The Eclectic Wardrobe of Josephine - Page 1

Today's the day! I have my new paper doll series ready to go.  I think I'll try to post this on Tuesdays, as often as I can.  Before I post the sheet, I want to talk about technique.

First, I started with a sketch. I could have done it on my computer, but instead I took out my good old paper & pencil. The pose is a composite pose I put together from SenshiStock.  I like her poses specifically because they're clothed.  Nude models are incredibly helpful & I highly recommend life drawing classes, but if I'm drawing at my kitchen table surrounded by my kiddos I'd rather use clothed models.

I knew I wanted a medium to dark skin tone. There's a wonderful image I found on Pinterest that served as color reference & a rough model for my paper doll's face.

Once I did all of that, I scanned my image and brought it into Photoshop. I knew this was going to be a Photoshop project right from the beginning.

This is a very rough breakdown of the steps I went through to color the doll. There's a much more thorough breakdown here -- I've been working on this technique for a while! First, I inked the sketch.  I gave it a thicker outside line using a stroke style.  Then, I gave it a flat color.  I started added shadows and highlights, blurring as needed.  It still looked really flat so I overlaid a brighter, warmer brown and that helped tremendously! I kept layering lights & darks, then added the face and clothing.

Once that was finished, I knew I wanted a border and background that would be on every page of the series.  I also needed a title.  I settled on The Eclectic Wardrobe of Josephine.  I needed something descriptive and a cool name.  Now, I love The Tragically Hip -- a fantastic Canadian band -- and they have a song called Goodnight Josephine, which I love.  And then, there's the amazing Josephine Baker, so really the name was perfect for this project.

I'm not sure what I'm going to do with this project long-term. As much as I can stand, I suppose!

Right-click to download and print

Here's the final version of page one. I wanted a little mix & match capability.  More pages will make that more fun, of course.  If anyone plans on printing it out, let me know. I can post it with a white background if there's a need for it.

I'm pretty excited to have a new project. There will still be a Friday paper doll in one of the various mix & match series.

Let me know what you think! Should be a fun little adventure for all of us!