All right, so I spent sometime this week coloring my favorite of the July Project which was this rose ballgown.
One thing Procreate does really poorly is color management. It’s really frustrating. I keep thinking there’s a trick to it that I am missing, but after watching several tutorials and such, I am increasingly convinced that Procreate is just bad at color management. That’s it.
I’m still experimenting with texture as well and clearly experimenting with shadow, as well. My favorite artists don’t tend to do a lot with shadow… I dunno. I remain unconvinced that it works. More experimenting is clearly needed. But you don’t know if you don’t try, I always say, so trying matters.
Long story short: I’m not in love with Procreate for coloring things. I’m pretty happy with how this turned out, but I think I want more texture or maybe slightly different texture or something.
Sure, there’s still like feet of snow on the ground here and sure yesterday the high was under freezing at 29 degrees, but it is spring darn it! (Signs of spring include a longer day, muddy streets, and trees that are starting to bloom.) It’s just been a much colder spring than usual, but I would rather have a long slow slide into break up than a rapid one, so I’ll take it.
I will also complain loudly about it.
I can have contradictions in my life.
All righty, so let’s talk paper dolls. Back in 2019 or 2020 or something, I started drawing some very fancy big-skirted princess gowns that I called the Princesses and Their Gowns collection. Not really because I thought it would be a big collection, but because all the gowns used the same basic color scheme and style, so I figured it would be simple enough to group them together.
All of last years additions to the collection ended up being Patreon content, so I knew I wanted to add some more for this year and make them blog content.
I chose daffodils to decorate these gowns, because my mother always planted them and they were a favorite flower of mine. I remember my mother would always order her bulbs in the fall and sometimes they wouldn’t arrive until after the ground was frozen and, not about to let that stop her, she’d go out with boiling water and spade to plant them anyway. They always came up, one way or another.
My other favorite flower is peonies which has nothing to do with this paper doll set, but are gown up here and are just amazing in a few weeks when the farmers’ market reopens.
So, do you have a favorite flower? Let me know in a comment!
I hope you all enjoy this fun foray into princess gowns. In 2021, my plan is to do monthly rather than weekly updates for all my Patreon folks (thank you for all being amazing) and try to them in the first week of the month. We’ll all see how that plan works out together. It’ll be fun!
I chose to draw blue poppies on the ball gown, because I love blue poppies. They grow up in Alaska where I grew up and my mother always had some in her garden. Whenever I see them, they make me smile.
They are, I’ve been told, pretty rare outside the colder temps we get up here. Ruby’s other gown is more of a “day” sort of dress I imagine. Of course, these are part of the Princesses and Their Gowns Collection which has been steadily updating for a long time.
Sometimes, I just want to draw pretty paper doll dresses.
Okay. I pretty much always want to draw pretty dresses for paper dolls. Don’t get me wrong, I love doing variety (like this fisherman set), but I think anyone whose a regular here knows my first loves are the fantasy and historical stuff. And the fantasy stuff is easier than the historical stuff, because there’s no research involved.
Don’t get me wrong, I love research, but sometimes it’s fun to let that go and just play.
These pretty paper doll dresses were vaguely inspired by the empire silhouette of the early 19th century and the off the shoulder dresses of the 1980s. Basically. there’s nothing here that’s historically accurate, except that these are dresses. That’s about it. There’s a dress.
I had drawn a specific version of Sapphire for this set, but I wasn’t in love with her hair and after trying to fix it like 17 times, I gave up and recycled an older Sapphire design from last year.
If I had to pick one thing I like drawing the most, I would have a lot of trouble, but it would probably be a tie between historical paper dolls and fantasy paper dolls. Historical because I love doing research and I am big costume history buff. Fantasy because sometimes I really don’t want to do so much research before I draw a paper doll. Of the fantasy things I draw, I think dresses are probably my favorite thing to create. I’m a sucker for a fantasy gown, what can I say?
This is funny, because in the real world, I am very much a jeans and t-shirts kinda girl.
Last year, I started a whole series of princess fantasy gowns I called the Princess and Their Gowns Collection. So far, there are two princesses and today’s paper doll is the third. They can not only share clothing, but the dresses are all in the same color scheme. Many mix and match options, I think.
The Dinner Dress owes a lot to the dresses of the 18th century with the petticoat and the sleeves with ruffles. The “Rococo/Big Skirted Absurdity” section on my Fantasy Pinterest Board has more stuff in this genre. I have a fondness for 18th century inspired paper doll gowns.
I’m really happy with how Lapis’ hair came out and I am glad to have her joining Sapphire and Opal. Between the three of them, there are six dresses which I think is a good beginning. I need to draw more though. I’m thinking maybe a sports outfit, perhaps hiking? And also maybe something for the seaside. I haven’t totally decided yet. Is there a theme for a gown you’d like to see?
As some of you may recall, I’ve been doing a whole collection of these big skirted fantasy gowns since last year. I knew I wanted to continue the series in 2020, so I have been resizing the dresses for the Jewels and Gemstones 2.0 while also drawing some princesses with amazing hair to get to wear the dresses. I’m calling this the Princess and Their Gowns Collection and this is the second one.
Of course, any of the paper dolls can wear the dresses, as long as they aren’t in historical underwear which will likely show under some of these gowns. Re-posting some of my historical dolls in the new 2.0 format is definitely on the to-do list.
There’s two gowns here- one is a ball gown with a truly impressive skirt. The other is a music dress which could be any type of dress, but comes with a random instrument. The ballgown was originally a Patron design from last year.
The first of these princesses and their gowns was Opal and her princess gowns who I shared back in March. Now, this is the second and I’ve also got a version with Lapis finished. I’ll hopefully share that version soon.
Do you have a favorite of these two gowns? I think I like the music dress, myself. Let me know in a comment! I love to hear from you.
And remember that if you want to get more paper doll clothing, head over to Patreon where I share an extra paper doll or dress on Fridays. There’s other fun projects as well, including my 365 day project where I’m sharing some of the results of my foray into Idea Roulette.
I know I’ve told this story before on this blog, but for those of you who are new, I shall tell it again. When I was a child, my grandmother sent a space princess paper doll card to either me or my sister. Our birthdays are within just a few days of each other. Anyway, I don’t remember much about that era, but I darn well remember that card.
In honor of that, I have a history of creating space princess original paper dolls from this one to this one to today’s, which is made up of my favorite gowns from my Space Princess Week last year. Like most of my Friday paper dolls these days, this paper doll is a “reboot” of older materials, except I’m posting her on Monday, because she’s finished.
Back in 2019, my patrons voted for this space princess paper doll over many other options. I seem to recall I was a little surprised that this was the winner. Space princesses not being typical paper doll topics, but I like letting my patrons have input.
Designing my original paper dolls is always fun, but this one was particularly joyful. Guo Pei’s collections were a big influence on all these gowns. She has a wonderful, almost fantastical style with a strong traditional Chinese influence. A nice article on her work- Guo Pei: Couture Beyond.
A few more inspirations this hair, this gown, this gown both from Dior 2006. Space princess paper dolls need over the top clothing. I recently bought this book on Star Trek Costumes. I keep thinking about what makes something feel futuristic.
I associate purples and gold with futuristic space clothing. So, they made sense as the color scheme for the space princess and her space princess gowns. I don’t entirely know why purple always feels futuristic to me. It’s a very old dye color.
What do you think of today’s space princess? Are you into sci-fi paper dolls? I love them, but they aren’t very common. Let me know what you think in a comment.
In my head, not always a logical space, I tend to organize princess paper dolls and dresses into categories. There are the medieval looks, the renaissance looks and then these- big skirted looks. If anything, I suppose a nod to the 1860s and 1700s, but really… not much when you come down to it. I have a whole Pinterest Board I keep devoted to these big skirted dresses.
There are two dresses here today- a Spring dress and a Winter dress. Clearly, I’ve been influenced by the current weather in Alaska, which is finally spring! It’s so beautiful. Most of the snow is gone and there’s grass. It’s not green, yet, but it will be.
Also, there’s a lot of birch pollen and my allergies are going nuts. I digress. Let’s get back to paper dolls and dresses.
To keep all these gowns feeling consistent, I kept the same color scheme. That makes all the gowns feel like they go together and come from the same sort of universe. A universe where people don’t have to go through doorways often.
Eventually, I will resize the rest Jewels and Gemstones 1.0 Princess Trousseau and pair those with their own princess with absurd hair. After that, there can be a whole collection of paper dolls and dresses with big skirts and fancy hair. All of them will qualify as impractical self-isolation costumes, let me tell you.
A few final thoughts- the current landscape up here inspired the colors of the Spring Dress- yellows and oranges with just a few hints of early spring green. The accessories here are books, because… well, everyone likes books don’t they? And I do tend to draw a lot of books for paper dolls.
I’m a librarian. What can you expect?
I hope everyone is staying safe and sane at the moment. Let me know what you think of today’s paper doll gowns in the comments. I love hearing from you all.
I don’t suffer from a lot of delusions of grandure. I’m a librarian/archivist who draws paper dolls for her micro-business and also can gut a salmon in six cuts. I’m not qualified to say anything about our current pandemic, except that I’m staying home a lot more and for some reason, there is no flour in town.
Bread, yes. Flour, no. I’m so confused, people.
So, instead of telling you to wash your hands (because I hope you are), I am going to focus on what I do- draw paper dolls and occasionally make weird jokes about the strangeness of 1830s hair styles.
Meanwhile, here’s a fantasy princess paper doll dress. And over on Patreon for everyone there’s two other versions of this dress- a blue version & a yellow version.
Inspiration for Today’s Paper
This dress really doesn’t have a source image. I just kinda was drawing one afternoon and it happened. It wasn’t planned or carefully sourced in anyway. If I go way back to this post Green Princess, you will seem a similar silhouette.
By the way, in my head, this is a special dress that was commissioned by the princess to wear to a chess match. Because nothing calls for a new dress, like a chess match. Maybe, she’s in the chess match? I have no idea. I am super bad at chess.
Okay, I know I spent a lot of this post making fun of the 1830s, but really how can you not? Also, I doubt a decade can really be offended and in honor of poor hair choices, I had a bowl cut for most of the 1990s.
In my defense, I was 10. I also had a rat tail which I asked for. It was a thing.
Some of you may recall that last year, I started drawing these full-skirted fantasy gowns for the Jewels and Gemstones. I’ve always loved the idea of a trousseau- all the dresses a woman needed for one year. The idea was to go into married life without needing to spend money on a whole new wardrobe.
The term was also used for describing fashion dolls who had extensive wardrobes in the 19th century. I’ve always been smitten with the idea of dolls with trunks full of tiny perfect little garments.
Shocking? Not really.
Inspiration for Today’s Paper
I wanted to draw a dress where the pattern on the fabric was more important than the complexity of the gown. So, I decided to draw a complex Jacobean floral design which did mean I had to then color the complex design. I always wonder what I was thinking when it comes time to color these sorts of florals.
Last Thoughts on Today’s Princess Fantasy Paper Doll
There will be another Princess Trousseau dress later this week, a Friday Patreon one from last year that I am eager to share. One of the things I really am excited about this year is having a few favorite Friday patreon pieces to share with you all.
