Just a quick post today...
My mom and I have both tried to print the Kawaii Kids dolls from PDF and it didn't print correctly. Is anyone else experiencing this problem? I'm going to take a look at the files and see if I can find anything on my end.
If there's a problem, I want to fix it. It's important to me that everything on this site runs smoothly. Leave a comment or send me an email if you're having the same problems I am!
Thanks for the feedback!
Thursday, July 3, 2014
Wednesday, July 2, 2014
Kawaii Wednesdays - July 4th Paper Doll
I can't believe it's already July! Time must be moving faster or something.... This week, here in the States, we're celebrating our independence. I'm not sure if I'll get a doll up on Friday - we have family visiting for the whole weekend.
Just in case that doesn't happen, here's a little pre-4th paper doll to print out & color. Have a fun and safe holiday!
Just in case that doesn't happen, here's a little pre-4th paper doll to print out & color. Have a fun and safe holiday!
Monday, June 30, 2014
Wicked Women Published!
As of last week, I had finished and uploaded my Wicked Women paper doll to Lulu.com. I ordered my proof copy and it showed up WAY sooner than I expected!
And it's fantastic!
Here's the front cover, all glossy & gorgeous! The background photo is one I took myself. I live in a little town with a neat history. There were three wealthy families who built enormous homes in the 19th century. There are remnants (and intact structures as well) all around town. This is an old entrance to a family cemetery and I thought it would be perfect for this book.
And the title page. None of my interior shots came out very well. I'm a pretty terrible photographer, something my family loves to bring up!
The back cover with the doll. I write all of the text on these books, though I don't think I'm destined for a career in copywriting, it's not half bad either.
Finally, a preview of the whole doll. Pictures can't accurately show just how nice this book is. I'm always nothing but pleased with the books that Lulu prints. And I highly recommend that anyone who might be thinking about self-publishing a paper doll use their service.
If you'd like your own copy, you can order it here. It'll be up on Amazon soon....
And thank you all for the encouragement! I very nearly gave up on this project!
And it's fantastic!
Here's the front cover, all glossy & gorgeous! The background photo is one I took myself. I live in a little town with a neat history. There were three wealthy families who built enormous homes in the 19th century. There are remnants (and intact structures as well) all around town. This is an old entrance to a family cemetery and I thought it would be perfect for this book.
And the title page. None of my interior shots came out very well. I'm a pretty terrible photographer, something my family loves to bring up!
The back cover with the doll. I write all of the text on these books, though I don't think I'm destined for a career in copywriting, it's not half bad either.
Finally, a preview of the whole doll. Pictures can't accurately show just how nice this book is. I'm always nothing but pleased with the books that Lulu prints. And I highly recommend that anyone who might be thinking about self-publishing a paper doll use their service.
If you'd like your own copy, you can order it here. It'll be up on Amazon soon....
And thank you all for the encouragement! I very nearly gave up on this project!
Friday, June 27, 2014
Paper Doll Convention 2014 - Raffle Paper Doll
This Friday I'm sharing a recent project instead of a fashion doll. For those of you who haven't heard, the paper doll convention is currently going on in Richmond, Virginia. I had hoped to go this year but leaving my little boys for a few days was a bit too complicated. There's always next year!
After the 2014 location was announced, I was contacted by the convention organizer. She had seen my work in the Paper Doll Studio magazine and asked if I would donate something to the annual raffle. Every year there's a raffle and people donate various things. I thought about sending a couple of paper doll books. I decided on something better - an original watercolor painting!
I was thinking about Virginia and Southern belles and bell-shaped skirts when I thought of Virginia Belles. I have here a Southern lady in Civil War era finery, painted in watercolors. And it's tiny! This image can't really convey the size properly. Each image is about 4 inches tall and I used my magnifying lamp to get all the details.
I knew that I wanted to send an original painting, and that meant that I needed a perfect image. I've become used to the idea of painting then editing in Photoshop. That wasn't going to be an option here. I started with large drawings and reduced them in Photoshop. It's always easier to shrink an image than to expand it!
Here are the sketches. Each of the outfits were based on historical references - thanks, Pinterest! Once I finalized the sketches I scanned them and edited them in Photoshop. I adjusted the fit and reduced the images to the final size.
Normally, I build a frame AFTER creating something, but in this case, I already had a frame. I spent some time as a picture framer and it's a skill that's come in handy over the years. I measured the frame, mapped out the mat I wanted, and adjusted the image to fit those parameters. After adjusting the image, I printed it at the actual size I wanted and traced it onto my final paper.
It was a wonderful challenge to paint something this small! The results were worth the eye strain. I may expand this into a complete Southern belle paper doll book at some point.
I forgot to take a picture of this all framed up, but if you happen to be at the convention, go take a look at it!
And maybe I'll make it to Tennessee in 2015!
After the 2014 location was announced, I was contacted by the convention organizer. She had seen my work in the Paper Doll Studio magazine and asked if I would donate something to the annual raffle. Every year there's a raffle and people donate various things. I thought about sending a couple of paper doll books. I decided on something better - an original watercolor painting!
I knew that I wanted to send an original painting, and that meant that I needed a perfect image. I've become used to the idea of painting then editing in Photoshop. That wasn't going to be an option here. I started with large drawings and reduced them in Photoshop. It's always easier to shrink an image than to expand it!
Here are the sketches. Each of the outfits were based on historical references - thanks, Pinterest! Once I finalized the sketches I scanned them and edited them in Photoshop. I adjusted the fit and reduced the images to the final size.
Normally, I build a frame AFTER creating something, but in this case, I already had a frame. I spent some time as a picture framer and it's a skill that's come in handy over the years. I measured the frame, mapped out the mat I wanted, and adjusted the image to fit those parameters. After adjusting the image, I printed it at the actual size I wanted and traced it onto my final paper.
It was a wonderful challenge to paint something this small! The results were worth the eye strain. I may expand this into a complete Southern belle paper doll book at some point.
I forgot to take a picture of this all framed up, but if you happen to be at the convention, go take a look at it!
And maybe I'll make it to Tennessee in 2015!
Wednesday, June 25, 2014
Kawaii Wednesdays - Cinderella
Last week I posted a Beauty & the Beast Kawaii Kids doll. I think a short series of fairy tale Kawaii Kids is in order! Today I have Cinderella and her Prince Charming. My nieces love these dolls, so I keep them in mind every time I make one. My youngest niece loves Cinderella, so this one is for her!
Download Kawaii Kids - Cinderella pdf here
Monday, June 23, 2014
Wicked Women - Preparing the Files for Print
We're in the home stretch with the Wicked Women paper doll book! I've been adding text to the images and preparing them for print. That's what we'll be looking at today.
I've self-published several books and, I have to say, it's a very satisfying process. I love seeing the final product and I'm thrilled every time someone purchases one. I create art because I love it, and sharing it is the best part.
To get started, make sure you have all of your edited files ready to go. I cleaned up my watercolor scans and fixed any fitting errors, and now I just want to add a little bit about each character. I made sure to use public domain characters in this book. I'm a small-time artist and seriously do not need to deal with lawsuits over proprietary characters. Likewise, if you add any text to your images, please make sure it isn't copyrighted. The text included in this book is my own - I looked up each character & wrote a little paragraph. I like context and this was a nice way to include a little.
Anyway... Open up your file in Photoshop.
Here I have the Wicked Witch of the East. The background is simply a layer filled with white. I have the hat and hat tabs on their own layers and the costume and tabs on their own layers. I then created a group my clicking on the folder icon at the bottom of the layers panel & dragging the layers into that folder. Now I can position the group and not the individual elements. It's a very useful little tool.
I've also added margins to the image. Margins are important for printing. Lulu.com offers templates for book interiors in a Word format. From that, I determined that a 1/2 inch was sufficient. I've had to tweak some books in the past to fit the publishing requirements, particularly ones with full-page images. I use use a slightly-larger-than 1/2 inch margin on all of the interior pages. It's less of an issue with images like these where the background is white.
To add a margin in Photoshop, make sure your rulers are turned on and simply drag the margin line out from the ruler.
Position the image so that it fits within the margins. I can't stress this enough! If your images fall outside of the margins, it's a pain to fix it later.
I decided to write my text in Illustrator and bring it over to Photoshop. The type tools in Photoshop are not great, and I find this method a little better. InDesign would be an even better option, if you have it. I typed up my paragraph in Illustrator, selected it, copied it, and then pasted it in Photoshop. There are several ways to paste it (as seen in the image above). I chose Smart Object. It retains the original information from the file and can be edited in the original program (ie: Illustrator). I don't fully understand Smart Objects but they look great and work well for my purposes.
I have everything I need in my file. I like to save the .psd file and save a .jpg file. I'll keep the .psd files in case anything needs to be edited later, and I'll use the .jpg to create the .pdf for printing.
I've previously explained the whole process of creating a .pdf file, as well as creating a cover and uploading your final files, so there's no need to go over it again. I will mention this, though: make sure all of your files have the same dpi (and that should be 300 dpi). We spent all of that time getting the fit right on each outfit and it would be awful if that was ruined by something as simple as mismatched dpi!
And to wrap things up, here's a preview of the front cover!
I'll post a full preview next week once I finish putting the whole book together. Any questions, feel free to let me know!
I've self-published several books and, I have to say, it's a very satisfying process. I love seeing the final product and I'm thrilled every time someone purchases one. I create art because I love it, and sharing it is the best part.
To get started, make sure you have all of your edited files ready to go. I cleaned up my watercolor scans and fixed any fitting errors, and now I just want to add a little bit about each character. I made sure to use public domain characters in this book. I'm a small-time artist and seriously do not need to deal with lawsuits over proprietary characters. Likewise, if you add any text to your images, please make sure it isn't copyrighted. The text included in this book is my own - I looked up each character & wrote a little paragraph. I like context and this was a nice way to include a little.
Anyway... Open up your file in Photoshop.
I've also added margins to the image. Margins are important for printing. Lulu.com offers templates for book interiors in a Word format. From that, I determined that a 1/2 inch was sufficient. I've had to tweak some books in the past to fit the publishing requirements, particularly ones with full-page images. I use use a slightly-larger-than 1/2 inch margin on all of the interior pages. It's less of an issue with images like these where the background is white.
To add a margin in Photoshop, make sure your rulers are turned on and simply drag the margin line out from the ruler.
Position the image so that it fits within the margins. I can't stress this enough! If your images fall outside of the margins, it's a pain to fix it later.
I have everything I need in my file. I like to save the .psd file and save a .jpg file. I'll keep the .psd files in case anything needs to be edited later, and I'll use the .jpg to create the .pdf for printing.
I've previously explained the whole process of creating a .pdf file, as well as creating a cover and uploading your final files, so there's no need to go over it again. I will mention this, though: make sure all of your files have the same dpi (and that should be 300 dpi). We spent all of that time getting the fit right on each outfit and it would be awful if that was ruined by something as simple as mismatched dpi!
And to wrap things up, here's a preview of the front cover!
Friday, June 20, 2014
Fashion Friday - Stephanie
I don't really follow sports. My husband likes football and (of all things) cricket. Seriously? Cricket?! I don't understand most sports but cricket is way outside of my understanding. In honor of the World Cup that's currently taking place, I thought a sports paper doll was in order.
This week we have Stephanie. I named the doll for Stephanie Cox, a player on the American women's team. I don't have a really compelling reason - I wanted to name the doll after an actual player and "Stephanie" is a name I haven't used yet.
So there you are. For all of you soccer fans out there, here's a doll for you!
This week we have Stephanie. I named the doll for Stephanie Cox, a player on the American women's team. I don't have a really compelling reason - I wanted to name the doll after an actual player and "Stephanie" is a name I haven't used yet.
So there you are. For all of you soccer fans out there, here's a doll for you!
Download the Fashion Friday - Stephanie pdf here
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