Women Airforce Service Pilot in Leather Jacket and Flying Suit with Goggles for Memorial Day

Click for larger version (PNG); click for PDF version. Click here for the list of dolls.

Today is Memorial Day here in the states, honoring the men and women who gave their lives for our country. I happened to read a post on Metafilter about the Women Airforce Service Pilots (WASPs), a little-known organization of more than a thousand civilian female pilots who flew missions in WWII, freeing up male pilots for active duty. I won’t restate the contents of the whole Metafilter post, but I do recommend you read it if you have some time. I used a couple of pictures from Blitzkrieg Baby as reference for this flight suit and leather jacket with a patch of the WASP mascot Fifinella.

Don’t forget, my contest is still going! No one’s got it yet, so please post your guess as a comment.

How many visits did my site get between (and including) April 1, 2010 and April 30, 2010?

Don’t forget the rules…
1) If you’ve already won this year, please don’t enter.
2) One guess per person per post.
3) If no one gets the exact number by 9:00 PM EST, June 2nd, I’ll pick the closest guess.
4) I’ll give one hint each day the contest goes on.
– Yesterday’s hint: It’s between 10,000 and 30,000
– Today’s hint: The middle digit is 6.


Black And White Short-Sleeved Princess Gown with Wave Patterns

Click for larger version (PNG); click for PDF version. Click here for the list of dolls.

I wanted to draw a princess-ish dress today, but it’s too hot and even drawing loads of fabric seems unappealing. (OK, so even with short sleeves, even if you imagine the fabric to be fairly light this is still quite a lot of imaginary fabric, but Ivy doesn’t have the same concerns in her life that I do, so it’s all right.) This one seems a little boring to me, but colored (maybe in light, cool colors) with a little pattern here and there, I bet it’d be really cute.

Brian and I saw The Secret of Kells today, a fantastic animated movie about The Book of Kells. The art style is absolutely gorgeous and intricate, and the story was charming as well. The waves here are kind of influenced by it, come to think of it, although I didn’t really realize until Brian pointed it out!

Time for a new contest! Winner gets to pick any one of my black-and-white dresses and tell me how they want it to be colored. The last one got a mite tedious, so this one will run from now until 9:00 PM EST, June 2nd.

How many visits did my site get between (and including) April 1, 2010 and April 30, 2010?

Don’t forget the rules…
1) If you’ve already won this year, please don’t enter.
2) One guess per person per post.
3) If no one gets the exact number by 9:00 PM EST, June 2nd, I’ll pick the closest guess.
4) I’ll give one hint each day the contest goes on.

Edit: It’s Sunday, and I’m not posting a paperdoll today but I am posting a hint! It’s between 10,000 and 30,000.

For my poll, it looks like summer has pulled ahead slightly…


Pink 1860s Ball Gown with White Scroll Pattern

Click for larger version (PNG); click for PDF version. Click here for the list of dolls.

Well, today’s dress wasn’t quite what I wanted. I was planning on trying to draw lace with the white gel pen, but I ended up doing it all in pencil instead, and then I picked up the wrong pencil while doing the bodice and colored for a while before I realized my mistake. What I have here is totally different from what I wanted, because after my mistake the only thing I could do was to make it as dark as possible and draw something distracting on top of it. I probably wouldn’t quite so annoyed about my bodice mistake if that skirt hadn’t taken so long!

Anyways, I just thought I hadn’t done a hoop skirt for a while, and it would offer a lot of opportunities to practice drawing lace with the gel pen, which I didn’t even do…

… I’m just going to post this and be done with it!


Blue Halter Dress with Yellow and Pink Flower Pattern

Click for larger version of blue dress (PNG); click for PDF version of blue dress. Click for larger version of black dress (PNG); click for PDF version of black dress. Click here for the list of dolls.

Someone got a new tooooy ♪
I ordered some white gel pens, because I wanted to see if I could do, well, something like this. After playing with them all day, I can happily recommend the Sakura Souffle for use on top of Prismacolors. I will do a tutorial about it at some point, and a comparison of the types of pen I bought as well. But for now, I’m just happy I could do what I wanted to do with white ink! Or rather, I’m on the way to making some cool things, I think.

So this is just me playing around with my toy, I hope you like it. And since I am in such a cheery, experimental mood I couldn’t help fussing around in Photoshop and making a bonus version, too, which is a little less refreshing and springy, a little more chic.