Fashion Doll - Bold Florals for March

It is somehow the longest and fastest year ever simultaneously. Somehow, it's already March! I now have two teens in my house - my youngest son turned 13 over the weekend. I started this blog just a few months after he was born as a way to keep myself grounded in a sense of not-mom. Now, thirteen years later, I have two teens who are starting to have their own lives, leaving me with a whole different identity crisis! Who am I after kids? How do I fill this time that I suddenly have? Don't worry - I absolutely manage to fill it! 

One of my goals for this year is to post more sets on the blog. These one-page sets or short series help me practice and refine my technique. I have loads of programs I'd like to test out both on the iPad and on my desktop. I've also had questions about workflow and publishing: can I complete the whole process on an iPad, can I complete it all in Procreate, what other apps, etc... So I want to continue experimenting.

Can a paper doll be completed start to finish in Procreate? For me it's a no. I find the selection and move tools to be utterly useless in Procreate. The app simply isn't able to rotate without a serious loss of crispness. It's always pixelated and blurry when I try. I also used vector shapes to create tabs and I just don't think tabs would be as sharp in Procreate.

 

Click on the image for full resolution. Feel free to download and print.

 

Procreate automatically records a time-lapse unless it's toggled off and I thought it would be fun to include that here. My oldest son is taking film at the high school and he's teaching me how to use Premier Pro! In the video you'll see that I used a hair color chart. I grabbed that on Pinterest via DeviantArt.

I really liked the Jester paper doll from last week and I didn't feel like starting over completely. Instead, I changed a few things. I work in layers (a LOT of layers) and that makes changes easy. I kept the pose, the skin color, the shoes, and face pretty much the same. I drew new hair, made the base outfit a mini dress, and changed the eye color using the hue/saturation adjustment tool. All total, it took less than 4 hours to turn this whole doll around, from editing to sketching to coloring to layout. And that includes preparing the patterns in Photoshop for use in Procreate. 

The patterns are from Nadia Grapes and the now defunct Design Cuts site. I think of patterns like this like fabric - sure I COULD design it myself but there are so many beautiful patterns out by artists with much stronger skills than mine for me to buy. And I have TONS and TONS of patterns and brushes and fonts just sitting on my hard drive, begging to be used. 

For the clothing, I let the patterns sort of inform the design. I did, however, come across this fabulous sewing pattern cover and LOVED the pants and short sleeved blouse. 

Anyway, my plan for this month it to add a sheet each week to go with this set. I couldn't come up with a clever title. Maybe you have one to share! Look for another page next week!