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.
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.
This is the second Isadora paper doll and a member of the Mini-Maiden paper doll family. I haven’t done a fantasy Mini-Maiden before, so I thought I should and I have been in a psuedo-medieval mood as of late. Perhaps simply because I am wishing I was living somewhere cooler than Alabama which is having a humid hot August.
I can not wait for fall. Fall is full of wonderful things and I can start wearing tights and boots again.
I love both tights and boots.
Plus September brings the big fall fashion magazines and that will mean a spasm of paper doll drawing and a spate of contemporary styled paper dolls, as it always does.
Until then, of course, we have Isadora as a fantasy Mini-Maiden. I am hesitant to call her a princess, as she doesn’t have a crown, but she can still live in a castle, I think. Personally, I think it would have been dreadfully drafty and cold in castles, but I suppose at least it was better than living in a hovel.
Anyway, now Isadora can either be living in a castle or fighting radioactive zombies in the wastes of a destroyed civilization. Basically, she’s ready for whatever life might throw at her, though I think she also might want to raid another Mini-Maiden’s closet for some more… shall we say… normal clothing. I think she’d look awfully cute in Faye’s girly get up or Hazel’s vintage vibe or Greta’s I-couldn’t-come-up-with-anything-alliterative outfits.
There will be one more update this week (nothing major, just some sketchbook stuff) and then hopefully a new Marisole on Monday as I get myself back into the rhythm of things. For updates, you’re welcome to follow me on twitter @paperpersona, though you will also have to put up with other inane, unpaper-doll-related rambling about my life.
It’s a Margot paper doll this Monday, the first for the new year, I think, and she’s sporting some stylish garb from the 10th century. Yesterday, I posted a pretty long ramble about 10th century Anglo-Saxon women’s dress and if you’re interested, I recommend reading that as well as this post, since the two rather go together in chronicling the epic research adventure this paper doll was.
One of my January drawing winners, Gwendolyn, who asked for this paper doll has been very kind as I slowly did my research and then set to work on drawing the set. I won’t pretend it hasn’t been both stressful and time consuming, because it has, but I am utterly pleased with the outcome and I hope she is as well.
Gwendolyn wrote me that:
I have actually thought a little bit about what I would choose if I ever won, so I can tell you now that I am interested in a Marisole-family doll, who is 10th century Anglo-Saxon. I would love a set or two of daily clothes, but I would also love a maille shirt and helm.
Speaking of the maile shirt, it is based on Anglo-Saxon finds in York and the helm is also based on the same thing. As women didn’t wear maile, I didn’t spend a huge amount of time researching the historical accuracy of such a garment. Personally, I’ll confess, armor doesn’t get me going like clothes do.
So, let’s talk about the clothes. As I explained yesterday, 10th century Anglo-Saxon’s women dress consists of several layers of clothing. To begin with Margot (our Anglo-Saxon model with a French name…) wears a pair of leggings with windings around the calves and shoes. The shoes come from Anglo-Viking finds in York dating from the 9th Century. The windings around her calves are based on an illustration from the manuscript Psychomachia (British Library MS Additional 24199) which shows a barefoot women on horseback. Sadly, the manuscript hasn’t be digitized, but there is an illustration in Owen-Crocker’s Dress in Anglo-Saxon England. There is no way to know what the top of such leggings looked like. I made them like this so they could be worn with the maile shirt.
The shift’s neckline is based on an illustration of a male farmer’s tunic illustrated in Tiberius B v calendar (British Library MS Cotton Tiberius B v, fol. 4r) and the sleeves are wrinkled as I discussed yesterday. The necklines of the other dresses are also based on the necklines of men’s tunics in the 10th century.
The veils are based on manuscript illustration, though I had added visible pins. Pins are commonly found from this period and it seems logical they were used to hold veils together. The green veil with broach is based on an illustration of the Virgin Mary from the first half of the 9th century (see Plate 1). The brown “poncho” is based on several illustrations and I discuss these cloaks a lot more in yesterday’s post.
Lastly, the embroidery on the red dress is not based on anything specifically. I wanted to use some patterns I found online, but they were far to detailed to easily make tiny enough to work as illustrations at such a small size. I did not include girdles as there is almost no published information on them and I didn’t want to just invent stuff. The colors used in these garments are based on the colors of the famous Bayeux Tapestry (which is not actually a tapestry, but that’s neither here nor there).
Well, I hope everyone has enjoyed the last two days in the 10th century. I certainly have had fun researching and I hope to do some more medieval period paper dolls now that I know more about the eras in question. (I think my next one will be 1300s, a little easier than 900s.)
When I first drew the Poppets paper dolls, I knew I wanted to do historical costumes. This isn’t historically accurate by the way, but it does have a 1300s flair, I think. One of the reasons I steer clear of certain periods of history is that I feel like I don’t know enough about them. I am familiar enough with Victorian and 18th century costume that I feel fairly comfortable simplifying it without losing it’s authenticity, but I know very little about clothing in Europe before 1400.
As a result, I tend to categorize my forays into the “medieval” look as fantasy, rather than history. It keeps me from feeling guilty about not really knowing what I’m doing. However, Gwendolyn asked for a paper doll of a 10th century Anglo-Saxon when she won my drawing last week, so I guess I better learn something about the 10th century.
In the meantime, here’s a Poppet Medieval outfit strictly in the realm of fantasy being modeled by Petunia. I like to think she might be a princess, but I haven’t given her a crown, so the jury is out.
I’m also really pleased to say I’ve recently stumbled across a new paper doll blog called Paper is Suffcient. It’d a new blog, so go over there, check it out and drop Natalie a comment. We need all the paper doll blogs we can get. 🙂
I am excited to introduce everyone to Latanya, the first Pixie paper doll of the New Year. I drew her last year, technically, but that’s not really so uncommon for me. It can take months (years…) for a paper doll to move from my sketchbook onto my blog. I’ve had a request to do a full paper doll tutorial which is a lovely idea, but considering how slow I am at getting things done… it might be a year before its finished.
So, I wanted to do a fantasy paper doll with a autmunal color scheme. So we have Latanya rocking some darn lovely fantasy gowns and a little bit of armor. She’s apparently both a lover and a fighter.
Her colors remind me of autumn leaves and crisp fall days. I am really adoring her curls and the pattern on her dress which I am very proud of. I am trying to draw more patterns. I say that every year… And every year, I usually end up chickening out because patterns take time and I am lazy.
My Drawing/Contest closes tonight at midnight. So, if you haven’t entered and would like too, please do so today. I’ll contact/announce the winner tomorrow. 🙂 By the way, I haven’t responded to any of the answers, because I didn’t want to skew the results. I have read them all and I appreciate everyone’s honesty. Winner will be decided using a random number generator.
I’m pretty pleased with the year as it has turned out. I’ve been more consistent with my posting and I think the blog has grown in positive ways. I do have changes I would like to make in the future and some of them are the same changes I’ve been wanting to make for a while.
2014 will be here in a few days and I will return to work in a few days. I’m excited and nervous and looking forward to the New Year. The next post on this blog will be in 2014. YAY!
Meanwhile, I am totally pleased to show off the Queen of the Dusk fully colored. (By the way, I keep typing Queen of the Duck, which would be a totally different paper doll set, I think.) I started with a more traditional color scheme for me, which means I found a set of colors which I liked and was going to use on each paper doll dress, but after I used them I decided I really didn’t like them and instead went with each paper doll dress being monochromatically one color. I think this causes some problems for the shoes, but I rather like how the dresses came out.
I confess I named this paper doll after I decided on the color scheme, so it doesn’t make as much sense in black and white as it does when the doll is fully colored. I thought about making her another princess, but then I decided that Queens have power. Power seems like a good thing. So, she’s a Queen not a Princess. (Unless you want her to be a Princess, in which case, go for it, I say.)
Having recently watched the first Hobbit film with my Mother to get ready to go see the sequel, I feel that I can say these costumes feel far more Elf like than Hobbit or Dwarf. Also the new first of the Hobbit movies felt very manic.
I like the layers on the dresses, but I’m not totally pleased with the shoes. Still… Not everything has to be perfect, I suppose.
Someone requested the lute. That’s why she has a lute. I am not going to go down in history as the worlds best lute artist. Still, it was fun to draw my slightly deformed insturement. I wish I could recall who asked for a lute… If it was you, drop me a comment. It’s bugging me now.
And after my apartment flooded, I found myself going through a lot of my childhood drawings checking for mold and water damage. Quite a few things were destroyed, but most of them were safely tucked away in plastic bins, protected from the water. I thought it might be fun to share some of them on the blog, since I often get emails from young people asking how to become better artists.
All I can say to that is practice. Practice. Practice. Also, take art classes when you’re in high school and have the time. Now that I’m out of high school, I regret not taking the figure drawing or the advanced water color courses that were offered.
Anyway, this is Riven. (I think I wanted to name her Raven, but there was a girl in school who was really mean to me named Raven, so I named her Riven instead.)
So, Tom Tierney was my favorite paper doll artist when I was a child and I admired his figures. This was my attempt at copying that style. She’s holding a brush, rather awkwardly, and brushing out her hair to cover her breasts modestly.
She has a streak of silver in her hair, but I don’t think it scanned that well. My first ever Tom Tierney paper doll was Christopher Columbus, bought for me by my sister when I was eight or nine, I think. She suggested that I not cut it out and I never have. It’s still sitting in my collection somewhere. I remember it had historical information about Columbus in it. I read all of that and then pestered by teacher about why we celebrated Columbus Day when Christopher Columbus was such a jerk.
I still have serious issues with Columbus Day, but that’s a whole different story.
Today’s printable paper doll is named for Saint Xenia, a Russian Orthodox Saint. I liked the name, because it sounded neat and the paper doll’s color scheme was partly inspired by the beautiful gilt icons I remember from growing up in Alaska.
It’s been a while since I did a redheaded Pixie, so I thought I should do one as I have some weird love of redhair that surely comes from reading Anne of Green Gables at an impressionable age.
I tried a new technique with the patterns on Xenia’s dresses. I drew the motif, used photoshop to turn it into a repeating pattern and then used photoshop to warp that pattern, so it would look more natural against the curve of the figure. I’m not totally pleased with how it came out, but I’m not displeased either. I’m going to keep playing with it as an option for more patterned paper doll creations.
It feels absurdly good to be back close to a normal week of updating. I have no idea what next week will bring, but this week feels good. Small steps. Now… if I could just finish putting my books back on shelves.
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