medieval inspired

Enchanted Realm: Fantasy Ensemble Eclectica Paper Doll

This printable paper doll coloring page has a cartoon-style girl with long hair. Around her are several fantasy-themed dresses and accessories, each with tabs for attaching to the doll. Her accessories are two books and two swords. The sheet includes cutting instructions.
This printable paper doll has a cartoon-style girl with long brown hair and tan skin. Around her are several fantasy-themed dresses and accessories, each with tabs for attaching to the doll. There is a long green gown over a pink ruffle, a purple and pink layered dress with a corset-style bodice, a necklace, a pair of boot. Her accessories are two books and two swords. The sheet includes cutting instructions.

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

Meet a diminutive paper doll with fantasy dresses, poised for adventure, literary excursions, and the occasional (but undeniably dramatic) sword duel. In truth, any visit to the library carries a nontrivial risk of armed theatrics with sword, or at least it should. You may take my word for it. I am, after all, a librarian.

This particular paper doll with fantasy dresses was inspired by two outfits I sketched many years ago for an entirely different doll. When my imagination feels sluggish, I like to rummage through my old work and borrow from my past self. It’s a bit like time travel, only with (hopefully) better line work. Anyway, this is one of the dresses and this is the other dress.

Her overall mood carries a whisper of The Lord of the Rings, mixed with a dash of Victorian-era medieval romance. You know, the sort of world where everyone looks fancy and has surprisingly straight teeth and no one leaves the castle without a sword or a book. Whenever I get stuck designing fantasy accessories, I default to “books and swords,” which feels deeply on-brand. Someday I may diversify my repertoire to include goblets or apothecary vessels of dubious origin, but today is not that day.

May her paper skirts swish gracefully across your imagination.

If you enjoy these little paper worlds and want to support the drawings behind them, you’re always welcome on my Patreon, where I share behind-the-scenes sketches, extra paper doll downloads, and the occasional overly enthusiastic ramble about various creative things.

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.

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.

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.

Sapphire as Gallant Lady

A black and white printable paper doll with curls and medieval fantasy dresses.
A black printable paper doll with fantasy dresses

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So, occasionally, I have a reason to dig into my own archives, which is always a kind of weird experience. Seeing art I made like 10 years ago feels… strange. Anyway, I was looking for something else and I came across Knights and Ladies for Marisole Monday from 2011. It was a paper doll printable that I made way back in the early days of site which, at the time, was only 2 years old.

Man, I was back in Library School then. Wow, it’s weird to think about that era of my life.

A medieval inspired printable paper doll from Paper Thin Personas.
The Original Knights and Ladies Paper Doll

Anyhow, this was a paper doll I have very distinct memories of. I drew her in the library while I was in grad school and I was stuck between classes and I didn’t want to leave campus. I based the sleeves on some 19th century fashion drawings I’d been skimming through.

I saw it and I thought, man… I could do so much better now.

There’s things about the original Knights and Ladies that I found super compelling. I liked the hair and I was interested in the belts.

So, I decided to would draw the paper doll printable design once more for the Jewels and Gemstones series. This time I tried to think about how the belts would actually “function” if they were made of leather. I added some new details to the dresses and I fixed the skirts- before they clung way to much to the doll’s legs and I wanted more pooling. Though I debated recoloring the dresses, I decided against it. I thought I’d stick with my original color scheme.

I did go with a lighter hair color, because I wanted to keep the doll’s hair brown and I wanted a nice contrast with the skin-tone. I also was pretty sure that the original crown wouldn’t work very well on the doll, so I redesigned it to have the doll’s hair integrated.

All in all, I am very happy with how the new version of the Knights and Ladies came out. I don’t know how often I’ll do this, but it was a fun diversion.

What do you think of this paper doll? Let me know in a comment. I love hearing from y’all.

Talia Tuesday is Having Adventures

Inspired by the high fantasy medieval gowns from movies like LoTR, this two page free printable paper doll coloring set has a wardrobe of elegant gowns and practical adventuring clothing.
Inspired by the high fantasy medieval gowns from movies like LoTR, this two page free printable paper doll has a wardrobe of elegant gowns and practical adventuring clothing.

Download the 2 Page Black and White PDF | Download the 2 Page Color PDF | More Talia Tuesday & Friends Dolls

Last week was a lot of “housekeeping” sorts of posts- announcing changes to Patreon, letting people know about the new 1960s paper doll set– and I don’t mind those posts. They have to happen. Plus, I am proud of what I put on Etsy and I like getting to share it with you all.

But my Etsy products are always a a little higher stakes for me. Does everything fit? Do all the instruction make sense? Will someone who doesn’t know me really love the printable paper dolls as much as I hope they will?

I figure you are all my fans and will likely forgive me a foible for two.

So, I’m excited to return to a week of just sharing some printable paper dolls. It’s nice to get back to basic. Starting off with this fantasy set for Talia Tuesday feels right to me. Sometimes I do fantasy paper doll sets and I 100% know the narrative, but it’s not very common. It’s much more common for me to chose an element (in this case the scalloped sleeve detail) and think- how do I apply this across several things. You’ll see it in the sleeves of the gowns, but also repeated in the tunic trims.

I drew this paper doll at the same time as I drew my Tanya Elegant Empress paper doll. My original plan was to do a set that was all gowns and a set that was all pants. However, once I got down to the nitty-gritty of layout, I had too many gowns and not enough pants. Oops. I decided to call this printable paper doll “Having Adventures,” because the combination of nice gowns and more casual tunics made sense for someone who goes out and has an adventure. So, there’s a bow and arrows, but also an elegant gown. At least, that’s my justification after the fact.

Don’t forget to cut between the doll’s shoulders and her hair for best results when trying to dress her up.

Tanya and Her Princess Gowns

A paper doll printable coloring page with one doll and her eight piece wardrobe. This fantasy inspired paper doll is two pages.
A black paper doll printable with one doll and her eight piece wardrobe. This fantasy inspired paper doll is two pages.

Download the 2 Page Black and White PDF | Download the 2 Page Color PDF | More Talia Tuesday & Friends Dolls

I’m still sort of playing around with getting used to drawing for the Talia Tuesday and Friends dolls. I enjoy the pose and I like playing around with the motion, though I am still not 100% confident with it. It’s a fairly new pose to me and so it’s a bigger stretch than drawing for poses I’m used to drawing for. Since I’m not formally trained as an artist, and I don’t really enjoy drawing figures, it’s always a little scary working with a new pose for me.

So, anyway, this is Tanya. Tanya is the Russian diminutive of Tatiana. I named the paper doll Tanya, because I already have a Talia and a Tashi. I felt like the name Tanya fit in with the other names neatly. So, nothing too fancy there- I picked it because I liked how it sounded.

Tanya here has my first fantasy foray for the Talia Tuesday and Friends dolls, but I do love drawing princess paper dolls. Her crowns are designed to fold around the head, so you have some flexibility, if you want to use them on another doll with different hair.

If the pose is a stretch for me, this style is like cooking a recipe you’ve made a million times and know will probably come out okay. I both like drawing medieval fantasy gowns and am super comfortable drawing these fantasy princess looks. The color scheme was a bit different from many I tend to be attracted too. It feels more autumnal than I intended when I started, but I am super happy how it turned out.

As usual, a big thank you to my patrons who got to see the first proto Talia last year and helped me name Tashi, though I picked out Tanya’s name on my own. You all are the best!

A Fantasy Paper Doll: Lady of the Tower

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In my head, this paper doll belongs in the same fantasy world as Diamond as an elven archer. I think all of these dresses share a lot of design elements and feel coherent- there’s high collars and flared sleeves on all of them. A big influence on this set of paper doll fantasy gowns are my desire to experiment with pattern which is not something I do on my fantasy gowns as much as I would like. I tend to do a lot more trims (like on this Pearl fantasy set or this Norse influenced set with Topaz). Not to say I have never done all over pattern, just that it is rarer.

Color scheme wise, I wanted to use colors I think I don’t tend to gravitate too as much as I tend to gravitate to warm pinks and colors. So, I used teal (which I do love) and paired it with purple and yellow. It’s a pretty close to the classic split complimentary color scheme, though not quite perfectly spaced I don’t think. Not that I am too worried about perfectly splitting my color schemes along the color wheel, but I do think about color schemes carefully.

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Beautiful Fantasy Gowns for Paper Dolls with Pearl

Download Black and White PDF | Download Color PDF | More Jewels & Gemstones 2.0

Download Black and White PDF | Download Color PDF | More Jewels & Gemstones 2.0

I always struggle to name these fantasy paper doll sets, but I do like naming each set. It’s useful to have names, because then I can refer to them later. I threaten to just number things occasionally, but I think that would annoy me in the long term. I used to number sets way back in the day. That was when I thought of this project as more of a web comic model than I do now.

I did create today’s printable paper doll with two different color schemes for my patrons over on Patreon. If you’re a patron, check those out here.

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A Foray into Medieval Fantasy with Lapis

Okay, so way back in May of last year, I created this version of Lapis. I knew I wanted to expand that set into something more robust, so I drew a few more dresses. This fantasy paper doll with dresses was a fun foray into medieval styles without having to worry about actual history.

When designing this set, I wanted to think about fantasy clothing that maybe wasn’t too fancy. Don’t get me wrong, I will always love my over the top gowns with huge skirts, but for these I wanted to draw something more simple. I inspired by kirtles from the 1300s, but mostly just by what I remember from reading too many fantasy novels in my life. The long underdress sleeves shoved up around the wrists are a nod to the style of the Anglo-Saxons and the girdles are a nod to the 12th century Norman dress.

Fantasy medieval maiden paper doll coloring page with three dresses and three pairs of shoes.

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A few things I decided early on were that I really didn’t want to use cream as a neutral as I often do in these sort of medieval sets. Instead I challenged myself to focus on the soft blue as the primary neutral color. I wanted the colors to feel like they could have come from natural dyes, but also be vivid. Natural dyes can be super bright and fun!

Her shoes were inspired from actual 13th and 14th century footwear.

A colorful medieval inspired fantasy paper doll with blond hair and three dresses. Great indoor activity for kids.

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Personally, I think my favorite is her bright yellow dress, but that’s just me.

Normally, I would link to other paper dolls I’ve made with similar style to mix and match with this set. These dresses would fit in with my 12th Century and 13th Century sets though they are not historical. However, if you want fantasy things like this, you’ll need to wait a few more months as I get those done.

And Lapis can wear any of the other dresses for the Jewels and Gemstones. Maybe she wants to get super fancy ballgowns or go to the 1970s.

Meanwhile, if you love paper dolls and want more of them, head over to Patreon! I share extra paper dolls for my patrons.

Sideless Surcoat Paper Doll Fantasy Dress

A sideless surcoat (or surcote) inspired paper doll dress for the curvy Jewels and Gemstones paper dolls. Medieval fantasy at its best.

Black and White PDF | Color PDF | More Jewels & Gemstones Paper Dolls

Thoughts on Today’s Paper Doll

Sideless surcoats look strange to me. They will probably always strike me as odd. Sometimes, I look a specific eras of fashion and I feel like- Well, isn’t that peculiar.

My personal favorite on the peculiar scale being the whole of the 1830s. I mean…. the giant sleeves, the strange Apollo-knot hair, the odd shoulder coverings/off the shoulder thing. It’s just so bananas to me. This 1830s fashion plate proves what I mean.

Wasn’t it Oscar Wilde who said that fashion was a form of ugliness so abhorrent that it had to be changed every six months? I could look that up, but that’s just more work than I feel like putting into it tonight.

Inspiration for Today’s Paper Doll
As I was amusing myself doing research into medieval surcoats for my 12th-14th century paper dolls, I kept doodling surcoats. I confess these very narrow surcoats seem odd to me, but they were the inspiration for today’s paper doll and did exist. Well, not like this, but there are real ones out there, or at least illustrations of something that could be one.

By the way, I do realize most people don’t paw around medieval manuscripts looking for surcoat illustrations for fun, but that’s their loss.

Specific Source Images: This sideless surcote and this other sideless surcoat are not exactly what I looked at, but are the right theme.

Learn/See More
On the Blog: More Jewels & Gemstones paper dolls & More Medieval Inspired Paper Dolls
Around the Internet: Nice overview of surcoats or surcotes

Last Thoughts
As far as I can tell surcoats and surcotes are the same thing, just one with more pretentious spelling. However, I am open to being proved wrong if someone would like to enlighten me.

For my patrons, there’s an different color scheme for this outfit over on Patreon today. Join us for more paper doll content each week.

Since it’s nearly Thanksgiving here in the US, I wanted to take a moment to say how grateful I am to my Patrons and my readers. You all keep me going and I deeply appreciate you.

Lapis the Fantasy Lady & Her Gown

A paper doll with a fantasy gown inspired by the medieval time period with shoes and a book.

Black and White PDF | Color PDF | More Jewels & Gemstones Paper Dolls

Thoughts on Today’s Paper Doll
Last time we saw Lapis, she was being all Cybergoth and so I thought it would be nice if she had an option that didn’t involve amazing locks and fishnet tights. Not that I don’t love both cyberlocks and fishnet tights. This is, if you’re counting, the 16th Jewels and Gemstones doll.

I really enjoy drawing these medieval inspired fantasy gowns (as anyone whose been following the blog for a while knows), for this medieval fantasy dress I really wanted to create something simple. Sometimes, I love draw super complicated medieval inspired things with ruffles and roses and draped skirts (like this one or this one) but I also like drawing simpler fantasy things as well.

Inspiration for Today’s Paper Doll
Well, this is obviously a medieval fantasy dress. Specifically, the long underdress sleeves shoved up around the wrists are a nod to the style of the Anglo-Saxons and the double wrapped girdle is a nod to the 12th century Norman dress.

Specific Source Images: Nothing this time.

Learn/See More
On the Blog: More Jewels & Gemstones paper dolls & More Medieval inspired paper dolls
Around the Internet: I have a medieval inspired section in my Fantasy Clothing Pinterest board

Last Thoughts
I’ve got a poll going on over on Patreon about what time periods I should draw some paper dolls from. Feel free to go vote.

Additionally, if you aren’t following along, I am doing a 100 days project on Instagram where I am drawing #100daysofpaperdolls. It’s been super fun. I missed a few days, but I am caught up now! At the moment, my theme is mermaids, but that will probably change soon.

Lastly, I always love hearing from you all, so feel free to leave a comment and let me know what you think of today’s paper doll.

Reminder, there’s always an extra paper doll outfit on Fridays over on Patreon for my 2 dollar and up patrons.