I'm currently working on my holiday card, so that will post soon. In the meantime, I finally took the 2018 Doodle-a-Day project and turned it into a calendar! You can grab it here. It took about three weeks to receive my copy, so plan accordingly! You can also take a look at the whole project (and print them out at home) here.
First up, happy Halloween! I totally, absolutely LOVE Halloween. My kids do, too. What's more fun than dressing up, going out at night, and getting candy with your friends?! Nothing, that's what!
It was tough fitting both of these on one page! My merchant witch is a sort of Venetian style costume. I wasn't sure how to represent shopping or selling or whatever a merchant does. I settled on bag on a belt and hanging potions. The travel witch, too, was a bit tough. I thought a steampunk inspired/early automobile outfit might work. Anyway.... It's been a fun series to work on! Make sure to check out Rachel's, too, over at Paper Thin Personas. It's always a blast working on paper dolls with her!
Week 4 of our Witchtober project! Next week will be the last week and we'll post on Halloween. This has been loads of fun...and hard to keep up with! Sometimes I look through my old projects and I wonder how I ever had the time! That 2018 doodle-a-day? WOW! There were 63 sheets in that collection with 4 different dolls.
Right-click to download the full resolution images
I got a little carried away with the winter set! I'm learning more and more about Procreate every day. One thing I'm working on is custom brushes. The holly is a brush I made. Still tinkering.... The 18th century dress is a little slim but I knew I was running out of space on the page. I made a pumpkin brush for that pattern, too, and I'm not sure how I feel about that one. If I color these, I'll probably approach both of those differently.
Rachel is on track to post hers a little late this week. Watch her blog for it. I know I'm looking forward to seeing it!
I know my post went up a little bit late today. I got a bit caught up drawing all of the Rococo inspired goodness on my Sea Witch!!
You can add to your growing Witchtober collection by grabbing Rachel's set here.
I'll admit, things never seem to settle down in my house! I've been helping my mother with her knee surgery. My boys are both in middle school now (!!!!!!) - one is having a tough transition but we're working on it. I feel like I have a million things going on any given day.
I wouldn't trade it for anything. Ok, maybe for just a tiny bit of quiet.
Today's Witchtober set is a Bone Witch and a Bird Witch. I was partially inspired by a pearl ribcage jewelry thing for the Bone Witch. And some rad shoes with spines for heels. The Bird Witch is all me. I had this idea of a one-shoulder swoopy kind of thing. I'm not completely happy with how the skirt turned out but I can live with it. Take a look at Rachel's interpretation here!
My youngest son is totally into Halloween this year! We all are big Halloween fans most years, but this year, he is REALLY into it! We drew monsters together over the weekend.
Today, however, is a paper doll kind of day!
August came and went in a blur! Our Disney vacation was a ton of fun. The kids LOVED it! It was hot. It rained. We walked a zillion miles a day. I destroyed my phone and my husband lost his credit card. My parents lost a piece of luggage (it was found!). But it was all worth it and it was super fun. Here's a goofy selfie to prove it!
Anyway....
The next issue of Paperdoll Review is all about plaids and checks. I was going to make a retro mod doll with some fun plaid outfits but it just wasn't coming together.
And then the Queen died.
I'm a low-key royal watcher. Not like obsessive or anything. My mother is close in age to Princess Diana and watched the wedding in the 80s with great enthusiasm. I'm about the same age as Prince William. I find the history of it all fascinating. So once the Queen's death was announced, I felt compelled to draw her for the magazine.
Her last official photo showed her at Balmoral in a tartan skirt and sweater. I knew from my own Scottish ancestry that tartans have their own histories and restrictions, much like coats of arms. There's a Scottish Register of Tartans that is just terrific! It has lovely samples and information about each tartan, which was a key part of creating this doll. Here I discovered that the Queen's tartan is the Balmoral tartan, exclusive to the royal family. I used that on my base doll.
The other key part of my paper doll is Balmoral Castle. It was a favorite residence of the Queen and where she spent her final days. I found a lovely image on Wikipedia which was especially great because it's a Creative Commons image that I can freely remix! I tried working with it in Photoshop but to get the effect I wanted, I ran it through a watercolor painting simulation process in Photoshop.
So essentially I took all of these elements, about 5 hours in Procreate with another hour or so in Photoshop, and created my Queen Elizabeth memorial paper doll. Here's a 30 second time lapse video so you can get a sense of it.
