all the paper dolls for my C Pose paper doll post with all the sets I’d done in the last few months, I realized how few versions of the guys I had created. The girls all have several versions and the poor guys were just hanging out in their modern hair without much to turn too. I felt bad for them.
So, I set to work designing some new versions of the guys. I still need to design a second Cyrus, but have done elf Cameron, fantasy Carlos and now we have steampunk Changrui. I might have just really wanted an excuse to draw a Victorian mustache. Maybe.
I need a theme for Cyrus, any suggestions? I’m leaning towards cyberpunk or post-apocalyptic.
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Sometimes I create a paper doll outfit that gives me fits and this was one such paper doll outfit. I must have been seriously out of it when I penciled this. So, I ended up needed to do a lot of Photoshop work to make the whole outfit fit the paper doll. It was a pain.
But I’m actually pretty happy with how it came out once I solved the problem of the fit.
I do try to test everything in Photoshop before I finish it, even if I don’t test everything physically. If I had to cut out every paper doll set I ever designed, I would basically spend my entire life cutting out paper dolls.
Not that I don’t cut them out sometimes just for fun.
I really do enjoy designing these fantasy outfits. They are probably my favorite things to design. I think I watched too much Hercules and Lord of the Rings as a young person. I love the costumes from Game of Thrones, but I confess I haven’t been able to get into the actual show. There’s a little to much violence for me to actually watch the show.
What shows are you watching right now? I’m super enjoying the X-men show, Gifted and I am slowly getting into Doctor Who which I never watched before. I have a long time before I catch up.
Doing Friday’s round up made me feel a little guilty. The poor C Pose guys just haven’t gotten as much love as the others. A big thank you to Nicole who kindly gave me a suggestion for some ancient Greek inspired attire for them. This is clearly not that, but I do like the idea and I think I will begin exploring it.
This is, instead, Carlos getting some generic medieval fantasy attire that fits right in with this outfit and this outfit.
I was never 100% keen on my first version of Carlos. Something about his chin kinda bothered me… so for my second version, I solved the problem by giving him a beard. Confession- I love beards. (Within reason, there’s a critical line between a well groomed beard and a mess that is gross.)
Color scheme wise, I really wanted to avoid colors I’ve used before, so I went with this sort of sharp olive green and dusty blue thing. I actually really like these colors in general and I think they look especially nice with Carlos’ skin tone.
Of course, there’s always the black and white version you can color anyway you like.
Meanwhile, if you love the blog and want to support PTP, I do have a Patreon page for donations.
Today’s paper doll is the first C Pose Dandies to get a what I think of as a “Themed” set. It’s Cameron and he’s an elven prince with his crown and everything.
I knew from the beginning of the Dames and Dandies series that having a consistent guy paper doll series was important. First off, I get a lot of requests for guy paper dolls from parents and I also know that I’m not the best artist, so I don’t like trying to draw poses to scale of each other if I haven’t started with that goal.
Figure drawing and I… Well, I won’t say we’re enemies, but we are not friends.
But guy paper dolls were never my favorites as a kid. I struggle even today to sort out what to draw for them, because my ideas tend default to ladies. This is nothing against guy paper dolls, but I’ve been drawing lady paper dolls since I was… like ten?
And I’ve been drawing guy paper dolls for… four years? Maybe?
Moral of the story, I just like drawing girls more.
Anyway, I wanted to do an elven prince and I thought it wold be fun to feature Cameron. There was going to be a Viking version of Cyrus and… I had plans.
But the Viking hair/wig I created for Cyrus totally didn’t fit (oops) and so there’s no Viking to go with our elf. So, this won’t be the “week of C Pose” that I had originally planned it to be.
But this is the first day of October and that means Inktober has begun! For those of you who are Patrons, this is old news. For those of you who aren’t, Inktober is a project where people (mostly on Instagram) draw pen and ink drawings for the month of October and post them. Some folks do one a day. Some folks do one a week. My goal is ten over the course of October. Follow me on Instagram if you want to see the drawings.
And, of course, I always love to hear from you, so leave me a comment and let me know what you think of Cameron, elven prince.
Currently, there are 18 diferent outfits for the C Pose guy paper dolls, but only one sci-fi outfit. So, here’s a second futuristic look. I confess openly that I’ve been watching a fair bit of absurd 1980s science fiction lately (Escape From New York is on Netflix, y’all) so I can pretend, at least, that the source of today’s paper doll outfit was those old movies.
In actuality, when I sit down to draw I usually have a list of themes I want to try to work on and sometimes even thumbnail sketches. If today’s paper doll outfit came form anywhere I think it came from my awareness that I’d done contemporary paper doll clothing and fantasy paper dolls clothing, but not much sci-fi paper doll clothing. I haven’t done much sci-fi stuff for the ladies either, come to think of it.
While I deeply admire people who can stick to one theme for a prolonged period, I know myself well enough to know that would never be me. I like too many things and I’m interested in too many things. I can’t imagine only drawing one type of thing.
So, along with a super 1980s shirt, today’s paper doll has some fancy platform boots and a “hand computer” which- in good 1980s sci-fi fashion- is probably way clunkier than a cellphone or ipad would be today. It occasionally occurs to me that we are living in the future already and that’s fascinating.
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True thing- I was asked if I had plans for a male ninja back on my lady ninja costume design by Victoria on behalf of her six year old son. And you know, when parents tell me their kids have asked for things, I am a total sucker. It’s like, “AWWW… of course I’ll draw that for the child I’ve never met/seen/may not be real.”
And now you all know how to get past my defenses.
Now, I don’t know anything about ninjas, but I do have a fear friend who is a talented marshal artist. So, I hope she will forgive my badly drawn katana. One of these days, I’m going to get better at drawing katanas, but that isn’t going to be today.
I wanted a ninja costume design that was interesting and also felt layered- the sort of thing you could imagine someone adding to as they had lived in the outfit. When I work in all black, I worry about the paper doll ending up looking “dull” and sort of lifeless. I love how flat color looks, but it can also look… well.. flat. I don’t know if that makes any sense. So, I try to add depth by using several shades of the same color. In the case of largely black sets, I try to use several shades of dark grey and then another color if I can.
In this case, I added in some dark navy blue to accent the black. I thought about using red, which you see a lot in ninja Halloween costumes, but I thought it was too bright against the black.
I did use a bright purple base though, because I do love color.
Of course, if you want a more colorful ninja there is the black and white version and you can color that one anyway you want. If you follow me on social media or are a Patron, you may recall seeing this set along with my knight armor when I posted a sketchbook picture at the beginning of the month.
Full-plate armor like today’s paper doll outfit is always a bit stressful for me, because I want it to be functional and I know pretty much nothing about how actual armor works. I mean, I get the basic idea- wear metal on your body so you don’t get hurt when swords try to stab you- but I’m not exactly fluent in the nuances.
Still, it doesn’t bother me much when I design things that may or may not be practical (this armor comes to mind), so I guess I shouldn’t worry about it too much.
If you’re interested in seeing how a paper doll outfit kinda “comes together” I did post progress pictures of the “bottom” part of this armor being drawn in my Instagram stories. That was a while ago, but as I’ve said many times. There is a long turn around from idea to finished product.
Literally weeks in most cases. Sometimes even longer.
Part of the reason things take a while to get from sketchbook to blog is that I like to work in batches. Today’s C Pose paper doll outfit is one of six I recently finished. Since I’m posting three times a week and interspersing my C Pose content with outfits for the A & B Pose ladies, it will be a long time before I get all of that material posted.
Frankly, I couldn’t function any other way. I’m constantly impressed by people who can do things once a day for a prolonged period. The only way I survived my recent #100dressproject on Instagram was by drawing two to five dresses at a time. I tried to do the whole “one a day” thing, but that’s just not how I work best. This used to bother me, because you read so many things about how you should just have a “daily art practice”. I do work on my art everyday, but once I feel like I have to do it than somehow my motivation disappears like a ghost at dawn.
Isn’t human motivation odd?
Anyhow, if you like the blog and want to support it consider donating through Patreon. A dollar a month really does help off set my costs.
And if you’d like to give me some non-financial support, comments are always lovely.
Plus, Happy Labor Day to anyone whose celebrating.
I doubt it would shock anyone to find out I tend to be an organized person. I like having a plan. I like setting goals. I like working towards my goals. These things bring me satisfaction and often allow me to manage huge projects without them becoming completely overwhelming. So, when I worked out my plan for the Dames and Dandies back in December, there was a checklist of things I wanted to draw for each of the poses.
One of those things for the dandies (or gents, as I sometimes think of the C pose) was a tuxedo. I wanted to do a suit (which I did back in July), so next up on my list was tuxedo. Why a tuxedo? Because C Pose guys might need to go to a formal event. And everyone needs a tuxedo.
(This is a lie. Pretty much no one actually needs a tuxedo.)
Well, what do you think? A big fan of the tuxedo? Not sure about the white dinner jacket option? There’s a plain black version on my Patreon page for my Patrons.
You may have noticed that there’s no color version of today’s paper doll set. That’s because I thought it would be fun to do a week of coloring page printable paper dolls. Sorry, I realize that phrasing doesn’t really roll of the tongue.
Of course, you can always print the paper dolls in black and white (as well as color), but I thought it would be fun to just do some plain black and white sets. When I am designing a paper doll coloring page printable, I am thinking a little differently than when I am working in color.
In this set, for example, I wanted to leave space for people to draw their own patterns on the clothing if they wished. So, for this whole week, it’s paper doll coloring pages. Today there’s a C Pose set. Wednesday there will be a B pose set and we’ll wrap up on Friday with an A pose set.
I’ll confess that I was never much into coloring when I was a kid, but I know a lot of people really enjoy it and find it super relaxing. I find inking relaxing, so I suppose I can understand the instinct.
Let’s talk inspiration. I was inspired by three different images I found on Pinterest. I try to find similar silhouettes to make up a set like this so it feels like all the pieces belong together. I was inspired by this jerkin, this vest and this outfit. You can see more men’s fantasy clothing in the Gents section of my Fantasy Clothing Pinterest board.
Love today’s paper doll coloring page? Hate the idea of a paper doll clothing page? Let me know in a comment. I’d love to see what people think of my coloring pages week.
Every guy I know from my brother-in-law to the students I supervise seem to live in shorts and t-shirts. In the South, this seems to be a year around even when it is snowing.
So, I am going to keep this post short as I am trying to slip it in under the wire of Midnight Central time. Here’s a link to the second color scheme I created on my Patreon page. It’s available to anyone to print and play with.
Meanwhile, let me know what you think of today’s paper doll in a comment (I love to hear from y’all) and consider supporting the blog on Patreon if you want to help off set the costs of keeping it on the internet.
Tune in Monday for the first dress from the 1920s! It’s super cute.
