Month: December 2016

Winter Solstice Beast & Beauty Paper Dolls

beast_beauty_thumb_01 beast_beauty_thumb_02

I never think about doing a Christmas-themed set of plates until it’s too late to actually be planful about it. I need to start in January and then maybe I can actually be ready by the time December rolls around. Even starting late, I thought: oh, no problem!  I’ll do a 12 Days of Christmas thing so that the posting doesn’t have to start until December 25th. So I started mapping out this idea of doing a Beauty & the Beast theme and each day would be a new costume and a new set of gifts, but last week I realized I would never be able to draw, color, and plate them in time–not with all the holiday ruckus going on.

As a consolation, here’s what I started. Decided at the last minute to leave it as a “cut and color” set since that might be more fun with only a single plate. I did color the figures, though (I didn’t scan them before I made the decision). I like Beast. Not so sure about Beauty. She’s okay, I guess. I really didn’t mean to make her blonde, but…oh well. Maybe if I revisit my 12 Days of Christmas idea, I’ll revamp her. I’d like to revisit this.

Beauty & the Beast is my favorite fairy tale, but I’ve never liked that Beast turned into a “handsome prince” at the end of it. He is a handsome prince–just the way he is. And yes, in my mind, I always imagined him more wildebeest-warthoggy than cat or bearlike. With hooves instead of claws. Beastly for his manners more than anything else. In an early version that I read, one of Beauty’s first kindnesses is to feed him at the dinner table. He can’t hold a spoon and is ashamed of sticking his face in the bowl. That always stayed with me.

So be kind this season–especially with all the grumpy frustrated people you meet in the stores and on the streets: they need it the most.

This is my last set of plates for 2016.  Looking forward to lots of new stuff in the coming year! I’m going to make 2017 great and I hope you will too.  I wish you all the happiest of holidays, with much peace and joy and inspiration!

[Click here to download a .pdf of this two-page set]

Empire Paper Dolls: Cookie Lyon’s Closet [Plate 4]

empire_04_cookie_thumbWe finally come to the last of the Cookie plates, just as it was about to get interesting. This is also my last plate to post for the year. Unless I can actually get something for Christmas done in the next day or so (I’m trying!).

The red and the blue dresses on the right side I did back in the fall of last year. I think I hated both of them at the time (and it probably contributed to me putting this aside). The prints were so fussy and despite good references I don’t think either came out well.

The red/black dress and the blouse and the shoes on the left side I painted recently just to finish out a full plate to post. I have to say, I love how the shoes and the blouse came out–and these were the things that really convinced me to tackle the catwalk dolls. The blouse should have given me the horrors, but I dove right in and it’s not a bad approximation of the original garment (as complicated as that pattern was). It’s not perfect, but has the right effect. It also was actually worn with the black leather pants from Plate 3. I was happy to squeeze in at least one mix-and-match.

Click the Cookie tag to see all four plates.

[Click this link or the picture to download a printable .pdf for this doll]

Empire Paper Dolls: Cookie Lyon’s Closet [Plate 3]

empire_03_cookie_thumbI loved the challenge of doing all these animal prints for Cookie (she wore so many in the first season of the show!).  With good references, it wasn’t difficult, but it was, at times, pretty intense (even tedious). All those little spots on that swing coat and dress combo took me forever, if I recollect correctly. Even so it was a lot of fun. I learned how to make convincing “skins” even if they weren’t perfect.

At the time I was looking forward to making a bunch of mix and match pieces, but unfortunately I only have one more plate. I’m sorry I didn’t keep up with this. It’s too hard to go back and try to pick up something you dropped so long ago. Or maybe it’s just me. I guess I’m hoping that my catwalk dolls will fill this gap: a series I can work on regularly without the pressure of a live TV show getting ahead and away from me.

These are the kinds of paper doll pieces I really personally enjoy playing with: complex designs but simple shapes. They’re easy to cut out and look fabulous on the doll itself. And that’s also what I’m hoping to have with the new dolls.

[Click this link or the picture to download a printable .pdf for this doll]

 

Empire Paper Dolls: Cookie Lyon’s Closet [Plate 2]

empire_02_cookie_thumbLooking back on Cookie’s wardrobe, I’m surprised so many things went right with this paper doll, considering how many things could have gone wrong.  For one thing. I was out of my depth. Up until this point I had never drawn any contemporary fashion paper dolls that were stylish in any way. And Cookie is very stylish.

So a lot of what I was doing with these pieces was pure trial and error and fixing mistakes as I went along. You can see by the copyright on these plates that I actually did them in the fall/winter of 2015, so my memory is slightly hazy, but I do recollect that I struggled.

Most critically: use the right tools for the right job. My biggest mistake with these plates was one I should have learned long ago: you can’t paint intensively on cardstock! A million years ago when I painted my 19th century paper dolls, I exhausted myself fighting with the cardstock. So I’m not sure why I repeated the mistake. I guess I was being thrifty? Looking back it doesn’t even make sense. I have piles of watercolor paper that was paid for 20 years ago. The real waste is in not actually using it for, you know, painting!

Using the cardstock is great for Judy or other black and white or marker dolls. All the Star Wars dolls are on cardstock. But this is why I’m putting the runway dolls on real hot press cotton watercolor paper. I don’t want to fight with the materials any more!

[Click this link or the picture to download a printable .pdf for this doll]

 

Judy : Vol. 29, 1881 Plate 6

vol29_06_thumbSeems a bit strange posting bathing costumes in December, but I guess that’s the way this one fell out. These were actually featured in August and September issues of Vol. 29 (September still feels kind of late for swimwear, but there you have it!). These are pretty simple pieces. Love the hair twist for the first costume. Also feel compelled to explain that the decoration on that outfit is supposed to be cockle shells (my rendering wasn’t so good).

I decided (sound the trumpets) that we will be getting new Judy dolls in the new year. I have 9 more volumes of costumes and 6 others I could probably get through interlibrary loan if I got ambitious. So there’s still plenty of material to work. And I’m finally going to hit the issues where Chasemore’s drawings really explode creatively! So I think this is a great time to do this shift.

Judy will return in January with the Catwalk dolls. I haven’t yet decided whether I will be picking up a third series or idly adding anything else at this point. But I can be predictably over-ambitious, so expect to see the Star Wars: Force Awakens dolls at the very least.

Meanwhile, to find all the plates in this series (and the dolls themselves) click on the Judy tag down below.

[Click this link or the image to download a printable .pdf of these costumes]

 

Empire Paper Dolls: Cookie Lyon’s Closet [Plate 1]

empire_01_cookie_thumbThe beautiful Taraji P. Henson plays Cookie Lyon on Empire. Cookie is the long-suffering ex-wife of Lyon Dynasty king Lucious. She served 17 years in prison so that Lucious could build his music empire, and he repaid her by divorcing her while she was incarcerated. But the two have deep ties (including three sons), and their relationship, while volatile, is far from over.

Cookie wastes no time, once she’s released from prison, enjoying the spoils of her husband’s success. She’s quite the fashion plate and her animal prints and furs are legion. Once in a while she wears something down to earth like the lounge wear on this plate, but by and large she’s always on display.

Here she wears a bit of infamous lingerie (I meant to include the fur that goes with it in a subsequent plate–maybe I still will). Her Valentino shoes actually don’t go with either of these outfits, but I like them and wanted to give her a pair of shoes that could match with most of her outfits (because I can’t always clearly see her footwear in the show). The two outfits and hairstyles are from the pilot episode.

[Click this link or  the picture to download a printable .pdf for this doll]

As I mentioned long ago, I had intended to work through Cookie’s Season One outfits, then catch up to Season Two before the mid-season break was over last March. Now we’re at the end of Season Three and it feels doubtful I will ever catch up. Cookie is quite the clothes-horse. I hadn’t intended to do all her outfits, but I wanted to hit the highlights. She has a lot of highlights.

cookie_season01Cookie is a great TV character: she’s perfectly vindictive and yet she’s all heart. She loves her children and she’s been deeply wronged by her ex-husband and circumstances in the world. So even though she occasionally does some pretty heinous things, you can’t help but root for her. Henson’s performance is wonderfully sympathetic.

There’s just an amazing clash of over-the-top garish loud-mouth brassiness and spangles cut by an undercurrent of past suffering and abiding love in her. She’s also street-smart and conniving–you know she’s capable of just about anything, which makes her dangerous.

It’s pretty atypical for me to be drawn into a series like this, let alone inspired to make paper dolls for it. At least that’s a testament to how entertaining Empire is both visually as well as story-wise. Unfortunately some bad planning and other issues set this project back (way back).

Even so, I have four plates to post of some of Cookie’s outfits from Season One. I want to share them–even as I explain the bad choices I made that led to stalling this one out.