Month: April 2017

Catwalk Couture: David Hart [Plate 15]

I probably have said it before, but it bears repeating: I really strongly (strongly) dislike spring/summer fashions. Maybe especially on men. So pulling this one out was real work for me.

I don’t hate the plate, really. I actually like their tropical shirts and they were fun to draw. The shorts and the shoes, though. Ugh. Give me the willies. I’m pretty sure Lonan hates them too (though he looks good, so there is that). Niall, on the other hand, definitely strikes me as a summer person and I’m sure this is not the last of the khaki we’ll see on him. That polo shirt totally makes my skin crawl!

I have been horrendously busy and neglecting this blog, which means I’m coming to the end of my couture buffer with no backup in sight! I’m hoping to double-down on my drawing efforts in the next few weeks, though, but posting may continue to be sort of sporadic. Summer is always a struggle, I guess.

And once again, it’s not for lack of reference material, that’s for sure. My reference folder is so out of control I could probably ignore the fashion sites for the rest of the year and never run out of material to work from.

I’d like to randomly point out, as a matter of process, that Niall’s awful shirt is the same color as Ifu’s dress from last week. This is because I mix all my own colors from a palette of alizarin crimson, indigo, and yellow ochre. Then I mix those and use Payne’s grey, sepia, and white to modulate the tones.

Aside from the crimson, technically these aren’t the colors you should mix with (bad color theory!), but I like them. It does make it hard for someone as lazy as I am to get a lot of particular shades. I still can’t make purple at all (which is why you never see purple here). I taught myself to paint with gouache that my dad got from some sign painter when I was a kid. Still have his tubes 20+ years later and the pigment is still good. So this is to say: all of my habits are bad and I probably work twice as hard as I should on this stuff.

One of my goals this summer is to make purple. Maybe add proper yellow to my palette. And proper blue as well. And maybe then the painting won’t be so hard. We shall see.

Next week: fashion from Tomé for the girls.

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

 

 

Geneviéve: As Eponine

This month’s theme is literary! Picking my favorite book character was easy. It was always going to be either Eponine from Les Miserables, or Haydee from the Count of Monte Cristo. Haydee would have been more exotic, but Eponine won out. It was easier to draw gutter 19th century French clothes than try to do justice in short order to 19th century Turkish royalty. I would have had to Google it to death.

I hope you enjoy these outfits. You have Eponine’s day wear with a long belted wrap, and her outfit for sneaking through the barricade. She disguises herself as a boy to get a message to Cosette (who didn’t deserve it). And her actions have tragic consequences.

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

This collaborative doll is posted at the end of each month throughout 2017. There’s 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: Marchessa [Plate 14]

Where have I been? So terribly busy! Good stuff, but no time to tend the garden here despite having prepared a buffer of material in advance. But my schedule is opening up and hopefully I can gt back on track in some fashion in the coming week (pun intended).

To get us back in the mood, here are some jewel-toned gowns from Marchessa! Ifu’s dress on the left is fairly accurate to the original color, but Xia’s on the right was actually that pale bright yellow that’s all the rage right now. I decided to change it since Xia’s Oscar’s dress was already that shade (and it’s a color I’m not that fond of). Anyway, I much prefer this rich golden tone instead.

I also realize that I desperately need to make more hairstyles for the women. I’ve still got a handful of plates to post that have been done since March or early April (I forget). So it might be a while before I get to offer up more hair options for these lovely runway models.

I also have failed to make a decision about what to post next. I fell behind on the Klondike paper dolls in the last couple of weeks, but I might be getting back to them. Also, I still have lingering Star Wars dolls to post. I’m just so disorganized.

As I said, though, things are settling down. Hopefully I can focus on what I want to do and get some regular posting going on here again. I hate falling out of sync with this blog because it’s hard getting the momentum going again.

But I’m going to try to post at least a couple of times this week. Even if it’s stuff about paper dolls and not actual paper dolls themselves. I’m no good at “how I do stuff” kind of posts, but I can definitely share things I love that other people do!

As always with this series, if you want to make suggestions or recommend a designer, I’m game for that. Couture is certainly a bottomless pit of possibilities!

Next up on the catwalk: something a little more “Springtime” for Lonan and Niall!

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

 

 

Catwalk Couture: Ralph Lauren [Plate 13]

This is one of my favorite plates.

Both because I managed to work in some unusual patterns/textures that previously I would have chickened out on, and also because it’s another great example of the difference between these two men’s styles even with the same designer.

Lonan’s geometric-patterned jacket isn’t quite exact, but I still like the way it came out. And Niall’s long sweater looks like something I wouldn’t mind curling up with on a winter day.

And I managed to fit everything on the plate without it looking too insanely packed. All wins!

As I’m painting, I’m seeing the mix-and-match possibilities between the designers and that’s pretty fun too. I’m trying to be very deliberate in not making things very similar (black pants on Lonan notwithstanding). So these two are gradually developing an interesting array of shoes and tops and jackets.

This is much easier with the women. With the men sometimes I really like something but it’s just too similar to something I’ve already done. So I end up skipping it in favor of something a little more unique.

I promise their next plate will be more appropriate for the season–and very colorful!

While I’m waiting for fresh inspiration to strike for to resume Judy and I have my last Star Wars plates on hold because I’ve falling down on sending them first to a friend, I may be updating/reposting some old paper dolls from my old blogs.

This is a busy month and I just haven’t made much progress on new stuff unfortunately. The Klondike dolls are done but I haven’t had a chance to paint any clothes for them! So expect to see some very random old superhero stuff over the next six weeks or so. I see from my files there’s stuff I just never posted, so some of it may be new to you. I’ll try to keep it interesting!

Meanwhile, I’m especially grateful that I have a decent Couture buffer because otherwise I would be seriously struggling to post something right now!

Next up from this series: more Marchessa!

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

Catwalk Couture: Marchessa [Plate 12]

Marchessa has so many beautiful dresses it was almost impossible to choose. But I narrowed it down to six (for now). I might go back and pick up a couple more.

Plate 12 shows the first three choices. There are two here for Xia and one for Ifu. On Plate 14 there will be two for Ifu and one for Xia, so it will even out.

I also really meant to make more fancy hairstyles and ones with fancy earrings for these red carpet dresses, but oops. I’ll work on that. And accessories in general.

In coloring the two representative dresses, I changed the original color of Ifu’s gown from a soft baby blue to this bolder green. Ifu already has a light blue dress (from the Oscars plate).

This yellow-green was a fun color to mix and I wanted something that was just more season-appropriate. Let’s face it: nothing screams “Spring” louder than bright bright green!

Xia’s dress has a lot of sequins and things on it. Even though I tried to paint it glittery, the scan didn’t pick that up. It looks all right, but when you color your own version feel free to tart it up! It should be spangly!

Ah well, it’s all good practice.

The third dress on the plate was originally bright yellow, but again, I already painted Xia’s Oscars dress yellow, so I skipped it. You can decide for yourself what color you want it to be for yourself.

For all the Marchessa gowns I picked ones with relatively straight or fishtail skirts. There were a number of bigger poufier gowns, but I figured they would only fit two to a plate (and only if I put one upside-down) so I originally skipped them.

I’m getting smarter about how to plate stuff, however. So, like I mentioned above, I’ll probably go back and pick up a couple more plates worth of Marchessa fashions.

Marchessa is definitely one of those designers were you could make dozens of dresses and not run out of exciting reference material. When I get better at doing the glittery stuff, you will certainly see more. Glitz is something I need to work on. Especially in Black and white.

Next up: Ralph Lauren and some totally not-Spring fashions for the men!

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