Tween Fashion Friday - Celeste

There are some color schemes that I think are just beautiful and today's inspiration was one of those! I love dark blue & yellow (though my yellow ended up a bit on the greenish side).  And polka dots! I've been seeing polka dots everywhere lately.

Download Tween Fashion Friday - Celeste pdf here

This felt like a super sophisticated wardrobe & what's more sophisticated than a French name?!

Celeste can mix and match with any of the medium skin tone paper dolls.  One of these days I'll print some of these out and test out some combinations!

If you're looking for more paper dolls, I have the Etsy store up & running.  There are some unique sets over there that you can only get there.  And I love taking custom orders! I finished one recently for a teacher and it was so fun!

Tween Fashion Friday - Mackenzie

I had every intention of making a doll in the same skin tone as Bronwynn today. She is currently the only doll in that specific skintone and I wanted to add another one.  And then I accidentally reused the same hair color & freckles!

It looked great & I didn't want to change it so there you go.

Download Tween Fashion Friday - Mackenzie pdf here

I'm in denial about the weather here in New England.  Today, the forecast calls for 90F.  In September.  I don't want to wear shorts AND sip Pumpkin Spice Lattes!! So this doll has a color scheme & wardrobe that reflects my mood and not my environment.  It will mix & match with all of the light skinned dolls except Bronwynn.  I'll work on that goal another time!

Tween Fashion Friday - Rosemary

Happy September!

September is usually back to school season in my region.  My son actually went back to school this past Tuesday and he's loving it! First grade seems to agree with him.

I felt inspired to create something in bright, primary colors.  I thought about creating a back to school inspired pattern but decided against it.  I kind of wanted a simpler doll this week.

Download Tween Fashion Friday - pdf here

This paper doll has the same skin tone as Kourtney and Bronwynn.

I was a bit busy last week with a commission.  I was contacted by a teacher who wanted to use my paper dolls in her classroom & I love projects like that! Between that, back to school stuff, and a seasonal freelance gig I do every fall, I just never got around to a paper doll last week.  It happens.

Recently, I had a request for Halloween themed Kawaii Kids.  That's on my list for October -- sounds like fun!

Tween Fashion Friday - Simone

My husband is a BIG Olympics nerd.  He loves it! The games have been on our TV, computers, etc, for days now.  My kids are enjoying it, too.  I'm not a sports person in general, so the games have limited appeal for me.

I am, however, very proud of Team USA.

This year, two amazing athletes names Simone have done extraordinary things in their sports.  Simone Biles earned 5 medals (4 of those GOLD!) in gymnastics and Simone Manuel has earned 4 medals (2 gold, 2 silver) AND she's the FIRST African-American woman to win gold in an individual swimming event! That's a whole lot of awesome, even for a non-sports fan like myself.

So today's paper doll is dedicated to both Simones.

Download Tween Fashion Friday Paper Doll - Simone pdf here

I wasn't sure which way I wanted to go with this -- the adult body or the tween body. Ultimately, I went with the tween body.  I'm hoping it has more appeal to young girls and inspire them to achieve such lofty goals.  The fashions are loosely inspired bu Olympics uniforms but not accurate representations.  I wanted to do my own thing!

I'm trying to limit the color schemes of my tween paper dolls.  This doll will coordinate with any of the dark brown skintone poaper dolls.

Have fun playing Olympian! :)

New Paper Doll Book!

I'm probably not the only person who does this, but I set "age" goals.  Like, I'll be married and have kids by 30 (which I mostly did, so hooray for that!)....that sort of thing.  Some of them are ridiculous.  When I was a kid, I wanted to learn 5 languages by 21. It was ambitious, to say the least! I've continued the habit as an adult, with slightly less lofty goals!

One of those goals is to get a paper doll book published with a "real" publisher.  I set myself an arbitrary goal of sending images to Dover by the time I was 35.

And I did send something.....

...a little over a year ago.  With no word since.

After reading Rachel's interview, I realized that 1) paper dolls are incredibly niche 2) print publishing is a tough business in general (especially for niche interests) and 3) Dover has a remarkable quantity of amazing talent to draw from already. All of these things make me feel a little less personally invested in this arbitrary goal of a real publisher, and more interested in just doing what I love.  And I LOVE creating art of all sorts.

So after waiting a little over a year, I decided to put the book together myself. And I got the proof copy this week!

The photos are not great.  I took them with my phone, in bad light, on my couch.  Still, I think the print book is an almost perfect match for my original art.

Here's a blurry image of the title page.  I've been trying to create more appealing title pages instead of the black & white text versions of the past.

A close-up from the title page.

And three pages of dresses.  Those are shadows, not creases, because I took awful pictures!

The back cover with the two dolls.

The idea for this book was a mix & match Victorian set.  I came across something on Pinterest called a robe a transformation: a transformation dress.  Apparently every dress Charles Frederick Worth created fell in this category, and this book could have easily just been a Worth themed book.  Instead, I found lots of different transformation dresses -- I even included a list of references in the back of the book! I haven't done a full-blown Victorian set before and I wanted to push the limits of my Photoshop "painting" techniques.  This paper doll (like almost all of them) started as pencil sketches.  I scanned & "painted" them in Photoshop.

Here's a preview of the entire book.  I loved making it, start to finish.  It was the kind of project that was just effortless and amazing and satisfying.

Hopefully, you like it, too.

Grab your copy here for now.  It'll be on Amazon, Barnes & Noble Online, etc, soon.

Tween Fashion Friday - Susan

One of my nieces had her tonsils out this week & I spent a couple of days visiting with her.  She suggested the name for today's paper doll and helped choose the color scheme.

Download Tween Paper Doll - Susan

This paper doll shares a skin tone with Rosalind.  I don't think the clothing will mix & match, but I could be wrong! This makes doll #6 in the series.  It's been fun, so far, and any suggestions are more than welcome!!

Tween Fashion Friday - Gianna

This is the fifth tween paper doll! I'm having a great time creating these! I wanted to create a set of basic clothing to mix and match with the previous four sets, so today's paper doll is mainly jeans & some neutral shoes.  There's a little color, too, just because I couldn't help myself.

Download Tween Fashion Friday - Gianna pdf here

I like to learn new skills when I can, and this week I came across a mandala tutorial for Illustrator.  It took some time & I learned some new techniques along the way.  I created the mandala in Gianna's wardrobe using the tutorial.  It wasn't perfectly symmetrical but a "hand-drawn" texture brush in Illustrator helped a great deal.  This seemed like the perfect opportunity to use my little mandala!

Also, Nia and Gianna have the same skin tone, so they can mix & match shoes.  I'm trying to be a bit more sparing in the skin tones I use.  My fashion dolls have somewhere around 15 skin tone variations and that's a bit much....!