Sparkly, Twirly Rainbow Dress

A silvery white spaghetti strap top with sequins all over it over a ankle-length full skirt. The skirt is swirling around, making the hem rise several inches above the ground. The skirt is done in bright rainbow colors and has a swirl and leaf pattern as well as a slight sparkle. This dress just makes me smile, and I hope it does the same for you! I wanted to experiment with the way of doing sparkles that I came up with for last week’s dress. My intention was to put the sparkles on the skirt, but then I came up with the idea of making that part rainbow and doing a lot of sparkles on top of that seemed a bit much. So I only put a few sparkles on top of it, because when it comes to paperdolls that’s my idea of moderation.

Next week… well, I don’t know! I’ve promised doll #4 three weeks in a row now, I may as well make it a fourth. For now, you can download combined color and black and white PDFs of all of my 2014 dolls and outfits for free! Also follow me on Facebook, Twitter or Pinterest for sneak previews, funny Photoshop error screenshots and fashion plates. If you enjoy my work, I'd also appreciate your support through Patreon.


Shimmery Blue Princess Gown

An off-the shoulder gown with a tight bodice and a trumpet-shaped skirt. There are pearly white ruffles over the shoulders, while the bodice is light blue with a small swirl pattern and a silver pattern at the neckline. The ruffled overskirt is in three layers, which start near the hip and get increasingly longer until they touch the ground on the other side of the dress. The top one is light blue, the middle one is a deeper blue and the bottom one is a darker purple-blue. They all have a silver swirl pattern on the edges. They're over a pearly white full skirt with a subtle swirl pattern in white on it.Happy 2015! Coming a little late to the party, am I? Well, I’ve still got a large portion of the year to make up for it. And I think this is going to be a good year for paperdolls and, hopefully, for some stories to go with them.

This dress is a princess gown I designed when I was doing my other princess gown series, but just never got around to it. I wanted to give it the time it deserved, and I think it turned out pretty well!

Next week, I hope to have a new paperdoll, but they always take a little longer than I expect, so it may just be a dress. Until then, you can download combined color and black and white PDFs of all of my 2014 dolls and outfits for free! Also follow me on Facebook, Twitter or Pinterest for gorgeous African print skirts, grousing about working in 200 DPI and sneak previews. If you enjoy my work, I'd also appreciate your support through Patreon.


White and Purple Gown

A sleeveless white gown with a boat neck that fits tightly over the legs. There's a pattern all over the gown of large purple and magenta scrolls edged with rhinestones. At the left hip is a length of iridescent trumpet-shaped fabric that falls over the gown to the floor. It's magenta near the top, fading into purple, and is sparkly.I experimented with a new coloring technique with this dress, which you can see in the pink and purple part. I confess I don’t have much else to say about it — it was fun to color, that’s all! My imagination’s been going towards NaNoWriMo (just hit 20,000 words!) and my Christmas project.

Next week, I’m probably going to try coloring something else this way. Until then, you can download combined color and black and white PDFs of all of my 2014 dolls and outfits for free! Also follow me on Facebook, Twitter or Pinterest for sneak previews, paperdoll thoughts and gorgeous jewelry. If you enjoy my work, I'd also appreciate your support through Patreon.


Rainbow Ball Gown with Rhinestones

A sleeveless ballgown with a black bodice and a sweetheart neckline. The bodice is covered with rhinestones in varying sizes and patterns. The skirt is floor-length, full and bell-shaped, and the colors on it go in a rainbow pattern, from red near the waist, then orange, yellow, green, blue and purple at the hem. There is a pattern of black lines over the fabric, giving it a dramatic look.As I wrote last week, I came up with a new way of doing my rhinestones, and this is the result of my experiments. To go into Photoshop talk for a moment, I like to sketch out the design on my iPad and turn it into a path, then go over it with a rhinestone brush. (That’s just a circle brush with spaces and a layer style — the same basic technique that I wrote about in my Tiny Tutorial #2 for making a basic bead brush.) I turn it into a path automatically instead of going over it with the pen tool, which would produce a much cleaner path but takes more time. What I realized is that drawing shapes, not lines, makes this work better, as well as putting those shapes on separate layers so that I can make some parts in smaller rhinestones and some parts in larger ones. There’s more experimentation to be done, but this is a good start!

Next week, you may see more experimentation with the technique. Until then, you can download combined color and black and white PDFs of all of my 2014 dolls and outfits for free! Also follow me on Facebook, Twitter or Pinterest for sneak previews, paperdoll thoughts and the occasional non-clothes related pin. If you enjoy my work, I'd also appreciate your support through Patreon.