tattoos

Spikes & Pleats: A Punk Fashion Paper Doll in Black and White

First of all: Happy Martin Luther King Jr. Day to those in the United States who celebrate.

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I am spending my day off doing exciting things like washing laundry and cleaning my kitchen and getting this slightly belated than usual Marisole post up. I decided to use Margot since she’s new.
After some thought, I have broken down the Marisole Monday category into sections for Margot, Marisole and Mia, my three different “faces” for Marisole, if that makes sense. The dolls can all share clothing.

Sometimes an whole paper doll set comes out of my desire to draw a single outfit. In the case of today’s paper doll set, it was the high-waisted plaid skirt and the tie. So, after I decided I wanted to draw that then the rest of it came together along similar lines- lots of pleats and a sort of “school girl gone wrong” kinda vibe.

One of my favorite paper dolls blogs has a new address. A Time For Paper Dolls used to be Inflammation Of… and I am really enjoying her dolls. I love their clean crisp lines and simple shapes. If I had small children, I would totally print these out for them and I might just color a few on my own for fun.

I totally make my own fun.

Puck: Trey… he’s a little bit Punk…Paper Doll to Print

So, I know there haven’t been very many Puck paper dolls lately… so here is one. He’s not the superhero I had planned on posting, but I think a little punk fella goes with the various other punky Pixie and Puck paper dolls I promised and posted (and yes, I do like alliteration, thank you much).

As always, Trey can trade costumes with any of the other Puck paper dolls, so you can ger a variety of other costumes if you want them. And I’ve learned from Dover that perhaps I should call them “Paper Action Figures.” I love the robots and their costumes.

Oh and I should had, his skin tone did not look so sickly when I originally chose it and somehow now I think he looks like he suffers from some skin condition… Sometimes I hate skintones.

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So for my question:

AGLOVERELIZABETH asked:
Would you rather be
a) a mermaid
b) a pirate
c) a princess
d) a fairy

Personally, I’m pretty content to be a special collections librarian, but when I was little I remember demanding to be a “magical unicorn fairy ballerina” when playing pretend with my friends in kindergarten. I think this had more to do with wanting to be better than those people who just wanted to be a “magical unicorn”, proving that, even at a young age, I understood the concept of “powergaming.”

Have a question you’d like me to answer? Ask me.

Circuits and Fishnet: Cyberpunk Printable Paper Doll

Today Marisole printable paper doll is going cybergoth since there’s just not enough neon and shiny in Marisole’s eclectic paper wardrobe. This is the first new Marisole in a depressingly long time… I confess I spent time I probably should have spent revising a paper on this, but after five hours in the library my mind is pretty much non-functional anyway. And it’s nice to come home to paper doll coloring as a relaxing project to work on.

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Now, I did recently get my hands on Gothic: Dark Glamour by Valerie Steele. While I normally I like Steele’s work, I was a bit disappointed by this book. It didn’t have the lavish pictures I have come to want in any costume book I buy. Still, it did have a fairly nice description of cyber-gothic and helped me narrow things down to black with neon accents. The hair was the hardest part of this paper doll, but I am actually quite pleased at how it came out. The other piece I am most proud of is the shiny black corset. Shiny fabrics are something I am still practicing and I am totally excited at how perfect the corset turned out to be. It’s rare that I really feel like I’ve achieved what I wanted with texture. Texture is hard.

So, I’ve done a dark steampunk paper doll over the years, a gothic Lolita one and one punk paper doll, but I don’t think I’ve ever really done a traditional gothic paper doll unless you count my vampire paper doll in 2010. I wonder if I should? What do other people think?

Pixie & Puck: Thorne

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I sort of think of Thorne (named after a friend from high school who looked nothing like this, but that is not here nor there) as perhaps the boyfriend of Jay or at least that they come from the same world. It’s the same world I tend to assume my Cyborg and Vera come from. Perhaps a futuristic place with lots of neon and flying cars.

Sort of Fifth Element meets Mad Max. Of the two, I’d take the visual style of the Fifth Element over Mad Max pretty much any day.

Pixie & Puck: Jay

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Obviously, I have been watching to much of Demolition Man while practicing my shiny textures. Actually, on Friday, I did just that. A girlfriend and I got together for pizza, a cupcake each from the bakery and movies.

First we watched Demolition Man which is basically everything good about a Sylvester Stallone movies distilled down in to a thick glorious syrup. After Demolition Man (I kinda want to draw the police uniforms from the future now, but I need to make more notes before I try), we watched My Fair Lady.

Yes, a bit of a change of pace but there’s dancing and singing and Rex Harrison in tweed. How can Rex Harrison in tweed ever be a bad thing?

I might have a thing for tweed.

Moving gracefully away from my thing for tweed, I have a poll right now up about the blog schedule. People should vote. Its more for my information then for any major site changes.

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.

Pixie: Vera

I have such mixed feelings about this paper doll and I have such mixed feelings about starting a post with the words “I have such mixed feelings…” I usually try to not talk about what I dislike, but I must confess I don’t think the face of the paper doll Vera was very successful. I love her black and gray kimono-esque costume with the pink flowers though, I think that one came out beautifully.

So, I guess maybe you win some and you lose some when it comes to paper dolls.

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One of the unique features of paper doll blogging vs. standard paper doll drawing is that I find I hate going to the trouble of inking something only to decide I don’t like it. Don’t mis-understand me, there’s plenty of things in my sketchbooks that will never see the light of day, but I often feel that the goal of posting on time and regularly is more important then the goal of always being in love with what I post.

While my natural inclination is not to post anything I don’t like, the actual practical consideration is that if I never posted anything I wasn’t totally satisfied with then I would likely only update once a month at most. As it is, I’m learning to be okay with posting paper dolls even when I have mixed feelings about them.

Especially when I really adore their strange futuristic kimono costumes.

Little Bit Geeky: Blue Haired Printable Paper Doll

I’ve been having some trouble with corruption of my PDF files when I save them. It’s not something I can easily test for, but I am working on a fix. Until I get it done, I’ll be correcting the problems with the paper doll files as I notice them. So, keep eyes open for answers. In the short run, there is a new PDF of the Curves paper doll post,Curves: Cute and Sassy for people to download if they want it.

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I almost didn’t get this up tonight. It’s actually like 15 minutes past midnight and I was about ready to say forget it, but if I keep letting myself not post than I start to feel guilty about not posting and then I just get more behind. It’s a cycle. Here’s to breaking it. I often wonder how other paper doll bloggers keep themselves from totally losing it over the amount of work involved in producing paper doll stuff every day.

Also, this is my first Marisole paper doll with glasses. So that’s kinda cool.

Marisol Monday: Punky Girl Paper Doll

So, I have this fantasy. It involves ice cream and pie, but also having like saved paper doll posts so that they go up automatically and I’m not constantly scrambling to throw something together while trying to sound like I know what I’m doing. Never in my fantasy is it late at night and I’m staring at my computer screen thinking… Oh god, now I have to say something intelligent.

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The sad part is that I’m pretty witty when I’m not staring at a computer screen at 10:00 pm at night.

(In case you’re wondering, I draw my posts the night before they go up, so most of the time they go up at 12:00 am my time- used to be Alaska time, but I am in the mid-west these days with soybeans and corn. Also since I entered grad school, posts going up at midnight is rarer and rarer.)

My best friend in high school was a punky girl. She still may be, though I haven’t seen her in nearly four years, a fact I am saddened by now that I realize it. Besides being one of the inspirations for Curves and one of the smartest people I know, she had the guts to wear punk clothing in a small isolated town before the days of ubiquitous internet shopping.