When I was a child, my grandmother always sent me a holiday card for Halloween and usually it was a paper doll card. This is why I always try to do a halloween paper doll.
Generally, when I think of gothic designs, I think of Morticia Addams from the movies. (Too young to have been a child of the TV show I’m afraid) and she’s a very mermaid skirts sort of design. However, I don’t see why mermaid skirts should get to have all the fun, so I went regency for this one.
All in all, I think the paper doll’s hair is a bit 1920s and her dresses are regency and her border is very much art nuevo. All in all, what time period is this?
No idea, but I think it looks neat!
I hope you have a lovely safe and happy Halloween. Enjoy the paper dolls! I’ll be passing out candy and eating chili.
One of my favorite things is taking a historical silhouette and just playing with it. It’s pretty much just a chance to draw pretty dresses for paper dolls. Don’t get me wrong, I love doing variety (like this Cybergoth Set), but I think anyone whose a regular here knows my first loves are the fantasy and historical stuff.
The fantasy stuff is easier than the historical stuff, because there’s no research involved. I simply am unable to call something historical if I haven’t actually done some research to back up that claim. And sometimes, I just don’t wanna do research.
Despite the research free nature of these dresses, they are based on Regency Era styles. In my head, the dress on the left with the yellow skirt is a ballgown, because it is the lowest cut and fanciest. The dresses on the left are a dinner dress (the blue one) and day dress (the one with the vest).
If you want some actual regency dresses, rather than these regency fantasy dresses, I recommend my Regency tag and as I was working on this post, I realized I do have other regency fantasy dresses- enough that maybe I should make a tag for that too, so I did.
I now have a regency inspired tag for all my non-historical forays into this silhouette, including my regencycore modern stuff which I think I’m going to draw more of. I really enjoy drawing romantic dresses. And yes, I am eagerly waiting for season 3 of Bridgerton.
Meanwhile, this is Newsletter week, so if you haven’t, sign up and get an extra paper doll coloring page in your inbox every two weeks.
Thoughts on Today’s Paper Doll Occasionally, I just kinda want to draw a pretty dress. I mean, sometimes I like to draw complex things with nuance and stuff, but sometimes, I just want to draw a pretty dress. Years ago, I read an article about Oscar De La Renta (an amazing fashion designer) who when asked what he did, he said something like, I make pretty dresses.
And well, sometimes I want to draw pretty dresses. Nothing more, nothing less. Remember that I draw extra pretty dresses (and other things) for my Patrons.
Inspiration for Today’s Paper Doll As I said above, I just kinda wanted a pretty dress. There’s something sort of 1980s fantasy princess happening here, I think, but I don’t recall a specific source of any kind.
Specific Source Images:Â Nothing that I remember.
Learn/See More On the Blog: More Jewels & Gemstones paper dolls Around the Internet: Hmmmm…. I’m not sure. If you want to see more pretty dresses, I do keep a board of Fantasy Clothing on Pinterest which is full of them.
Last Thoughts Clearly, this isn’t my most “complex” blog post. Sometimes I think a lot about what I create and sometimes I just draw. Not everything has a complex history.
I’d like to take a moment here to thank everyone who pledges on Patreon. You make this little corner of the web possible and I am very grateful to you all.
By the way, at the moment, there’s a lot going on with my world, so please know that while I love the blog and I love creating paper dolls, I’m keeping a lot of plates spinning at the moment.
The pelisse from 1822 was the one that was today’s paper doll gown’s strongest influence.
I went back and forth about the color scheme for a while, but I really wanted to do something in the red family. As it happens, I super like red.
Monochrome color schemes aren’t something I do much, but maybe I should play with them more. I find I often go back to the same colors for paper doll clothing over and over again.
I was trying to get all my wintery paper doll stuff backlog taken care off before it gets too warm, but frankly the weather has been freakish.
It keeps switching between Spring, in the 70s, and Winter, in the 30s and 40s. I don’t really care which one it chooses, but I dislike having to check my phone every morning to see if I need to grab my coat.
That’s enough complaining about Alabama’s wacky spring weather.
This isn’t my first foray into the whole “regency steampunk” genre, though I don’t know if this genre already exists or not. My first foray was back when I did my Best Friends set and one of their pages was regency steampunk.
This is my second foray into the genre. I think it is largely more successful, mostly because I am a better artist now than I was three years ago. I still struggle with making goggles that really “work”, but I have hopes that eventually I might figure it out.
Steampunk fascinates me just as much as Gothic fashions and Cyberpunk fashions fascinate me. I am always interested in alterative fashion cultures as they reflect some part of our cultural fabric. Despite finding them interesting, I have never had any desire to “dress up” in steampunk. I simply don’t like wearing costumes, a fact which shocks many people when they find out I draw paper dolls.
So, I’ve spoken before about my pet peeve that fantasy people are always white skinned, as a result I gave my steampunk regency paper doll a soft brown skin-tone. I was going to say “mocha” skintone, but I have been trying to avoid using food words to describe skintones. They just kinda creep me out. Something about my skin being called peach or cream, or calling someone else’s skin chocolate or spice, sorta… I dunno. I’m not sure I want to think of my skin as a food product. It’s a little Hannibal Lector, you know?
Anyway, moving on… The colors are based on actual common early 19th century colors including Turkey Red and Indigo. Both of these colors are produced by dyes from India or Turkey. They are such rich colors that I countered them with cream and black. Personally, I love how real natural indigo fabrics look. It’s an amazing color.
Be sure to cut along the dotted lines so she can wear her clothes and the floating tabs should keep her little top hats on her head.
I’ve never seen anyone else combine the early 1800s silhouettes with steampunk, so maybe it has a name already and I don’t know it. Either way, I am trying to decide what to call this new genre of fashion and therefore have a poll. Plus, you know, polls are fun.
[poll id=”8″]
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So… again with the channeling Kate Greenaway thing, also a little bit of Peakswoods (a Korean ball jointed doll company), their fairies of fairytales were one of the inspirations for the Poppets series in general. I have noticed a tendency for ball jointed dolls to be dressed in totally over the top ruffled outfits (like this Little Red Ridinghood ensemble), so there’s a little of that here as well. I have a few dresses in process for the Poppets that take that concept on in a more fluffy way.
This set was drawn to go along with my second poppet paper doll Primrose. The dress, cape and hat, are all in the same color scheme and therefore can be mixed and matched. I am particularly fond of her little button up boots with spats on them.
I realize now that I’ve mentioned Kate Greenaway twice and I probably should pause to say who she was. Greenaway was an artist whose work was published mostly between the 1870s and the 1890s. She drew idealic angelic looking children in pseudo-regency costumes. You can see scans of her work at the Digital Library of illuminated books.
Last, but not least, I’d like to wish a very Merry Christmas to all my readers who celebrate it. I hope people have fun with family and friends today. I am with family myself and quite content.
Have I mentioned recently how happy alliteration makes me?
Also, I am really pleased with this new printable paper doll series. Poppet’s have turned out to be very fun to draw which I confess I wasn’t totally expecting. I mean, I thought they would be fun to draw, but it’s nice when “fantasy” and “reality” actually mesh properly.
For this set of poppet printable paper dolls (Yay! Alliteration), I chose to do a romantic regency inspired look with lots of ruching and a wide ribbon sash.
There’s a little Kate Greenway action going on here, I won’t lie.
Since this is only my second Poppet and it’s my second poppet in a pretty short period of time, you might be wondering… What’s up with all the poppets?
Well, I am glad you asked.
Hannukah began on November 27 and runs until the 5th of December. I decided for each night of Hanukkah it would be fun to post a paper doll. There will be a Marisole on Monday, my new Curvy series debuting and a few other things, but there’s going to be a lot of Poppets. Why?
Because they are cute and lovable. (Also I went through a Poppet drawing spasm and I have a lot of them done.)
So, this is going to be a Big Image, Small Post sorta day.
Here are the eight pages which make up the Best Friends paper doll set. (Yeah, I need better names for these things… I’m not good with names…)
My goal with this set of paper dolls was to experiment with slightly different body builds and poses while maintaining a similar enough over all style that the paper dolls would seem cohesive. I’ve never tried to draw this way before. I think I succeeded, but only because I drew them all at once. I can’t imagine trying to do this any other way.
Eventually, this set might get a sequel, but probably not for a little while.
I was going to wait until Monday to have my first paper doll post since I went on haitus, but I felt like people waited for two months and the least I could do was give some rapid paper doll gratification.
I hope everyone in the United States is having a fantastic Labor Day weekend. I have spent mine getting caught up with some work things, eating delightful barbecue and tomorrow I might do something radical and go see a movie. Mostly, I’m enjoying getting the time off work to get a little more settled here in Alabama.
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