short hair

Shadow and Light: Sci-Fi Printable Paper Doll

I did a few different things over the weekend and during the week of blog neglecting (actually, I wasn’t neglecting the blog, I was just busy with a lot of other things for the blog, that weren’t ready to be posted). So, I have a few things to talk about today. I have rewritten my FAQ. I’ve added a few more blogs, not paper doll specific, and removed a few dead links from the Links page. Obviously, the menus have been reorganized. One of these days I will over-haul the Gallery page. I don’t like it. I don’t know what to do with it. It seemed like a good idea at the time, but now I’m dissatisfied with it. I need to think about it.

I’d kill the Gallery if I knew what the heck to do with the content already posted there. Decisions decisions.

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So, I should say that this new paper doll series evolved out of the number of comments I had from people who really liked the shadowed style of paper dolls. I was surprised by the interest in them since I’d always thought I was the only one who liked those paper dolls. How wrong I was.

The truth is that I began this series a long time ago, but never posted it since I didn’t know how to fit it into the schedule and then recently when I looked at the bulging folder full of drawings and the ones in my sketchbook I was really quite proud of, I thought, “I’m bored with Flora. I avoid drawing for her. Just got for it.”

And here we are today with a new paper doll series. I’m excited and pleased (and have songs from the musical Into the Woods stuck in my head, but that’s got nothing to do with this post) and I’d love to hear what people think, as always.

Boldly Going… A Star Trek Paper Doll

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Blame my mother.

This is all her fault.

She is the reason I love Star Trek and part of the reason I love paper dolls. When I was a child, I was allowed to stay up half an hour later with her to finish watching Star Trek: The Next Generation if my teeth were brushed and I was in my nightgown. When I was in middle school, I started watching Star Trek: Deep Space Nine. Recently, I have begun to watch the original series on DVD from the library. In short, I am a bit of a Trekkie- though I like to think a fairly harmless one.

I am sure true die-hard Trekkies could tell me everything that I got wrong on these paper dolls, but I can’t really be bothered to care. I will say this though- finding a decent reference photograph for the shoes worn by those characters was a pain in the behind and I’m still not sure I got them right. Oh well, you win some and you lose some. Feet are not often shown in television episodes.

I heard somewhere (trustworthy source that) that there was a rule in Star Trek that you weren’t supposed to show any fasteners. I don’t really get why. I mean, lacing up clothing has been done for centuries, not to mention buttons. I figure people would hard pressed to invent a better system, but I suppose it does subtly convey the sense of “futuristic” in an interesting way.

Curves: Fur Trimmed Gothic

So, this is a stupidly titled paper doll, but her sleeves are fuzzy, so that should be worth something. 🙂

Curves is a complicated series for me, in part because it fore fills two goals. I began it when I did all my paper dolls for the blog in the heavily shadowed style of Curves, but I wanted to do a full figured paper doll since the ones I had seen online were not very attractive and I thought I could do better.

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Two years later, Curves is my only regularly updating paper doll in the heavily shadowed style I developed in college and still often use for non-paper doll drawing. I like the style, because I believe it doesn’t need to be colored, it has a strong enough graphic presence without adding color. A lot of people color them, and that’s fine with me, but my goal was to make a black and white paper doll that didn’t need to be colored.

There were some side effects of this. The heavy shadows, strongly influenced by Frank Miller’s graphic novels, make for a fairly “dark” paper doll. In several ways, the details are often obscured and lost while the tone is also distinctly heavy. Being a bit of a noir movie lover, I don’t mind the tonal shift, but I do think it lends its self to some styles better then others. Gothic, vintage, and some fantasy clothing comes out looking wonderful, but the average jeans and t-shirt leave something to be desired.

I don’t want to give up my heavily shadowed dolls, because I do like them. I also don’t want to stop drawing a full figured paper doll since I think its important. Unfortunately, I also getting somewhat bored with Curves after two years. I think there needs to be a Curves 2.0. I just haven’t figured out yet how to pull that off or what it’ll look like when I do.

Progress reports and thoughts on the subject will be forth coming. Until then, enjoy the furry Gothic costumes for this new Curves doll and anyone’s thoughts on the matter are welcome.

Curves: Spots & Dots

When I don’t know what to draw, I tend to fall back on casual contemporary clothing. It’s easy. I usually have plenty of references by looking outside the window or drawing from fashion magazines. Since I didn’t know what to draw tonight, and I was tired after a long day at work, I decided to go with my casual fall back position.

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I have to confess to not being totally happy with them. There is an argument to be made for only ever putting out your very best work, but I’ve never believed it. Part of the point of this blog is to make myself drawn more, so if I only posted my best work, I wouldn’t be posting much. I’ve been drawing for Curves for over two years now and I wonder if perhaps I’m just becoming tired of them. I love the heavily shadowed style and I think its important to have fuller figured paper dolls on the blog, but I won’t deny that they frustrating at times.

Perhaps its time for a Curves version 2.0… I shall have to give it some thought.

Pixie & Puck: Cyborg

Obviously, I have been playing around with shiny a bit lately. I did it for the Marisole Superhero post. I have another shiny post in the early stages of work. I rather like the shiny effect, though there should be a more effective way of doing it then what I have been doing. I just don’t know what that might be at the moment.

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I am really lucky to have supportive friends. When I sit around while we watch movies or hang out and draw paper dolls their reactions are usually, “That’s neat.” Rather than making fun of me for being a mid-twenties graduate student whose drawing paper dolls.

When I was in high school and through most of college and I drew paper dolls, it was a tightly kept secret I shared with only a few people. I did say I collected, but it was always- because I have since I was a child… I never wanted to confess I really did still enjoy paper dolls.

I’ve gotten over it. Maybe it’s time or maturity or something else, but I no longer get nervous telling people about my weird hobby… most of the time. It’s still not something I advertise.

Marisole Monday: Pirate Vs. Ninja- Pirate Edition

Sometimes people make the mistake of asking what my favorite novel. This is a really hard question to answer. Usually, I fall back on Treasure Island by Robert Louis Stevenson. I read it as a child and return to it every few years. Each time, I am struck by the detail, the care and the complexity. It is a story full of questions of honor, betrayal, revenge and greed. Its villain is compassionate and compelling. Its hero’s are honorable, but hard. It’s a fascinating story. I recommend it to any adult or child who likes adventure tales. Really, I recommend it to anyone ever.

Also, there are pirates. And who doesn’t like pirates? Plus buried treasure and madmen and betrayal and fight scenes.

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These paper doll pieces are more fantasy then reality, but that is the fun of paper dolls after all. I mean, it’s not like I actually bothered doing any real research in this case. I just had some fun with the fantasy. I mean, have you seen the Ninja side of this set? It’s not like I’ve even tried to be vaguely historically accurate.

I’ve been thinking about completely re-formating the site a lot lately… but then sanity prevails and I realize I don’t really have time. Still, I think I would like to convert it back to a more basic blog format, but then I’m worried I’d lose some of the features I like of this format… So, thoughts are ongoing. I could hand-code it, but it would take so much time and lots of trial and error. I shall have to think about my options a bit more before I decide, I think.

So, as some of you know I had a drawing last Monday and I said I would select a winner this Monday. In the end, I had 8 entries. So I just rolled an 8 sided dice, left over from other geeky hobbies I do, and came up with the number 3. That makes Monica the winner of my little drawing. Monica, please email me (paperthinpersonas (at) gmail (dot) com) with what sort of paper doll you would like. 🙂

Also, come back tomorrow and there will be something fun. I promise.

Pixie: Amelia

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Of all of the Pixie paper dolls I have done over the last few weeks, this is perhaps my favorite. I love how her hair came out and I think she looks fun and cute and interesting. I also think her wardrobe is fairly versatile. All in all, I’m pretty proud of her.

I hate that I don’t have much else to say intelligently about this paper doll, but sometimes all I can offer up is a few sentences. Also, I have papers to write and a custom Marisole Monday to finished (which, though I am only halfway done, is coming out quite nicely I think.)

Marisole Monday: Autumn Chic

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Picking out color schemes is one of the hardest things I do for my paper dolls, but I think it’s very important to make sure each paper doll makes sense. I want it to be colored in such a way that you can combine as many pieces as possible for as many outfits as possible. After all, that is the point of a paper doll isn’t it? I use some tools like The Color Scheme Designer and the Color Schemer Gallery which provides all sorts of color scheme options. I love looking at different color ideas, but I find I come back to the blue, orange, purple schemes a lot. I wear all those colors fairly often in the real world.

So, I’ve also decided to have a contest. Answer the question right and you get a custom Marisole paper doll. Details below:

What is my favorite holiday?

The Rules:
1) One guess per person per day.
2) If no one guesses right by Monday, I’ll give a hint or pick the closest.
3) Anyone who knows me well enough to make a very informed guess, doesn’t get to enter. Sorry guys.

I think that’s everything. And lest you think this is completely random, I assure everyone that I have mentioned the holiday on the blog before, but not in a very obvious way. The prize is a custom Marisole paper doll, so you tell me the hair color, skin color, hair style and basic theme and I’ll draw the paper doll. Of course, it might take me a while since I’m often slow with finishing things.

Good luck 🙂

Edit: The Contest is now closed. Thanks to everyone who entered.

Edit (10/7/2013): I just posted this paper doll set in black and white, so if you want to color her- now you can!

Curves: Snowflakes

Originally, I drew this paper doll to try to draw things I really wear on a regular basis to work, though I ended up sort of modifying them both since my standard work attire just isn’t that interesting. It’s cold out today with frost and snow on the ground. The sun has been setting early- though I know it’s past the solstice- it seems dark. I find I sleep more when there is a lot of darkness.

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School hasn’t restarted yet, so I’m working full time to make up some missed hours and spending a fair bit of time working on things for the site. I’m trying to end up ahead of the curve for the next year and not behind it as I usually am.

Of course, we know what they say about good intentions and roads to hell.

So, speaking of good intentions, I have been thinking a fair bit about goals for the upcoming year. Some of my goals for the blog are concrete like getting my Gallery page up and running (which should be up, fingers crossed, on Friday) and trying to post at least once a week even if it is a filler doodle. Other goals are more… abstract- like trying to do things with my paper dolls that scare me.

A year ago, I never would have through I could really do a weekly full color paper doll and now I have two (Marisole and Pixie), or that I would end the year having posted 106 paper dolls here on PTP. I’m proud of those achievements, but there’s so many other things I’m afraid of- shiny fabric, hands, figure drawing, draped fabric, animals, any kind of mechanical object or furniture, shading in photo-shop, color in physical mediums… the list is long. So, my other goal is to do one thing that scares me every week.

Marisole Monday: Inspired by Africa

Way back in June, I did a paper doll set roughly based on some Asian costumes and mostly based on what I draw when I’m bored in class. Lindsey asked if I would consider doing an African inspired set in the same style. Now, I wasn’t against the idea, but I didn’t know anything about African dress. After several months of looking at pictures, many books borrowed from the library and a fair bit of internet searching, I can now say I know a little bit about African dress.

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To give credit where it is due, the dress with the blue sash on the cream is based on a dress in the South African Fashion Week show of Amanda Laird Cherry. You can see a picture of the original garment here. The trousers are based on this design by the African designer Janice Morrison. I used a considerably more subdued color pallet for my paper doll based on the colors of mud cloth and traditional bead work.

The black dress with the gold is based on a dresses worn in Tunisia, usually over white blouses and loose trousers. I have included a white dress to wear under it. The two poncho like robes (the cream one and the blue one) are based on robes worn by men in Nigeria made up of strips of cloth. Mine are much shorter and slightly more fitted. As I said, it was a fantasy interpretation of African costume. The book I adapted these costumes from is called African Costumes and Textiles: From the Berbers to the Zulus. It’s a wonderful look at original garments. This paper doll set is an utterly inauthentic collection of fantasy garments. Enjoy. 🙂

Edit: It has come to my attention that some sites are linking this post as actual African traditional dress. It is NOT. Please don’t pro-port that it is. 

Pixie: Zoe

It’s the New Year.

Time for changes, adventure, excitement and a brand new paper doll series. Yay.

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The Pixie paper dolls will go up every Sunday. They are, obviously, full color printable paper dolls inspired partly by Marisole and partly by the desire for another full color series. There will also be a few other major changes for the new year, but we’ll get to those as we do. I don’t want to say things and then have them not happen.

Unlike Marisole (whose hair is redrawn each time but nothing else is), the Pixie’s have their whole heads changed each time and this lets me play with characters and expressions and things in ways I can’t really with Marisole (well, I could, but I don’t cause it feels weird).

The first of the new paper doll series is Zoe. Zoe is named for a girl who I played with when I was in middle school. Since I live in graduate and international housing, the paper doll was also inspired by a Chinese girl who sat across from me in class for a semester. I really doubt she knew I was examining her face for future paper doll fodder or even noticed. The resulting doll looks nothing like her, but the early doodles did give me the confidence to try to draw epicanthic fold (I think it’s called) on a paper doll.

New Year’s Party: Printable Paper Doll

I don’t celebrate Christmas, so there was never going to be any sort of Christmas paper doll from me though I have enjoyed other’s forays into that genre. But I do celebrate the New Year in traditional style which is to say, I get together with friends and party.

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I wanted to draw some party dresses for Curves and that meant sketching a pair of short flirty dresses. Though I must confess openly, that the dress on the left (with the puffed top) is not the most flattering thing I have ever drawn for Curves. Of course, I suspect it wouldn’t be that flattering on anyone.

In other website news, I’m excited to offer a preview of something coming starting in January. I’ll be starting a new paper doll series and here is a little preview of what they’ll be looking like. So, you can expect a new full color printable paper doll set starting January 2nd, which is a Sunday for those who are counting.

Oh, and as long as you’re here, why not vote in the poll on the sidebar and help decide the future layout of this little corner of the web?