Year: 2008

Blogworthy Retro Cupcake Dress

3 comments
Share

Click for larger version; click for the list of dolls.

Vegan Cupcakes Take Over The World claims in the introduction that “a surefire way to get people to look at your blog is by posting pictures of cupcakes.”

I wonder if paperdolls dressed in totally over-the-top fifties-style cupcake dresses and aprons might be similar enough to get some of the benefits?

(I must confess, that originally I was hoping to go for a cupcake-as-dress look. I had some wacky sketches of icing boas and cupcake wrappers done up as full skirts and frilly sleeves. In the end I couldn’t quite pull it off.)

I don’t eat cupcakes as often as I might like, but I do like flipping through my copy of VCTOTW and following Cupcakes Take The Cake… they’re just so cute, and often so inventive. I like the way this turned out, with the little cupcake pocket on the apron, although I almost scrapped the sketch because the skirt wasn’t quite poofy enough… maybe next time.

It’s probably really a stretch to tag this ‘historical,’ isn’t it?

Flora’s Red Gown from Professor Layton and the Curious Village

1 comment
Share

Click for larger version; click for the list of dolls.

I’ve been into Professor Layton and the Curious Village lately, playing it every chance I got – using my 15 minute breaks during work to ferry those miserable wolves and chickens across the river, and so on. You come across this dress early in the game, and I thought it was lovely, even if Flora is rather younger than Sylvia. I’m rather fond of Layton’s outfit, actually… who knew brown and orange worked together so well, or that a top hat can be pulled off in any way, shape or form. If I didn’t have so many other outfits I want, I’d so do a female version…

Incidentally, Flora in the Japanese version is named アロマ, or, rather literally romanized, “Aroma.” I can see it as being “Alma” if one slurs quickly over the vowel of the ‘ro’… or maybe it’s just meant to be Aroma. Who knows…

I’d like to do an Oscar dress this year, but I’m not really feeling any of them. Possibly the scaly mermaid one…

Urban Dead zombie couture

4 comments
Share

Click for larger version; click for the list of dolls.

I play a game called Urban Dead, a browser-based, text-based, player-versus-player zombie apocalypse game. If you play as a survivor, you spend your days hoarding ammo, freaking out about the barricades of your safehouse coming down and often getting killed in your sleep by another player anyways. Those of us who play zombies have much lower stress in our unlives: we have fun and dine on brains. (You can enjoy the benefits, too, if you already play as a survivor! Just stand outside and one of my zombie brethren will hook you up.)

I play one character and I think that before the outbreak, she was a leasing agent. (Having felt rather like a zombie at points during my time as a leasing agent, it’s funny to me.) She used to wear pastel suits and comfortable shoes, and her smile was as non-threatening as it could be. Now she’s overcome her problem of weak, splitting nails with a set of admirable claws, and she’s quite interested in high-density housing units and commercial properties. Her favorite green suit is, alas, a little worse for the wear.

I suppose that in real life, however one chooses to apply the term to a zombie apocalypse, the outfit would be more dirty and torn and less green. What can I say? My time drawing mermaids didn’t prepare me for this. Although… it was nice, for once, to not have to worry about accidentally smudging the red into another color.

Tamryn’s Outfit from Emerald Dragon

No comments
Share

Click for larger version; click for the list of dolls.

This is from a game called Emerald Dragon, and is the outfit of the main female character, Tamryn, a mystical cleric sort. The game appeared on multiple platforms, but the SNES version was recently translated by Eien Ni Hen and released by Nightcrawler of TransCorp. So if you happen to have a fondness for fun, emotional SNES RPGs, download the patch and play it for a bit, it’s a very enjoyable game.

Tamryn herself is very much the RPG maiden archetype — mystical, gentle, indispensable caster of healing spells. (And is there some sort of mysterious, special background possibly involved? No fooling you, RPG fans) The horn at her waist is from her best friend Atrushan, who gave it to her so she could call him whenever she was in danger. The hat? No comment on the hat.

Nightcrawler also hacked Tenshi no Uta: Shiroki Tsubasa no Inori which I did the translation for, and it looks as if that might be the next project he gets to. I’m very excited about it, because it’s such an odd, sweet little game. Where Metal Max Returns attracted fans very easily (tanks! wastelands! tanks! dogs with guns! tanks! what’s not to like?) I think a game based on a love story and plot twists you can see coming a mile away might be a harder sell. But I love the game and can’t wait to see it released. There’s a long ways to go, though, independent of whatever work Nightcrawler still has to do — all the town, cutscene, shop dialogue is done, but there’s some things that didn’t get dumped: special cutscenes, chats with monsters, a ‘talk’ section where you talk with your group, weapon and item names, who knows what else. So even with the main translation done, this could be quite a job.