This is an old paper doll. Really… I seem to recall inking it while sitting at my parents dining room table which I think dates it to my college years… It says 2006 on the page which means I was in my third year of college. All of the paper dolls suit’s are based on the covers of sewing patterns. I recall that I was pretty pleased with how she came out.
Life has a way of getting crazy and getting away from me, but I finally feel a little more on top of things after a few weeks of nothing short of total insanity. I finished a paper for one of my classes and that leaves two more to write and one final to take. Not terribly bad, all things considered.
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The first hard frost of winter hit the corn fields, and my car today. So, I guess I should be tracking down my wool socks and getting ready for the long cold winter. Personally, I would rather it stayed fall a little longer, but I doubt its going too. I think winter is actually here.
Since the winter is coming, I decided to go pastel for these vintage inspired dresses. I wanted to make the sorts of things I imagine a Southern woman wearing to church… of course, being neither Southern or having ever gone to church more then twice in my life, I have no idea if anyone would actually wear it to church. Still, I like them, but the black wig might not fit under the pastel green hat.
So, a few weeks ago before I dropped off the face of the earth, before I ended up sick, and before I discovered what fascinating colors old chicken curry can turn, I had a little drawing to celebrate the 65th Marisole paper doll ever. A wonderful reader known as Kat won by drawing and was so kind as to send me the following guidelines for what sort of paper doll she would like to see for her prize.
I was wondering if I could request a Puck doll. If so, I’d very much like to see him in a suit, so that he can take the gussied up Pixies to their soirees :). No real preference on the colors but I would like a boutonniere.
Now, I’ve never been pleased with the Puck paper dolls, but I was willing to try to make some dapper Pucks for her, so I set to work and it took a lot longer then I thought it should, but sometimes these things do.
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It might be a few weeks late, but I am proud to provide two puck paper dolls in stylish suits. The first is Kadeem who I think of as a modern young man heading out for a date, though I suppose in his clean cut suits he could also be heading to work or something else. He has two different boutonnieres and a corsage for his date.
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He’s joined by his good friend Gabriel, a slightly old fashioned gentleman, with a pair of black suits with red ties. Something about double breasted suits always makes me think of the noir movies, so I gave Gabriel an old fashioned hair style and shoes to go with it. Gabriel, Gabe to his friends, also has two boutonnieres and a corsage. If you slit along the dotted line on the suit jackets, the gentleman can wear their boutonniere.
I hope these guys were worth the wait, Kat and now any of the Puck paper dolls are ready for dates. Love maybe in the air.
Sometimes, this blog feels a bit like albatross around my neck, only with fewer feathers. It’s gets heavy and awkward and then I don’t update for a few days and I feel guilty for not updating.
And I tell myself, “No one reads it” (which I know to not be true, but it’s a good line) or “I don’t have anything to post” (which is also usually false) or “There’s no point in posting something when I know I don’t have a weeks worth of posts” (also not true, but it’s an excuse) and, of course, “I’m too busy” (which of all my excuses is actually sometimes true).
None of these excuses really keep me from feeling guilty about the whole thing, but they make the guilt slightly easier to deal with.
I wonder if other paper doll bloggers feel this way. I don’t know. We’re not exactly a massive community.
Wow, this might be the most melodramatic post I’ve ever put up on this blog and I almost didn’t post it, but I’m struggling to be more personal on the blog. The irony is that I have been drawing, but none of it has been blog related and I have tons penciled, but am having a hard time getting around to inking, scanning and coloring. But I buckled down this weekend and got some done, so I have high hopes for at least getting back to some updating.
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Starting that trend is today’s Marisole flapper paper doll rocking some roaring 1920s fashions. She’s wearing a wardrobe taken from fashion plates and magazines of the twenties. While I love 1920’s fashion, I don’t know if Marisole wears it very well. She has pretty serious hips and this was a time when long and lean was the name of the game. So, I have some mixed feelings about how they all look. Still, I have enjoyed getting to do some historical stuff with Marisole and I do think she makes a pretty cute “flapper”.
I’m also playing around with this new “related” posts feature which I think might be totally useless. I’ll give it a few more weeks.
Edit 8/23/13: This paper doll is now available in black and white for coloring, scroll down a bit on the post and you should see her.
Today’s paper doll is another one of my forays into steampunk or neo-victorian or a gross misapplication of my knowledge of 1900’s costume, pick your term. I am not convinced that steampunk isn’t just what happens with goths discovered brown and gears, but I am trying to be open minded about it. I do like pseudo-victorian costume and I always have, so I guess I can’t judge. Though gears when they don’t seem to do anything sort of annoy me, I mean… they should have a purpose. Do I sound like an old man growling about children on his porch? I rather think I do…
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So, I know I promised to get back to normal this week, but it just didn’t seem to quite happen. I have some Curves 2.0 things drawn and colored, so I have no excuse. Would a double post for those paper dolls perhaps help make up for my lack of clothing? I feel so bad for the girls running around in their unmentionables.
For some reason I can not fathom, I have gotten less sleep with week then last week which is odd, since I spent last week house sitting four cats and four snakes, one of which bit me (a snake, not the cats). Since snakes can carry bacteria, I soaked my hand, band-aided it and checked it regularly. It’s healing just fine, but the speed at which a snake can move is shocking. Makes me wonder why anyone would want to keep poisonous ones. Even if the snakes were ill tempered, the cats were mostly sweethearts, with the exception of one which I am convinced is secretly a super-villain. That’s over now and I’m just back to classes and work, so I have no excuse for not getting plenty of rest or keeping up with the blog.
I had so much fun drawing and researching this paper doll. I’d forgotten what a blast it is to settle down in the library with a big stack of historical costume books. (Okay, so maybe that makes me all kinds of geeky, but I can be cool with that.) The early teens of the 20th century are fascinating to me, because they are before the Great War (also known as World War 1) and repersent the last hurrah of a culture that was ended by the time was war ended. The Great War truly changed the cultural and poltical and geographic landscape of Europe and when it was over, nothing would ever be the same. While historical interesting, the Second World War’s cultural upheavel can not be compared to the devestation wrought by the First World War.
Along with historical costume and libraries, I am a bit of a World War One buff.
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Anyway, I mostly used The Cut of Women’s Clothes: 1600-1930 by Waugh, Fashion in Costume 1200-2000 and Fashion Accessories: The Complete 20th Century Sourcebook. None of them are what I would call excellent texts (except The Cut of Women’s Clothes: 1600-1930), but they all served the purpose of providing images of clothing to draw from. I have my doubts about Peacock’s research sometimes since his work is not extensively footnoted, but I love how easy it is to draw from. I should add that all of Marisole’s costumes come from between 1910 and 1915- the first part of the decade up to the first year of the Great War.
Edit 8/23/13: This paper doll is now available in black and white for coloring.
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It’s so humid here, I feel as though I live in a pond, under water, fully dressed. Kinda makes me unhappy. On the flip side, I have a riding habit here. I have to confess I’ve only ridden a horse two times in my life and am sort of scared of them.
They are very large. Also, they always seem to be planning something.
However, riding was a typical and socially acceptable activity in the Victorian era and a good excuse to wear boots with tassels on them. Interestingly enough, riding habits were one of the only things Victorian women bought from tailors, not seamstresses. Partly because of this, they always have obviously masculine influences attached to them- hence the jacket and necktie.
Florence, who can wear this riding habit, can be found over here.
Today we have the last of the Trudy paper dolls. I haven’t yet decided what I should do for my next short run doll. I’ve been combing through by own old file folders of paper dolls looking for things I can post and for things which are nearly done and it would only take a little work to make them totally usable for the site. It is neat to see how my own art has improved and how my style has changed.
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The more I learn about the comic paper dolls that inspired Trudy, the more impressed I am by the artists. A few of my favorite Katy Keene paper dolls are the ones in neat poses that you wouldn’t expect to see a paper doll in. Also you can find Katy on a horse. You can tell Bill Woogon, the artist, was having a lot of fun with these. Maybe someday I’ll have the nerve to draw a paper doll in a strange pose though I think if I do, she wouldn’t be on a horse.
Non-Katy Keene dolls which impress me are generally the newspaper paper dolls that were printed in one color without shading. Not being a huge fan of shading myself, I love the sparse line work that makes these paper dolls fantastic examples of how you don’t need a lot of times to make an impact. Some neat ones can be found from Boots, a blog devoted to these newspaper images to color, many of which are paper dolls, and from The Paper Collector and Marge8’s Blog which I’ve already written a bit about.
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I don’t usually name my Curves paper dolls, but then I don’t usually need too. In this case it seems necessary, because how could I present the famous Adele without an introduction? Who else has fought for truth, justice and all other noble things while also being a smart young lady with an innate sense of style? With her glasses firmly over her eyes, her walking stick in hand and her gloves loaded, Adele faces off with the Mars Men, the strange otherworldly beings from the next dimension and still manages to lay a proper table for tea. Truly a lady to be admired by us all.
Is it obvious I’ve been spending a lot of time with Victorian three volume novels?
On an unrelated note, one of my goals for the last few days of drawing has been to stretch myself a bit with the paper dolls, so expect to see more pattern and more detail. The plaid on the vest is an example. I’ve always been scared of plaid, but I think it turned out okay.
Today we have a traveling suit for Florence’s trousseau. I have known I needed one of these for her, so I went onto finding a fashion plate.
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Florence’s paper doll traveling costume is based on this fashion plate from the NYPL’s digital gallery (I say based on because it is fairly obvious where the paper doll clothes and the actual plate deviate). The dress is labeled in German and my German is practically non-existent.
I’ve been meaning to ask my German speaking co-worker to translate it for weeks and keep forgetting. I tried babelfish and it didn’t exactly work. It game me an answer, but the answer made no sense. Truth be told, I don’t know if its a traveling suit or not, but it looks fairly similar to others I have seen. Anyway, Florence is my paper doll and if I want to declare this her traveling costume, I darn well can. My life might be full of other sources of chaos, but my paper dolls do as they are told… sometimes.
Suits for women were in style in the 1870’s, so it seemed only reasonable to give Florence one, since she is the most fashionable of paper dolls. I also wanted to use the opportunity to make a few tops to go with the same skirt or several skirts. I expect I shall do this more often and a smart color-er of these paper doll clothes would be wise to consider this for future mix and matchable clothing options. It was common to have two bodices to go with one skirt during this era, so one bodice might be a formal dinner dress while the other bodice would be an afternoon or a visiting costume. The very smart lady (or paper doll, in our case) could, of course, turn an afternoon costume into a visiting costume by adding the right jewelry and a smart hat.
Here is Florence, just in case you missed the first post in this series.
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Sometimes, when I’m feeling a little glum, I dress up. I put out my clothing the night before classes (all my classes are in the morning, which is rough) and I wake up early and I get all dressed up. I feel better when I’m dressed up. I find when I’m feeling out of it, I often rely on my sweaters and slacks to just get by each day. But I think when I feel like I look good, my mood improves.
I have no idea what any of that has to do with my blog or these paper dolls, but I just felt like sharing.
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Recently, I read in a fashion magazine that the “ladies who lunch” look was in. Being from the wilds of the damp north-land, I’m not totally sure what it meant, but I suspect classic refined old money sort of clothing was the thing. Though I am not totally proud of how this set turned out, part of keeping a printable paper doll blog is being willing to accept that not very post is perfect.
(Not that I don’t wish it was.)
