Tag: Tome

I don’t know why Tome seemed like a good idea at the time that I actually drew these dresses. In retrospect they’re not terribly interesting. Maybe I was just looking for something simple. I tried to perk up the dress that Ifu is wearing on the left a little. It was originally a sort of dull brown color.

I don’t doubt my bias toward the men also played into this, but I’m going to do some Balmain for the ladies next. Hopefully that will even out the score. Balmain makes lots of amazing women’s clothing too, after all!

It was Balmain’s clothing for Cookie on Empire that actually inspired me to want to do modern fashion paper dolls in the first place.

I guess the other thing I liked about Tome was just the clean lines on the dresses; sometimes simplicity is nice. This is my idea of simplicity with style. When I see women in cotton sacks that hang from their shoulders–that’s not simplicity to me; that’s farmwear.

Tome has a lot of form-fitting clothing that I think would flatter most body types. The knit dresses maybe not so much (honestly, who can wear those unless you’re skinny as a q-tip?).

But I think, for example, the dresses on the colored plate here would/could look good on pretty much anybody. That’s a nice thing even if my models are rather idealized.

I’m not good at making different body types for my paper dolls and I know that’s a shortcoming, but I’d also mostly made my peace with it. So I want to at least be conscientious about what they are wearing. You will not likely see any shoulder-hanging sack dresses here ~ ha!

I still have done nothing to remedy the fact that I am out of plates for this series and haven’t managed to get anything else going. I’m hoping to get to work on the Balmain stuff for the ladies (and right soon), and I have no idea what I’m doing next for the men. Might do something simple like a mixed swimwear page for everybody.  It’s summer, why not?

Next: more jackets and boots from Balmain for the menfolk!

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

This week some toned-down styles from New York designer Tome. I never quite know how these plates will come out.  Sometimes the clothes look fabulous in the pictures but not quite as exciting as paper doll pieces. I did two plates of Tome and I think they both look flat. But I’m sharing them anyway!

And yes, I cheated a little because Xia’s hosiery and shoes are actually on the next plate even though I included them in the colored example here. I also would like to point out that these stockings ended up being thigh-highs instead of full panyhose/tights because they wouldn’t have fit on the plates otherwise. They can still be used to mix and match with other dresses and skirts, though. I don’t think I have drawn anything yet that is so short as to not cover the tops.

These are the colors of the original dresses.  You can probably come up with schemes to make these a lot brighter. Again, color and I have our good days and our bay days. I do the best I can with what I have.

This is the end of my buffer on this set, so I might be scrambling in the coming week. I just haven’t had sufficient focus to draw and that’s put me very sadly behind. It’s frustrating, but you can only do so much with the time and energy you have.

Still, I cleared off my desk this weekend and hopefully that’s a first step toward getting organized and being able to narrow down my concentration.

I’m also looking to buy a new computer this summer and doing that conversion is always incredibly painful for me. I’m going to try very hard not to drop off the face of the earth, but there’s a good chance the posting will get even more sporadic. I don’t want to drop the blog, so I might just change gears a little while I make transitions.

In the meantime, I do have some Star Wars plates to post, and I will push myself to pull a plate together for the guys. I have absolutely zip at the moment. And since I haven’t been painting my Klondike dolls like I hoped to be doing, maybe I can get Judy back on the docket. She’s always easy because she’s so low-pressure. Some days I wish I was just doing everything with a black pen and nothing else!

Lots of fire, too many irons.

Pretty much the story of my life.

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