medieval inspired Archives • Page 4 of 9 • Paper Thin Personas

Bodacious & Buxom: A Curvy Fantasy Paper Doll’s Accessories

May 28, 2020September 22, 2016

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Today’s Accessory Thursday post is a little late and I feel guilty about that, but in my defense, let me explain.

So, remember how I said I was moving? And I did move and I love my new place. However, the previous tenant had pets.

And I discovered Monday that those pets left behind some… friends. Small jumping biting friends.

Fleas.

I reported my unwanted roommates on Monday. They sprayed the unit yesterday and I spent most of yesterday evening either out or sitting on the back patio while the unit aired out. But seriously, I have never been more happy to smell the scent of pesticide in my life.

Anyway, with all the laundry and other things I’ve been doing, there just wasn’t time to work on this blog post much.

So, that’s why its a little late.

Anyway, enough about my Adventures with Fleas! Let’s talk about paper dolls.

Today, we have three pairs of shoes. Each one is colored to match one of the three dresses, including the paper doll dress that goes up on Friday. There’s also a book and a musical instrument and some papers. I struggle a little with scale sometimes with the B&B dolls, because they have such huge heads.

(Don’t get me wrong, I like huge heads, but it makes some stuff challenging.)

Two usual pieces of housekeeping: The doll was posted Monday and the black and white versions are at the top of the post. Enjoy!

Bodacious & Buxom: A Curvy Fantasy Paper Doll’s Spring Dress in Pink

May 28, 2020September 21, 2016

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I never used to like pink. I mean, I went through a phase when I was like four and I demanded that my room be painted pink. My mother kindly did this for me. Later, the room was painted a bright yellow. I distinctly recall returning from camp or something and the room suddenly being yellow. My mother had painted it while I was away, though I do at least remember that she had asked me if I minded it being yellow before she painted it. During this whole time, I refused to wear pink. Pink, I decided sometime around second grade, was not a color for me.

I’m saying all this, because I have completely come around to pink. I think it is a beautiful color. I have to stick to brighter or darker pinks in the real world, but in paper doll land, the sky is the limit on my shades of pink.

So, today’s paper doll dress was colored using the color scheme from Dreaming Princess as the base. Dreaming Princess is one of the most complexly patterned sets I have done in years and the color scheme was a real struggle. Still, I loved how the original set came out and I wanted to adapt those colors to today’s paper doll dress to print.

Every paper doll dress is a little different, of course. Yesterday, we had an autumnal scheme. Today’s dress, I think is more spring-like. I am, I confess, not totally pleased with how the hem detail turned out. I didn’t properly adjust it for the curve of the paper doll’s body. I’m a bit disappointed in myself.

Anyway, enjoy the paper doll dress! Tomorrow we have shoes and stockings.

Bodacious & Buxom: A Curvy Fantasy Paper Doll’s Autumnal Dress

May 28, 2020September 20, 2016

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Can I be totally honest with y’all? I feel like I can.

These are the sorts of dresses I draw when I am feeling exhausted and I know I have to get a set done. Is that a bad thing to admit? It’s not that I don’t enjoy drawing them, but they don’t take a lot of mental energy. It’s like safe drawing. There’s not a lot of stretching here.

Sometimes though, I do think that is okay.

As I said on Monday, the color schemes for all of this week’s outfits are based on previously posted printable paper doll sets. For example, today’s paper doll dress for the B&B series is based on my Pixie series paper doll Malina who was posted in 2014. I have always really loved Malina’s color scheme and I thought it was a fun one to transform into this medieval fantasy dress. Malina is a contemporary fashion paper doll, but I think her color scheme is very universally autumnal.

It’s September and it should be chilly and there should be changing leaves. I confess I am getting neither changing leaves nor chilly weather here in Alabama, but I want it! I love the autumn and I want to get to experience some of it, darn it!

Now, a friendly reminder, you can get the doll that I drew to go with today’s printable paper doll dress from Monday’s post, but feel free to dress up any of the B&B dolls in this fantasy gown.

Also, if you like the blog and want to help me keep it online, please consider becoming a Patron. I know I say this a lot, but it really does help me subsidize the server, security and related costs to running PTP.

And, of course, I always love to hear what you think about today’s dress.

A 1300s Fashion Paper Doll

May 28, 2020June 20, 2016

Once again, we are dabbling in the 1300s with today’s paper doll. There’s no new sources for this one, so if you want to know what I referenced, than I would recommend returning to my last paper doll of the 1300s with a sources list at the bottom.

One of my goals for 2016 was to draw ten historical paper dolls. I confess I am far from achieving that goal and we’re halfway though the year (nearly), so I seriously need to get my act together on this one. So, my goal for the next few days is to buckle down and get some drawing, scanning and finishing done.

We’ll see how that goes.

I have a few days off work and I always start these things with a long list of “goals”, but I fear my plans are often larger than my capacity. Still, I’m out of backlog and nothing is as good as an artist motivation as desperation.

{Download a PDF of this paper doll to Color} {View a 150 dpi PNG of this Paper Doll to Color} {More Bodacious & Buxom Paper Dolls}

Picking out colors wasn’t very hard, since I seem to always come back to the same ones when it comes to the 1300s. I blame it on medieval manuscripts I have seen. I always think of the 14th century was being red and blue and gold.

Sterotypical, perhaps, but none the less. There we are.

{Download a PDF of this paper doll in Color} {View a 150 dpi PNG of this Paper Doll in Color} {More Bodacious & Buxom Paper Dolls}

Between my new 1300s Buxom and Bodacious paper doll, my viking paper doll, and my Cranach paper doll, we’re starting to get a pretty nice set of early Western Fashions. I keep promising myself I’ll do one from a decade of the 19th century, but I can’t pick one. So, 19th century B&B series suggestions would be welcomed.

Lastly, I hope everyone has a delightful week.

Greta Goes out Hunting: A Fantasy Printable Paper Doll Coloring Page

May 19, 2020July 17, 2015

As I mentioned a while ago, my computer died while I was traveling to visit family in Alaska. I’m pleased to report it is working fine now and it just cost money. Also, I should really back up my data more often, because hard drive problems suck.

Anyway, let’s talk about nicer things like paper dolls.

One of the reasons I keep a backlog of paper dolls is that should disaster strike, I have some things to post. I confess that my backlog has gotten lower these last few weeks and this has been a rough week for finding time to do blog work. Five hour power outage, jet lag, computer problems… Yeesh.

So, here is Greta and she is going out hunting. I didn’t give her any arrows, but…. err…. No excuse for that one, actually. I just kinda forgot. Maybe she can garrote things with her bow string or something. The image of paper dolls garroting small fuzzy woodland creatures in order to make them into stew is now going to haunt me.

Heading out on the hunt is this fantasy paper doll coloring page with a ten piece wardrobe. From paperthinpersonas.com

{Download a PDF to Print} {View a 150 dpi PNG} {Check out some More Mini-Maiden Printable Paper Dolls}Other news… Assuming I get my act together, there should be a Marcus paper doll on Monday and then some other stuff in the coming weeks. I am trying to get excited, but I am struggling to feel inspired at the moment. I’m sure it’ll come back. It always does eventually.

How do other people deal with lulls in inspiration?

Tibbets and Kirtles in Color: A Printable Paper Doll of the 1300s

May 22, 2020March 9, 2015

Last week, we got to see my mid-1300s paper doll set in black and white. This week, here she is in color. Historical printable paper dolls always make me a little nervous. In inevitably, choices have to be made about what to include or not include and how to render a period’s fashion. These choices are easier the more you know about the period and harder the less you know. One of the reasons I often turn to Medieval inspired or Renaissance inspired rather than actual historical paper dolls is the knowledge that I don’t know enough to always make appropriate choices.

What I am not comfortable doing is always trusting the many sites out there that don’t cite their sources with enough detail to actually find the material if you needed it or want to confirm it’s authenticity. While I love the internet, I find that I don’t use it that much when I am doing this sort of research. I seem to fall back on my library training and rely on reputable secondary sources published in scholars with names in the field, backed up my own knowledge of solid collections of digitized medieval manuscripts where I can dig for source images, plus a few tumblers and blogs that seem to know what they are doing.

And this method worked great until I got down the problem of color. Now, I always think of the 1300s as being richly red and blue and gold, because those are colors I have seen in medieval manuscripts. Just because, however, they made a dress red in a book doesn’t mean the dress was commonly red in real life. Pigments used for illumination aren’t the same a pigments used for dyeing cloth and medieval art is heavy on analogy and symbolism.

{Click Here for a PDF to Print} {Click Here for a PNG to Print} {Click Here for More Marisole Monday & Friends Printable Paper Dolls}What I really didn’t want to do was do a ton a research on natural dye processes, because a lot of people have written a lot on the topic. Textile fragments like this one, an incredible velvet cope or this equally amazing cope from the V&A Collections proved to me that colors were rich in the 1300 hundreds. So, I used those images along with this Medieval Colors article from Aux Mailles Godefroy. The resulting colors are a little more muted than was probably possible in the 1300s, but I just couldn’t get over my preconceived notions of muted tones despite seeing examples of bright yellows produced with natural dyes. The truth is that both linen and wool, common fabrics in the 1300s, take dye really well. The world was likely a lot more vibrant than my preconceived notions of history suggest.

By the way, most of my primary and secondary sources for this paper doll set are listed on the black and white version. It was a long list and I didn’t want to repeat it here. So go check that out, if you want to see what I used to create my mid-1300’s paper doll.

Poppets Playing with Wooden Swords

May 19, 2020March 6, 2015

Clearly, I’ve been on a bit of a medieval kick with Monday’s 14th century set and today’s psuedo-medieval Poppet paper doll set. Ironically, I’m not that much of a medieval fantasy fan. As far as book genres, I’m much more into urban fantasy than anything in the classic or epic fantasy genres.

Of course, urban fantasy generally doesn’t lend to crazy paper doll outfit sets.

This set is partly because of my goal this year to make more Poppet paper doll sets. Last year, I only did eight Poppet sets which seems rather like a low number. This year my goal is at least ten. I also really want to do some historical clothing sets for them, since I have an absurd love of Victorian children’s clothing. Those sets, however, aren’t even drawn yet. I think I should finish some of my unfinished Poppet paper doll clothes before I start drawing more of them.

I have a lot of unfinished Poppet sets lurking accusingly on my computer and demanding completion.

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Today’s paper doll set features colors in the same family as my Marcus the Warrior paper doll. I almost gave them real swords, but that seemed like a terribly dangerous thing to give a small child, so a wooden sword would have to do. I really do enjoy drawing toys as accessories for the Poppets.

Meanwhile, I have been giving a lot of thought to Copyright and other issues of posting content on the internet. Would people be interested on a post on that topic?

Lady in a Castle: A Printable Paper Doll

May 22, 2020February 9, 2015

One of my pet peeves is that fantasy movies always default to the assumption that the characters involved are white-skinned. I just saw Into the Woods which I recommend highly- I am a huge Sondheim fan- and I noticed they had some brown-skinned extras which is great, but all of the main characters were white skinned.

I know one of the common arguments against skin-tone diversity in classic fantasy or fairy tales is that they are often European in origin and it wouldn’t be accurate to have brown skinned characters; however, I’m not sure the argument for “accuracy” really holds up. First of all, there was a lot more diversity in Europe a lot earlier than most people realize. Secondly, if there are going to be giants and magic, can’t we accept the idea that some of the characters might be darker skinned? Does that really deeply violate suspension of disbelief? We are talking about a genre of story with singing harps, talking animals, and pumpkin coaches.

This is all a really complicated way of saying that I try to give my fantasy paper dolls a variety of skin tones, including weird ones like green, more green and orange. Um… Is it bad I just noticed I have two green skinned paper dolls? I could have sworn one of those had blue skin. I should keep better track of these things.

A fantasy paper doll with brown skin and four gowns. She also has two pairs of shoes. Free to print from paperthinpersonas.com

{Click Here for a PDF to Print} {Click Here for a PNG to Print} {Click Here for More Marisole Monday & Friends Printable Paper Dolls}Moving on from her skin tone, I stuck with the pale scheme I had planned and tried to focus on greens, blues and purples while using yellow and pink as accent colors. I think it came out pretty well, though coloring those detailed patterns took forever. Every time I add a bunch of pattern, I promise myself that it is the “last time” and then I do it again- because I really do like pattern.

Changing topic a bit, one of the most common questions I get is “Why don’t you sell your paper dolls?” I decided to answer this question for Abby of While She Naps. Abby took my thoughts about hobby and business, combined them with those of some other very talented crafters, and created a really great post about business, craft, and why we do what we do. I recommend going and reading it post-haste.

Meanwhile, Vikings are winning my “What historical period should B&B visit” poll which means, I suppose, I should go learn something about Viking dress. If you have not voted, please do. It is highly likely that I will not totally ignore the outcome. It is also highly likely it will take forever for me to get it done, because I am me.

Lady in a Castle: A Paper Doll Coloring Page

May 22, 2020February 2, 2015

So, I usually manage to get these paper doll sets up on schedule to post early Monday, but clearly today I wasn’t so on the ball. Never the less, I’m not technically late, just a little delayed I suppose with today’s paper doll coloring page of a princess and her four paper doll dresses- everyone needs paper doll dresses, right?

This week’s Marisole Monday & Friend’s paper doll features Marisole and some pretty traditional fantasy gowns. Fantasy sets seem to be the favorite of my readers and I enjoy them. I wanted to play with pattern for these, so they are heavily patterned- much more than I usually do with my paper doll sets. I’ve been challenging myself to use more patterns lately.

Should you think Marisole needs some paper doll friends, I’m sure she can hang out with Marcus the Warrior or the Coastal Princess. I know she’ll have a light colored, pastel based color scheme, though I’m not sure exactly what colors yet.

A fantasy paper doll coloring page with a princess and her four paper dresses. Free to print from paperthinpersonas.com

{Click Here for a PDF to Print} {Click Here for a PNG to Print} {Click Here for More Marisole Monday & Friends Printable Paper Dolls}The crown is less a “crown” and more a simple circlet. I wanted to do something simple that would accent her very patterned dresses.

And since it’s later than I usually get these done and I am very tired, I am going to call this post finished. Thanks everyone for your kind wishes while I was ill last week and hopefully we’ll have a normally updating blog this week.

If you want, let me know what you think of her in a comment. 🙂

Marcus the Warrior Printable Paper Doll

May 22, 2020January 12, 2015

This is going to be an uber short post today, because I really have a million things to do. Still, I have neglected the blog for a week and I didn’t want to keep neglecting it.

Sometimes, I feel like it is a small monster. If I don’t feed the blog monster, it might someday hunger for the souls of children or possibly lollipops. Either way, it is in my best interest to make sure that it is fed.

Anyway, today we have the Marcus paper doll from last way up in full color. The designs are based on my whole pseudo-Medieval/Viking thing. I really wanted to stick with earth tones and simple colors, nothing too crazy or vivid.

{Click Here for a PDF to Print} {Click Here for a PNG to Print} {Click Here for More Marisole Monday & Friends Printable Paper Dolls}Right now, there’s a little drawing/contest and it’ll be wrapping soon so go enter if you haven’t. It closes on the 14th, winner announced on the 15th.

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