Halloween Costume Series Day 2: Violet Blue and Black Witch’s Robes with Runes and Silver Accents

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It seemed to Aithne like she was the only one of the three who bothered keeping up appearances anymore, the only one with any sense of propriety. The things her sisters wore these days! You couldn’t even blame it on a generation gap, as they were all equally old — no — they had positively lost their pride.

It had come to a head two years ago when Medea came to visit, breezing through her door with a tan and a take-out box full of hen’s teeth. First off, she had insisted on being called Madison. (Madison!) Second, she displayed her new cardigan (did she say it was from the End of the Land? Horrid place, she was sure) with wicked, rebellious delight, stretching out an arm as though she expected Aithne to pet it. Finally, she had laughed at her sister’s new robes, remarking that it looked like she had her grocery list written on her hem and that she was totally stuck in the 1800s. Aithne replied that she very well might be, but it was much better than being stuck as a newt, the truth of which she proceeded to demonstrate. Mehitabel had had to step in (and stepping was something she quite liked since she had discovered thousand-dollar high heels — imagine that, going to your kitchen, instead of having your tea come to you, just for effect) to de-newt Medea, since Aithne refused to do so without an apology, and Medea’s communication skills had been reduced to skittering around and switching her tail.

Aithne had had no contact with Mehitabel or Medea since, after yelling at the both of them that the family art was going to hell in a handbasket, a handbasket filled with pastel cardigans and Italian stilettos. They had left in high dudgeon, but she had been proved right by the grave injuries Medea had sustained attempting a ritual wearing her capris and cardigan one day; one does not, apparently, serve a traditionalist entity in modern styles.

For any of you who follow my paperdollverse, I believe that this set of robes is from a new collection from my wizard-world fashion designer responsible for this set of sunset-colored dress robes and this cool-colored set. Aithne is a witch, but she isn’t technically a part of that universe, so she had to go rather a ways out of her way for it and ended up paying quite dearly for it; she believes Medea got off lightly for insulting it.


Plurk Paper Dolls with costumes, memes and renowned computer geeks

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You may have heard of Twitter, the latest way for web 2.0 types to revolutionize the world, and what I use for off-the-cuff paperdoll updates, over on the sidebar. I also started using plurk, which is similar but has better organization and makes it easier to carry on conversations. (Twitter now is just paperdoll stuff while plurk is more “here’s what I’m making for dinner,” but feel free to visit my Plurk stream.)

Anyways, Plurk had a design contest recently, so I drew up this one-off paperdoll that uses three of the “plurk creatures,” Plurk’s creepy-cute mascots. Besides the Halloween costumes, the other sets have a more geeky bent to them. Top left, you’ll find three memes that geeks have obsessed over to ridiculous levels: Portal’s Weighted Companion Cube, CATS from Zero Wing, famous for the All Your Base dialogue, and Twitter’s failwhale, the image that signals the site is down. Bottom left, there’s Bill Gates, Microsoft co-founder, Steve Jobs, Apple co-founder, and Shigeru Miyamoto, Nintendo’s “father of modern video games.” (His outfit was taken from this BusinessWeek article because it was so cute.)

Sadly, I didn’t win the contest with my little plurky paperdolls, so I’ll have to buy the book I wanted, McGee & Stuckey’s Bountiful Container, with my own money after all. Still, even if I didn’t win the contest, I at least have something for my blog today!


Halloween Costume Series Day 1: The Good Queen’s Ghost

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I can’t tell you why someone who was called “The Good Queen” during her life now haunts a ruined castle of no consequence; queens don’t tell their secrets to paper doll artists. I took on the assignment in the hope of a good story to deliver to my readers, but she condescended to tell me very little about her life, although she was quick to tell me that I had the bodice quite wrong, that I was obviously phoning in the lace, and so on. The older history books paint a glorious picture of her, but I couldn’t help but think that the historians that speculate that the epithet “The Good Queen” was applied to her much like “the Kindly Ones” was applied to the three Furies very well may be on to something. My romantic mind first imagined that she plunged the dagger into her own heart for love, a pre-cursor (possibly inspiration?) to Juliet, and I still think she died by her own hand but the more I sat with her the more I sensed her desperation and anger, and despite her annoyance with my lace, I don’t think it was directed at me. Now I feel her death had nothing to do with love but rather with intrigue of some sort, a power play that went wrong enough to bind her to this world. Still, I’m dying to know what’s with the blood on her hem, but if she will not tell me, fine; in a few hundred years her power will wane further and she’ll wind up telling anybody, probably a bunch of thirteen-year-old girls staring into a bathroom mirror at midnight, just for one last chance at peace.


Three Halloween Costumes (Clown, Dragon, Gypsy) from Liana’s Paperdoll Boutique

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As it happens, I’m entirely out of paper — I’m going to pick up a new sketchbook tomorrow or maybe later on today, but in the meantime the first of October passes without a single costume, which is very depressing. So, pardon me for falling back on my ten-year old boutique dresses once again! Here is a clown costume, a dragon costume and a gypsy costume for my ten-year old dolls. (Also, my devil costume and angel costume have links to the original Boutique versions as well.)

Look, an October poll!