I mean, I might have watched “Blade Runner” one to many times or maybe I’ve been collecting to many steampunk reference images in my files, but somehow I just thought that combining 1940’s and 1930’s noir film suits with platform heels and facial peircings seemed like a good idea.
Truth be told, I am rather pleased with the outcome. I figured out a way to do hats that “work” on magnetic paper dolls (who can not have things layered “behind” them very well”) and got to play with some of the diversity that might be possible from the Flock. I chose Starling to show off this style, because there was something about her little smirk/half smile with the hair style that I thought looked good.
So, I am quite pleased with the outcome.
One of the things I wanted to do with the Flock magnetic sets was make sure there was versatility. The pieces which “only” Starling can wear are on her page- the shoes and the hats with the hair attached. The pieces on the other page will fit any of the Flock magnetic dolls.
I think this style should be called “Noir Punk” as in “Steampunk” or I think it should be called “Punk Noir,” but I can’t really decide which one. Either way, you’ll find the downloads below. Let me know what you think in a comment.
Marisole has been a lot of things over the years… She’s been a zombie and a pirate and a ninja and a member of Star Fleet, but she’s never just been a warrior chick and I thought she should be, plus I have a friend whose really into Xena and she was remarking that Marisole has been a lot of princesses, but she hadn’t ever really been ready for a fight.
So, here she is, ready for a fight. Though… I confess her armor isn’t really very… practical. Still, she’ll look cute and that’s half the battle.
asked: Did you like playing with dolls as a kid? As in, the non-paper kind? If so, what doll was your favorite? If not, what toy was your favorite and why?
I love dolls as a kid. I still love dolls, though over the years, I have come to realize what I really loved was miniature clothing and things. I loved all the tiny clothing and accessories more than I loved the dolls themselves.
My favorite dolls were Ginny dolls by Vogue. My Ginny’s had all sorts of adventures, but my fondest memories of the Ginny dolls are when my Grandmother came to visit and she would knit and sew them clothing. I still own all the tiny outfits my grandmother made for them and the wooden furniture my grandfather made.
Just for Boots, I didn’t make anything pink in this set. 🙂
Originally, there was pink in it, but I do use a lot of pink… which is odd, because I don’t like pink that much in the real world… So, I decided to be anti-pink for a while. Plus I think these dresses are fro-froo enough without adding pink into the mix.
Not that I have anything against pink, mind you… just a thought, really.
And now for a question:
Julie asked: What advice would you give an aspiring paper doll artist? Are there Fashion Illustration books you recommend? How about Figure Drawing books?
To aspiring paper doll artists (and I’m not sure I’m not that far from ‘aspiring’ myself), I’d say the following:
Draw a lotLook at paper dolls you like and try to figure out what you like about themDon’t be afraid to copy a style you like- imitation is the sincerest form of flatteryReference images are your friendDraw what you like and what you love, not what you think is popular or other people will likeHave fun and stretch yourself… even though that’s scary a lot of the time
As for books, I would recommend… I think that’s worthy of it’s own blog post. So, I will work on putting together a list. If i had to name one, it would be Drawing the Head and Figure by Jack Hamm. It’s old, but it’s solid and I still use my copy when I need to draw a face in profile. (You might notice, I don’t do that much… cause I suck at it, but I use Hamm whenever I think I want to try again.)
Here’s a question for my readers, would you be interested in knowing what books I use and/or recommend about historical costume or figure drawing?
First of all, Happy Labor Day to those in the USA who get the holiday off. Had I realized it was going to be Labor Day when I posted this paper doll, I would have come up with something thematic… but instead we have crazy Rococo dresses. This is what happens when I work several weeks a head.
Though not Labor Day thematic, I love the 18th century… not historically speaking (I really don’t care much about the French revolution or the American revolution or… I digress), but the period is full of wonderful over the top dresses and wigs. I love the wigs.
Not that I would have wanted to wear them, since they were nearly impossible to clean and made of human hair or sheep’s wool…. and that gets gross fast. There are even reports of rats living in women’s wigs…. All I can say to that is “ewww”
Still, crazy wigs are cool in theory, if not in reality.
Now, for a question:
Dorothy D Lafferty asked: So when will you do a “librarian” paper doll?
Probably not anytime soon… though I do seem to draw a lot of books as accessory items for my paper dolls… so that might say something about me.
I suppose I should eventually do a librarian paper doll, but I don’t know what she would wear. What does a stylish librarian wear?
Unless she’s Batgirl…. Because Batgirl was a librarian… and then I would need a paper Batgirl costume and I don’t know if I’m up for that.
On the other hand, I got to say, Yvonne Craig is pretty darn hot as Batgirl.
And I do have one friend for whom the idea of a Batgirl paper doll would make absurdly happy.
What do you all think a librarian paper doll (Batgirl or not) ought to wear?
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.
So, first of all, I want to thank everyone whose entered my drawing and asked me a question. The questions have all been really interesting. It’s fascinating to think about what maybe I have or haven’t said on the blog that perhaps I should have said… and if that’s not the most convoluted sentence ever… I don’t know what is.
The drawing is open until next Tuesday and then I’ll use a random number generator to pick the winner.
And now…. A few words about the printable paper doll of the day….
The Shadow and Light paper dolls are drawn in a style I developed in college after complaining that most black and white paper dolls needed to be colored to look good. I wanted to draw some paper dolls that were graphic enough to stand alone without being colored, plus I was reading a lot of comics in those days and had a love of the heavy shadowed style of Frank Miller’s Sin City and Marcelo Frusin, who was drawing the Hellblazer comics at that time with Mike Carey was writing it. I stopped reading comics when I got to graduate school, far to much to do and not enough time to do it in, but I hope to get back to them and at least finish Lucifer which I never did get done with and darn it, I wanna know how it ends.
Okay, I know how it ends, but I still wanna read it…
This particular paper doll has “flirty eyes” which is a term used to describe dolls that look to the side rather than forward. It’s a pretty common term in antique and collectable dolls and “flirty eyed” dolls were particularly popular in the 1900s with Googlies and Lenci dolls.
One of the first paper dolls I did with heavy shadow, I just realized recently that I forgot to give her eyebrows. Maybe I can pretend it was intentional? I think I will. She;’s kinda ancient, but also sorta fun.
Happy Earth Day! There’s an Earth and we should be grateful or else we’d not exist. So, I’m glad for that. Beyond that, I try to avoid politics on this little corner of the web. There are other corners of the web for politics. Here is the corner of paper dolls.
Two of my favorite recent paper dolls are Constance and Prudence, who I’ve always thought of as best friends, and so today I present them both in black and white for coloring enjoyment. Each paper doll was meant to have a distinct casual and slightly indie style. Prudence is a little bit vintage and Constance is a little bit tomboy. The t-shirt styles for the Constance paper doll are based on mandala designs which are simplified for the small size.
So, today, I’d like to also call attention to a new blog with some delightful black and white paper dolls called Inflammation Of…, which is about both paper dolls and raising a child with chrons disease. I have had several thank yous sent to me over the years from parents with health issues in their families who like the paper dolls and I always feel very touched that my paper dolls can help in any small way for people in need. Plus there’s a whole set of clothes for her paper dolls inspired by Scoopy-Doo and who isn’t in favor of paper dolls inspired by Scooby-Doo? I loved Scooby-Doo when I was a kid.
(Actually, I still sorta love Scoopy-Doo, but I try to be more of an adult and not admit these things in public.)
Click on the images to download the PDF file for printing the magnetic paper dolls.
First off: I was not abducted by aliens or eaten by a polar bear or killed by some strange monster which lives in the depths of the library stacks.
Rather, I was busy working on class things, working on work things and working on thesis writing things. The truth is that for the next semester, the blog is going to be neglected and I am going to feel guilty about it, but I am really really crazy busy.
My mother attends a quilting retreat each January with some friends and there is a tradition of bringing a little gift for the other quilters. Since I gave her a set of magnetic Marisole paper dolls this year for the holidays, she decided she wanted a set for her quilting friends. Everything about these paper dolls was produced with her consultation.
The magnetic paper doll (who can can clothing with magnetic Marisole) has gray hair, red glasses. She comes with her sewing machine, a rather lopsided quilt and several different important quilting accessories (scissors and things).
After she approved the paper doll design, we went through all of the Marisole paper dolls I have drawn and selected a collection of clothing to go with the doll. Each attending person got one main doll and then one page of extra clothing.
It was fairly entertaining to sit down with Mom and have her select what she liked. Sometimes, I guessed right on what she would pick, but often I was surprised. My mom and I have similar taste in clothing and jewelry and fabric, so I suspected we’d have similar taste in paper dolls.
I knew she’d like the pirates and the commercial fishing paper doll. I was fairly certain she would go for something fantasy and I thought the art deco stuff was a shoe in. I knew Tones and Shades would be important since she shares my love of beautiful textiles that are used in Kimono. I was a little surprised by the fantasy set she liked, since it’s one I’m not totally pleased with.
I have come up with some quick fixes which I think should at least feed the blog while I’m so very busy. There will be some sketchbook posts, probably some black and white posts (mostly of things which have already appeared once in color since that is the easiest sort for me to do) and possibly something else as I figure out what I can find time for. I don’t want to give up PTP, but I do have a thesis to write.
One last note on these magnetic paper dolls, they are sized as an 8 by 10.5 inch image, rather then my usual 8 by 10 inch, since I knew which printer I would be printing them on. Double check the PDF settings before you print them to make sure they will fit. On some printers, they might print slightly smaller than the other magnetic Marisole paper dolls, which is why I’m not putting them in the same category. Enjoy them.
And here we have the first Shadow and Light paper doll of the new year. And we are here going into the third year of the blog, technically the fourth if you count the total collapse the site suffered after its first year. Anyway, I’m pleased with how I’ve done and pleased with how things went.
It’s been a good year for the blog and while I disappeared a bit, I was much better about posting this year than last year. We had a few contests, put up about 140 printable paper dolls (not inculding my magnetic ones), started two new series (Dictionary Girls and Shadow and Light) and retired two series (Flora of the Regency and Curves).
In the coming year, I would like to draw a male paper doll- a challenge from Boots of 19th Century Paper dolls and maybe try to post more sketchbook things. I’d also like to do some child paper dolls. Perhaps as erratically updating series rather then my weekly ones… would that bother people? Having both? Or should I just focus on doing more of what I’ve already committed too.
If this were a dating game show, I would describe Mara as a charming young woman with a love of flowers and long walks through the woods. Since this isn’t a dating game show, as far as I know, I think I’ll just stick with saying that Mara is a one page paper doll with a wardrobe of nine pieces that can be mix and matched to make up 18 different combinations.
In case you’re wondering how I got to that number, the calculation looks like this:
((Number of Tops * Number of Bottoms)+ Number of Dresses)*Number of Shoes= Outfit Combinations
It gets a little more complicated if you add in jackets and other layering pieces, but usually it works out well and, of course, it doesn’t consider things like how well the pieces match with each other. Yes, I might be a little OCD to have come up with a formula for calculating paper doll wardrobe options. (Only sort of math I can really imagine doing…)
Later or tomorrow, there will be something fun and new for the first day of Hanukkah (a holiday no one likes to try to spell) which starts tonight at Sunset.
Today, I had my last finals and my paper due. Classes for the last semester are officially over and I am extremely happy. If you haven’t spent time on Teri’s Paper Doll Scans, I can’t recommend it enough. It’s a wonderful collection of paper dolls.
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