Watercolor Paper Doll: Creating Templates in Photoshop

Last week, I shared my edited watercolor paper doll. This week, I have some quick tips about creating templates and drawing outfits for my doll.

As with so many projects, there's more than one way to do this. Some artists will cut their doll out and trace it, then draw more outfits. That also leaves the doll read to go onto a layout in the pre-digital age. It's a great idea, very accessible, and low tech. But it's not for me. I'm kind of garbage at cutting things out! So instead, I'll use the tools I have which includes Photoshop, a printer, and a tracing table.

To begin, I open the watercolor file. That file is set to 600 dpi which means that image is twice the size of my original. If you want an exact-sized scan, make sure to scan it at 300 dpi. I copy my 600 dpi image and paste it into a new file that's set to 300 dpi.

Sounds like a lot of unnecessary files... It is, but I'm a big fan of redundancy and non-destructive processes so each doll has at least two files.

Here's the doll, at 300 dpi, on a transparent layer. At this point, I could just lower the opacity, drag out two copies so that there are three across the page, and print this. Really, though, I only need the outline. You should be able to do this in just about any digital design software (except Procreate and I'll explain why).

In Photoshop, I went to the fx button at the bottom of my layers panel and gave my image a white color overlay. Then, I gave it a 2pt black stroke on the outside of the image, create an outlined silhouette.

But here's where I forgot a step!

How can I draw leggings, pants, etc, without the doll's LEGS?! I forgot to take out the base. I went back in and made a duplicate layer, erased the base around the legs, and added the color layer and stroke. Combined, those two layers give me a template that has both the legs (duh) and the base. I also noticed after the fact that the neckline of the base suit and the shape of the shoes would be helpful. I might further edit the template. Maybe trying to make this easier made it more difficult! 

A note about Procreate: It doesn't have a good option for creating an outline like this. If I wanted to do this in Procreate, I'd probably lock the alpha and paint over it with a light grey, print that out and use it to trace. It's not ideal. I strongly recommend getting something other than just Procreate - it's GREAT for digital drawing and coloring and I LOVE it, but it's not designed for editing. Affinity has an older app available for iPad and PC/Mac that would work. Clip Studio Paint is pretty robust, too, so that might be an option. My workflow is usually paper to scanner to Photoshop on my PC, then iPad for Procreate, then back to Photoshop on my PC for edited, tabs, and layout. Not everyone has two devices. Let me know if I should look into iPad exclusive apps! 

Here's the edited template including legs.

I rotated my image, copied it twice, and now I have three templates. Next, I'll print these out and use a light table to trace them onto drawing paper. Again, I like to make things in drafts or iterations. I'll scribble my outfits on sketchbook paper then trace them onto watercolor paper. You could also lower the opacity and print a lighter version then draw directly on the copy paper. OR you could make your stroke a color, like cyan, print that and draw directly on the paper. There are lots and lots of ways to do this. If you have a different way, I'd love to see that, too! 

One more note about printing: make sure you print at 100%! Any scaling and it won't fit the original doll OR the Photoshop file! 

Now that I have a template an a doll, it's time to draw!  

Watercolor Paper Doll: Photoshop Edits

Last week, I shared a watercolor paper doll, or, as I like to think about it, an exercise in patience and perseverance! It was frustrating!! But I liked the final watercolor enough to scan it in and edit it, with the intention of painting a little wardrobe.

First things first, I trimmed my paper. I have two small scanners and my 9x12 paper just didn't fit. So I trimmed the doll off, kept the remainder of the paper, and scanned the doll. That's the beauty of digitally editing! I can create any layout I want and it doesn't have to be perfect on the paper! 

I tried scanning it at 300 dpi on my all-in-one printer. It was ok but not a great scan. I have a small Epson scanner that scans a bit better so I tried that. And it was still a little weird. Then I remembered a tip I got from Jenny ages ago: sometimes placing a blue/cyan paper on the scanner helps. And it did!  

Here's the "before" scan. The colors are very ho-hum, a bit yellow, and a bit too light. The only edited I did here was a bit of cropping.

And the same image but this time it was scanned with a bright blue paper behind it. This image is also cropped.

Why does this work? I don't know. Maybe there are some color theory experts out there who understand more than I do and can explain it. For me, it's magic and I'll keep doing it! 

My image is scanned, with blue paper, at 600 dpi. I know from my years of paper doll editing experience that EVERY doll needs some editing. I try to do all of that editing at 600 dpi, then adjust it to 330 dpi for printing. That way, any manipulation that looks lower-resolution or blurry or whatever becomes crisp again when it's shrunk down. Hopefully that makes sense! Basically, shrinking art makes it sharp.

 Feel free to click on this image to see it larger! 

Here's the doll in Photoshop. You can see the bright blue paper and a few layers. I try to keep the original scan on the bottom layer (Layer 0 in this image) and work with a copy above it (Layer 0 copy). I added a guideline just to straighten out the scan. 

There are several ways to extract art from the background. You can use selection tools like the magic wand, or trace around it with the pen tool and create a selection. My preferred method can be a bit tedious but it's what works best for me: a layer mask.

First, I add what I call a high contrast layer under the layer that has a mask. I like a magenta color. Then, I add the mask to the layer (Layer 0 copy in this image) and use the brush tool to draw around the image. I have a pen display and draw directly on that.

The doll and my magenta background. Not pictured is the actual mask because I forgot to take a picture of it! Anyway, I draw on the mask layer with a black brush over the white areas that I want to delete. Once I'm happy with my mask, I apply it to the layer and it deletes the areas where I painted black. I like using the mask because it's non-destructive. If I accidentally draw over something in black that I want to keep, just switch to white and paint over the mask again, restoring it. 

I can write up more about masks and how I use them if anyone is interested in that. I think it's a great tool and I use it ALL the time! 

After the art is extracted, I noticed a few things. First, the hair is weird. Second, the coloring is still a bit off. And third, I don't like some of the hard edges of the watercolor painting. The image on my screen is much larger than the painting - that was about 7 inches high which, for me, feels teeny tiny! 

I used the spot healing brush to smooth out some of the color transitions and clean up some of the dust, etc, that got onto the painting. Then, I went into the levels panel and tweaked the color just a bit. I wanted it to be just a little lighter. I made a note of what I did on the layer so that I can adjust the clothing scans later on. And finally, I copied the left side of the hair (which I like), flipped it horizontally, and placed it on the right side where I blended it in until I was happy.
 

Before is on the right and after is on the left because I clearly did not think this through when I took the screenshot....

And that's it. Probably the only other thing I might do at this point is edit the base. I'm not overly concerned about it at this stage.  

Now that I'm happy with the doll, it's time to start on a wardrobe!  

Watercolor Paper Doll

For a while, I've been thinking about traditional art. My very first experience with digital art was in high school with an early Wacom tablet that my art teacher had connected to her computer. It was neat but definitely not for me. I was going to be a "serious" artist. My next experience with digital art was about ten years later, when I was planning my wedding. I wanted to customize some things so I used some pirated software, a mouse, and a scanner to tinker with some hand-drawn art. It was fun, I enjoyed it, and I wanted to make more digital art while still drawing and painting. 

This is a long way of saying that I spent all of my childhood and almost all of my twenties in pursuit of traditional art long before I became interested in graphic design and digital art. At this point, I think I've been working at least as long digitally as I have traditionally! With the rise of AI and a cultural zeitgeist of longing for authenticity, I find myself wanted to get my hands dirty, literally. I also want to continue my "use it up" mantra from last year, so I'm using what I have.

And what I have is a truly stupid amount of art making materials! 

I have numerous sketchbooks, some I bought and some were gifted to me. I have at least 4 if not more brands of graphite pencils and at least two different colored pencil sets. I have watercolor paints in a variety of formats including: Cotman watercolor tubes and a travel Winsor-Newton/Cotman half pan set that is at least 25 years old, two different Sakura Koi watercolor sets (pans and tubes), Kuretake Gansai Tambi watercolors that I picked up on sale, and a set of Arteza gouache paints because I'd love to get on the gouache trend.

This is only some of my ridiculous supply. I also have three plastic palettes just for mixing watercolors.

It's a problem. Especially for a mostly digital artist! 

I thought it would be fun to take a Canson mix media sketchbook and create a paper doll. The doll and the clothing could stay nice & tidy in a sketchbook. 

 

I started with a couple of sketches. First, I tried to work out some proportions and then I tried a sassy little pose. Initially, I wanted to draw this with markers and that absolutely did not work. I traced my sketch onto the Canson paper with a Papermate Flair pen, started coloring with the markers...and it immediately smudged. Ok.  I tried the same thing with a Micron pen with similar results. Ok. Then I traced it a third time with some good old fashioned Crayola colored pencils, which also smeared. At this point, I was certain that the markers were the issue so I packed those up and took out the watercolors.

And I had more issues.

I finally decided to trace the doll into the sketchbook and paint it with watercolors, no outlines.

I traced my original sketch twice, once to line and once to play around with. I think I traced that sketch at least six times. This WHOLE process took up most of a Saturday. I was frustrated and annoyed and ready to walk away. Instead, I slightly enlarged my image in Photoshop, traced it yet again, and painted it.

Here it is! It's kind of cute but I was still not happy. The feet are too big. The paper buckled a lot and the paint was very streaky. Just overall, not really happy with it. I scrapped the idea of using the Canson sketchbook and grabbed some watercolor paper that I picked up on a whim at Blick. Is it good paper? I dunno. But at about a dollar a sheet, I was willing to experiment.

And here's the unedited doll, painted on actual watercolor paper. All total, this one doll probably took me ten hours. I don't have a workflow for watercolors any more! It was ALL trial and error. I'm much happier with this one. Next up, I'll edit it and start painting a wardrobe! 

Right now I don't have any direction for this - no name, no theme, nothing! So if YOU have any of those thoughts, feel free to share. Next week I'll have write-up about my Photoshop edited process. 

Sometimes I Hate My Own Art (and You Should, Too)

I told my youngest son the title of this post and he said it sounds like EVERYONE should hate MY art but that is not at all what I'm going for. Sometimes, I hate my own art and sometimes, you should hate your own art, too. 

Most of my creative life, I've been a solo act. Artist and critic, all rolled into one. Thankfully, I have creative people in my life now who help me work through my challenges but that drive to be my own worst critic never goes away. And it shouldn't. Being able to critique your own work is really important. 

I posted in January and most of February about a book I'm working on and I'm really struggling with the dolls. I have all of my reference material ready to go. I have a working title. The concept is totally ready for take-off. The dolls are not.

First, I tried drawing them. They were ok but stiff and lacking something, but I don't know what....

Then, I experimented with tracing so that I could learn about poses. And I learned a lot! But not quite enough....   

 

This has been languishing on my iPad for a couple of weeks. I thought maybe the head was too small so I modified it (that's the image on the right). It's a little better but it still feels odd.

Maybe it's fine. Maybe I'm too critical. There are things I like: the arms are both great. I worked really hard on the feet, the overall pose is fine. But it feels too long, too lanky, and just not right. I really noticed it after I did another drawing.

Here's the rough sketch from my little sketchbook - it's 8.5 inches by 5.5 inches.

I then traced my rough sketch using a light table with the idea that I might paint this one traditionally. Spoiler: I didn't.

Here's the line drawing from Procreate. It's going in the next issue of Paperdoll Review - the theme is Tea Party. You'll have to wait and see what I cooked up! 

The point is, I LOVE this little tea gal! It feels like me, like I'm not trying to hard. It just came together and I'm happy with it. I feel like maybe I'm trying to force a breakthrough or try to be something that I'm just not yet. So it's back to the drawing board, again, and I really think the third time will be the charm!  

Tracing and Creating Paper Dolls: Refining

I'm continuing on my tracing journey this week, although that's not quite accurate. At this stage, I'm sketching on paper then refining digitally.

For this, I'm using the tools I have - a color printer, tape, ruler, and a sketchbook. I printed one of the dolls with the heads measurement scale and added it to one side of my sketchbook. Using a ruler, I drew lines in the sketchbooks so that I could draw the doll with better accuracy.  

 Here's the drawing of my doll using the traced image on the left. 

 

I can already see that there are some issues. The tilt of the arm on the left and the tilt of the whole torso is a bit off.  The legs and feet are a bit odd. I'm not really worried about the face at such a small scale. 

At this stage, I'll scan it, tinker with it in Photoshop, and then draw it in Procreate. Is it a lot of steps? Yes. I really need to draw more. Some of this is because I've gotten a little rusty! 

 It's a little tough to see, but the image above has my trace (blue lines) with my transferred drawing (black pencil) over it. My stupid scanner keeps cutting the bottom of my drawings off!! You can see in this overlay that the proportions are ok but some of the angles are off. I could leave it like this and it would probably be fine. But let's go that extra bit and see what happens.

On the left, my adjusted sketch and on the right, the traced image. Now, it's ready for Procreate. I didn't spend long in Photoshop - maybe 15 minutes - but I think it'll make a difference in the doll.

 Here's the image from Procreate. I took the adjusted sketch and drew over it in purple. Why purple? I don't know. I just like it and it's an easy way to tell my sketch layer from my line layer. I kept the negative spaces between the arms a little bit larger than in the trace layer so that they better accommodate tabs. Her face needs some work! I really like drawing, taking a picture or scan, and then walking away and coming back. I see things differently. Once I sort out the face, I'll line this and work on the second doll, which will be the same process.

Feel free to drop me a note! Love it? Hate it? Wanna see more?? 

 

Tracing and Creating Paper Dolls

Last week, I posted a behind-the-scenes image of a book I'm working on. The more I looked at those paper doll sketches, the more I disliked them. They're stiff and awkward and I just feel like I can do better. I've had a bit of art block for quite a while so I've been drawing less - right now, it REALLY shows! To boost my inspiration and skills, I decided to trace some dress pattern cover illustrations that I found online.

Trace?! 

Yes, trace. Or, as I choose think of it, analyzing with line. 

I've been reading up on tracing. It's not something I usually do. I'm a bit of a purist and I think the best way to improve is through observation. Go to a figure drawing class, draw a 3D doll, set up a still-life...doesn't matter which, they all help! But sometimes, I need something more tailored, more specific. This is where tracing comes in. 

Let's first take a detour about tracing. 

Some say it's cheating. Some say it isn't. The truth, for me, is somewhere in the middle. I read a phrase that really summed it up for me - tracing is cheating if you're setting out to deceive. Are you learning? Trace away! Tracing your own art? Go for it! Using public domain or some other rights managed image that you legally have the right to use? Again, go for it! Is tracing a shortcut to a selling someone else's work as your own? Nope. 

So why tracing?

My drawings feel off lately. There's something missing and I'm not quite sure what it is. I don't feel like I'm growing or improving. I'd like to have a more vintage fashion illustration aesthetic and I've been collecting images for inspiration for a while. My eclipse paper doll is adapted from a vintage fashion illustration. Sure, I can sketch from reference all day long but I want to gather information a bit faster. That's where the idea of analyzing with line comes it...

First, I gathered a bunch of images I liked. Second, I opened Photoshop and created a sizing template. The images I found were different sizes and different resolutions and I wanted them all to be roughly the same size for ease of comparison.

I settled on an 8 head height. Typically, an adult is about 7 1/2 to 8 heads high and fashion figures are often drawn at 9 heads, with longer legs. I adjusted each image to be about 8 heads which looked good and felt right for these illustrations.

Once I had the figures all arranged, I imported them into Procreate. I didn't end up tracing every image, just a few until I tired of it! 

 

I focused on vintage pattern cover illustrations, mostly 60s and 70s. 

 

When searching for illustrations, I focused on bathing suit sewing patterns. They felt like the closest analog to a traditional paper doll.

I picked a variety of poses, sometimes similar poses and sometimes quirky poses.

When I like details, such as hair or face, I traced more of that. Some of the faces are great! 

 

Here's one pose and tracing isolated together. Feel free to download any of these images to see a larger version.

 

So what was the point? What did I learn?

 

A few things! Some of these faces are great and could really help me get over my "same face" issues. Breaking the poses down into simple lines also helped clarify the poses. I can see these as a jumping off point for more exploration, too, maybe combining part into new poses. I also think feet and hands are challenging for most of us!!  Maybe these will spark some new inspiration for my top secret book....

 

Behind the Scenes: Paper Doll Book Process

I didn't want January to end without at least one more post! I'm still working through a bit of art block/ennui/whatever. I'm not depressed, really, just more like unmotivated. Life happens. I'm working through it. 

I'm also working on one of several new books for Paperdoll Review. I'm not ready to share the titles or themes or any details, but I did want to share a bit of my process.

 

The book I'm working on will have two dolls but I'll walk through the process with just one. It's basically the same for both.  Drawing the dolls is the hardest part for me! Sometimes it just works (like the Timeless Teens book. That one just effortlessly worked!) Here, I found a pose I mostly liked and ran with it. The sketch on the right is from my physical sketchbook - I drew a body and a larger head, then smooshed them together in Photoshop. It's a VERY rough sketch.

Sometimes I'll manipulate the sketch a little with warping tools, sometimes I don't. Next up, I'll refine the sketch.

 

Drawing on my large screen can be a little clunky. Generally, I'll transfer my sketch to my iPad and play with it in Procreate. Could I do all of this in Photoshop? Probably. Could I do all of this on my iPad? Again, probably. However, my XP-Pen screen is more than double the size of my iPad and I like looking at my flaws and errors as large as possible!! 

At this point, I was frustrated and annoyed so I traced the reference.

WHAT?! TRACING?! Yes. I traced it because I just could not make sense of the pose. In fact, tracing is a tool that I will explore soon on the ol' blog. Stay tuned. 

 

The trace versus the reference. Doing this really helps me understand the pose. The tracing does not end up in my final art, ever. Tracing helped me simplify the reference image and understand the pose a bit better.

I kept refining the sketch, checking proportions, angles, etc. I'm still in the process of refining! I've found that it's best if I draw and walk away, as many times as it takes. I've been working on this on & off for about two weeks. I'm still thinking about it! The second doll (on the left) may or may not have a second arm! I STILL can't decide! If you have thoughts on how the dolls are coming along, feel free to share. As I continue to sort this out, I'll share more.

Also, I've been way less active on social media. I'm going to try to revive the blog & see what happens.