Month: March 2017

Geneviéve: In Outer Space

I cheated a little with this one. The theme “outer space” goes hand-in-hand with the fact that I’m a big fan of that galaxy far, far away. Immediately I thought it would be cool to make Geneviéve into a Twi’lek.

Or you can skip the extra head and she can be a cool smuggler or Resistance fighter using one of her previous heads. I also added an astromech in an attempt to make her a little more “outer spacey” since technically she’s not wearing a flight suit or a helmet or other gear you would associate with actually being, you know, in space.  The astromech at least implies that she’s a pilot. It’s an R7 unit. Feel free to name it yourself.

I hope you’ll forgive this indulgence.

Find more theme outfits to match this doll at the following fabulous blogs:

This collaborative doll will be posted at the end of each month all throughout 2017 with a new theme each month.  To find all related posts on this blog, just click the “Geneviéve” tag.

[Click on this link or the picture to download a printable .pdf plate!]

Catwalk Couture: Gucci [Plate 11]

Yes, this plate is insanely packed. This was the moment I realized that I had to rethink my plating overall. Originally I had each character on a plate of his own except that Niall’s plate looked really spare and weird.

I knew putting the two together was too much, but the only other option was to add more items from the Gucci collection, which, I’ll be honest, for the men I wasn’t that crazy about.

As it is, I made some pretty weak choices with this designer. Too much red and black! Also, Lonan is doomed to have a closet full of black jeans apparently. That’s okay, though. Sometimes it just is what it is.

I did try to challenge myself to attempt a plaid-like/checked design, which is pretty much near-impossible without gradients. You can see in the colored version of Niall’s pants at least that these things aren’t nearly as ugly as they look in black and white.

I also wanted to take a stab at some printed t-shirts. The cats are hideous (but that’s really what they looked like!). I like the snake and it was fun to draw. Niall’s satin jacket was a late addition and I kind of fudged some of the details, but it came out all right.

Part of the problem was that I was just trying to follow the lead with the women: Gucci there, Gucci here. Bad idea. I won’t be forcing that again! Still, each plate offers its own interesting problems to solve and I’m glad I didn’t just pitch this one out. Also, I like their shoes.

Though, Lonan: I’m pretty sure those boots don’t actually go well with those pants rolled that way.  That said, it seems totally in-character for him to make that mistake. I’m sure Niall would tease him mercilessly for it.

I have one more sort of overstuffed plate for Lonan and Niall, but afterwards things will even out. The characters will share plates so that there’s a balance. I always like keeping a single character per plate (in case someone only likes x and not y), but this makes the process easier. And I like making the colored thumbnails with multiple characters instead of just one.

All of these first eleven plates came from mixing and matching on farfetch.com, but I’ll be getting into actual runway stuff after this.

Next up: gowns from Marchessa!

[click this link or the black & white plate  to download a printable .pdf]

Paper Doll Subjects: Randomness Reigns

Some years ago, I made a paper doll of Frank Merriwell, a character from a late 19th century nickel weekly called Tip Top Weekly. It was a lark: I liked the idea more than I liked the character. Frank himself was insufferably righteous and his stories were invariably pretty standard fare. Though he was incredibly popular at the time and survived into the radio days, I was pretty much done with him after reading half a dozen adventures. The appeal for the paper doll was mostly that he was playing some new sport every week, so always had a new uniform which was kind of fun.

Frank notwithstanding, I have had a long love affair with nickel weeklies. These trashy things predate comic books and though they were a moral bore now and then, some were quite gruesome. There was no “code” so often you had characters meeting all sorts of murderers and opium addicts. Painted ladies were mostly out, though–that remained a taboo.

Last year, while I was taking some time out in the Pacific Northwest, I dug up my copies of Young Klondike. For sheer appeal, this was one of the more interesting of the weeklies for me. It didn’t have the steampunk travel-around-the-world fantasy of Frank Reade’s Library or the crime-solving hard boiled noir of Nick Carter, but it had something far more attractive: snow! For me, an adventure in Alaska was way more exotic and exciting than gumshoes and robots.

Young Klondike ran for 39 issues, 27 of which are available online. I haven’t read them all because they’re obviously a finite resource. So I like to savor them–as much as one can savor what amounts to pulp trash. Objectively they aren’t great, but I started thinking about re-purposing the text. If Young Klondike were written today, what might it look like? Last summer I took the text and began appropriating it into something new. I kept the basic plot and left its quirkiest character untouched for the most part. But I re-imagined the other three central characters for a modern audience. Three hundred pages later, I might have something that could be a book, but that’s not the point. I’m telling you this because I idly started sketching paper dolls for the characters and I thought to myself: this is so completely random.

But then, really, all my paper dolls always are.

I don’t know what the appeal is for half the stuff I make. But I make things for my own amusement and if they amuse others, three cheers! I just know there are lots of paper dolls for fashion models or popular personalities/characters. I enjoy those as much as anybody (and I make them too!). But I’m also probably that one person who, if I saw a paper doll book of Klondike explorers from 1898, would go completely nuts for it.

So, like it or not, you’re probably getting 19th century Klondiker paper dolls in the coming months. It’s just the way this blog rolls. To be fair, I warned you from the start about my esoteric tastes ~ ha!

Catwalk Couture: Gucci [Plates 9 & 10]

The House of Gucci is 96 years old–one of the oldest fashion houses around. And certainly one of the most recognized brands in fashion. This year’s fashions have some fun patterns that were difficult to draw, but I’m glad I challenged myself with them. Once again, these pieces all came from farfetch.com.

I really love Ifu’s zebra shoes. And the purse with the bambo handle. I’m not good about making accessories for paper dolls, but always glad when I do.

These are the last plates with each character on their own plate. After I built the first ten, I saw it was hard to fill the plates in a way that made sense (particularly for the men due to their difference in stature).

So from here on out with this series, instead of two plates a week, it will only be one, but if I can continue to produce these at a quick clip, I might be able to post two a week after all. We’ll see, I’ve been super busy lately. Hopefully I can keep the momentum going.

Once again pieces of these plates can be mixed or layered for additional looks.

[click each black & white plate below to download a printable .pdf]

Catwalk Couture: McQueen [Plates 7 & 8]

Because I don’t have any Judy Tuesday in the wings, you get some midweek couture instead.

I really need to do something with Lonan’s hair. He looks like a lion. Also, I gotta say Niall’s shirt was a horror to draw, but now I love it. And the gold sneakers.  Niall’s clothes are ridiculous, but somehow they just work for him. I gave Lonan my own aesthetic, but I’m trying not to put him in so much black.

It continues to be a major temptation to just make all-black and white clothing. It doesn’t help that it’s what’s on the runway recently.

All of the Alexander McQueen stuff this week came from farfetch.com, which it only just occurred to me that I should archive regularly. It’s a commercial site, so the fashions comes and go. I’ve already lost images from the collection. But you can still get those gold sneakers for 30% off at $648. And the shirt? That will set you back $825.  Sorry, Lonan’s red beaded jacket and the other jacket (which was khaki), are sold out! 

[click each black & white plate below to download a printable .pdf]

Catwalk Couture: McQueen [Plates 5 & 6]

I can sit around and draw plates for this set all day long, but the coloring doesn’t come as easy. There’s a block in my head that differentiates something born color vs. born black & white. Not that these don’t look fabulous in color on the dolls. It’s just how flat the plates themselves look that bothers me for some reason. Hence why it’s been a little quiet on this blog recently.

After lots of finagling, here’s how it’s going to go. I’ll post a colored dressed thumbnail (like the one at right), and the black & white plates. Because maybe what’s fun about these is coloring them for yourself!).

I plated Ifu and Xia’s fashions separately here, but later I mix the plates up. I went through a lot of aggravating decision-making about what the heck I was doing. To be honest, I don’t think I resolved any of it. So for the first dozen plates or so, this is all sort of a mishmash.

And speaking of mishmash, these Alexander McQueen pieces are mix and match (more or less), and can be layered by design. In case it wasn’t obvious, I started with some pretty basic stuff just to get my toes wet. The more extravagant things will likely come later.

[click each black & white plate below to download a printable .pdf]

Judy : Vol. 31, 1882 Plate 8

Here it is! The final Volume 31 Judy Tuesday plate. It’s definitely a doozy, too!  Took me forever given all the details, but was so worth it. I especially love the insane plumes on that hat and the sunflower designs on the sleeves. It was fun to do all those textures!

I haven’t made any progress whatsoever on the next volume. So I guess you can expect a little break on the Judy front for a while.  I’ve actually been too busy to do much of anything exciting paper-doll-wise for the last couple of weeks, which is kind of a bummer.

I have buffer for Catwalk Couture, but it’s all black and white, which I am tempted to just go with. I really am so bad at color most of the time. And I’m even worse about it when I’ve already finished something in black and white and later face the prospect of having to go back and color it. Which makes no sense–I do like coloring (maybe when it’s someone else’s work-ha!).

Maybe if I leave the black and white plates alone long enough, I’ll be able to come back to color them as if they aren’t my own.

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