Purple Tailed Mermaid with Seaweed Top

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I haven’t done a mermaid for a while — I kind of got burnt out on Mermaid Mondays. They really need a good story behind them to inspire me, but good stories take time, and without that time I come up with things like the laundry mermaid. So I’ve been neglecting them, and I thought I’d do a mermaid tail tutorial to make up for it… Please forgive me for not putting it up tonight – it is about 30 images long and they all need to be resized, thumbnailed, etc. I’m ever so tired of looking at this single tail, I just don’t have the patience or the eye strength anymore! I will try to get it up tomorrow, though. So watch this space…


Blue Regency Gown with White Sash

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I’m sorry for the long absence! I hadn’t even realized it had been that long… I had a couple of days where nothing worked out, and then I got out of the habit, and here it is the middle of April and there are worried comments showing up in my e-mail. I didn’t want to make you wait until Tuesday for something new, so here is a dress for today. It’s been a while since I’ve drawn a regency dress just for the sheer joy of drawing a regency dress… but they do work up quickly, which is just what one needs when one has a paperdoll-related crisis of conscience somewhere around 9:30 P.M.
Hopefully this is enough to get me into the drawing habit again and I will have something new for you on Tuesday!


Daffodil Fairy Dress with Crocuses

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Here in Tacoma, the daffodils have been blooming for a while now; I got a lot of mileage out of this fact when I was back in Michigan, where the bitter cold on my legs brought back memories of ten years of winters that just refused to turn lamb-like. I’d get asked “So what’s it like out there?” A smug “well, the daffodils are already blooming” seldom failed to put an adorable look of hopelessness on the face of my winter-worn questioner. This is, certainly, the flip side of being teased for the endless rain.

I bought a bunch of ten daffodils from the store the other day, when they hadn’t even started to think about opening yet and you could just barely see a touch of yellow at the ends. Now, they look like this – brilliant orange and yellow. You know me, I can’t see such a pretty image without wanting to make a skirt out of it. I’ve included some bonus crocuses, too.

I don’t really do fairies very much; I have no shame about spending my time making up all kinds of mermaid tails and stories, but fairies bore me in much the same way blue jeans and real royalty bore me. But really, who else would wear this dress? Now, back when I was drawing clothes for the Boutique, I worked out a way to make separate fairy wings, through some system of cutting a slit in the doll’s chest and poking a tab through. I think sometimes I should sort that out again, but I draw fairy outfits so seldom that it always sinks back down to the bottom of the pool of things on my mind at any given moment.

Let’s have a new contest… The winner gets to tell me how to color one of my black-and-white dresses, as usual!
What’s my favorite flower?
Update: Ana got it – it’s the morning glory. (Heavenly Blue, preferably.)


February Birthday Dress with Primroses

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Well, this dress shows quite clearly why I shouldn’t put off drawing until 9:30 PM — and furthermore, why I shouldn’t try to correct mistakes at 10:15 PM. The black ribbon used to be a too-light lilac that was swallowed up by the rest of the purple; it did need to be changed, and I don’t know what I could have done better, but I do know I couldn’t have done much worse. Oh well. I like the rest of it, and I hope you all do too!

Misplaced black ribbon or no, at the moment I’m all caught up for the year with birthday dresses, which is a nice – and rather rare – feeling! February’s flower is the primrose, and the birth stone is the amethyst.

This post also shows why I shouldn’t start writing at 10:30 PM, so I think I had better stop here for now! I will try to muster up more spirit on Thursday.