The Mythic Ball, Part 4: Kitsune’s (Japanese Fox Spirit) Wa-Lolita Dress

A knee-length teal green dress with a fox mask and nine fox tails fanning out from underneath the skirt. The mask and tails are in a golden brown color with white accents. The dress has Japanese touches, with a subtle rice sheaf pattern woven into the fabric and dyed red, orange and yellow maple leaves arranged on the skirt and on the sleeves, with a couple at the shoulders. On the skirt and sleeves, they look as if they're falling, with a few near the top of the sleeves and skirt and most at the hem or the base. The sleeve isn't sewn at the sides, but is rather tied with a yellow bow underneath the wrist, and the lining of the fabric is bright red. The collar is folded over on one side and is edged with a wide black field, then a smaller white collar near the neck is lined with a row of black lace. There's a black obi, or wide belt, with a pattern of golden leaves and abstract flowers, with a red obi sash puffed out over the top. The obi sash is decorated with a pattern of tie-dyed dots creating diamond shapes. Around the obi is a silver cord, on which is mounted a shining blue fire-shaped jewel. Although the top part of the dress mostly looks like a traditional kimono, the skirt is full and knee-length, puffing out to the sides in an exaggerated way, as if there's a crinoline underneath it. There are four rows of sea-green silk with a subtle interlocking circle pattern on them, arranged so that they drape in overlapping ruffles from the obi to the hem of the skirt. They're edged with black lace. The skirt is also edged with black lace, and there's a bright red petticoat visible underneath the skirt. The black stockings and black boots are mostly covered by the fox tails.Kitsune, a Japanese fox spirit known for shapeshifting, cleverness and a love of deep-fried tofu, has enjoyed such tremendous, enduring popularity in her home country that she has long reigned unofficially over the little clique of Japanese archetypes. The recent rise in popularity of anime, manga and Japanese culture in other parts of the world has raised her stature, and she’s spending more and more time outside of her little group of monsters and ghosts. This has caused somewhat of a re-evaluation of her persona, as she would like to impress the big shots of the English-speaking world — the ones with the near-lock on Hollywood movies. Kitsune would quite like a movie or two. The first one doesn’t have to win an Oscar; she’s not picky. She’s thinking rom-com, at least to start with.

She always used to wear kimono to the ball, thinking that they make her look more refined and more in touch with her roots than the foreign archetypes in their showy gowns, but in recent years she’s tried out some masquerade dresses herself. The other archetypes in her old clique, who haven’t enjoyed quite the same popularity, felt threatened by this. Last year Kappa (another Japanese archetype) picked a big fight with her, mocking her Western-style gowns and accusing her of feeling superior to the rest of them. (Kappa has never quite recovered from reading the Harry Potter books; she was thrilled to hear that kappas were mentioned in one, and absolutely crushed when she found out that Professor Snape claimed that kappas were found in Mongolia.)

She doesn’t want to lose their good will, but she was really rather enjoying her forays into the world of fancy dress, so this year she opted for a daring new look: a wa-lolita dress. (Wa-lolita is a subset of a Japanese fashion subculture called “lolita” which emphasizes frilly, hyper-feminine clothes based on fairy-tale Victorian styles. Wa-lolita makes use of Japanese design elements like wide obi-style belts, kimono sleeves and Japanese patterns. To see examples of lolita and wa-lolita outfits, check out my Pinterest “Lolita style” board.)

Kappa, Oni and the others still think she’s putting on airs, but somehow it’s not quite as galling as seeing her in a knockoff of whatever Dragon wore last year. They’ll forgive her, Kitsune thinks, when she gets her rom-com and gives them all parts in it. (Little parts, of course.)

A couple little cultural notes about the dress! The blue ornament over the obi is a kitsune-bi (狐火), which are mysterious lights said to be associated with kitsune. The color of the fur is “kitsune-iro” (きつね色), or “fox color” — an actual color word in Japanese, often used to refer to things like the color of nicely cooked bread. The leaf pattern is based on Japanese maple leaves, “momiji” (紅葉); you don’t have to be a Japanese studies major to guess that it’s a fall-themed design element. Also, the fur brush I used was created by CoyoteMange and is extremely useful even for a fur beginner like me!

Next week will be our final guest at the Mythic Ball, Phoenix, and an opportunity to vote on this year’s Queen of the Mythic Ball. In the meantime, 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 lolita dress. If you enjoy my work, I’d also appreciate your support through Patreon.


Halloween ’10 Day 8: Dragon Masquerade Gown in Green and Gold

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As I said before, this week we join the mythical ball! At this time of year, not only does my traffic increase dramatically, but my masquerade gowns get quite popular, so I thought I would like to add to my stock. As far as the design goes, this dragon-themed masquerade gown was the low-hanging fruit of the five ball gowns I have planned, and I was able to sketch it out fairly easily and plan the colors without any problems… but in execution, oh, my aching hand! So that’s why it is a day late — it was just too good to rush. The others may suffer a similar fate, so do be patient with me.

I do love designing and drawing masquerade gowns! I like anything I don’t have to do a lot of research for, and by design masquerade gowns can be exquisitely beautiful, wild and creative, or both. If all goes well this week, you’ll see some fun ones…

Prismacolors used:Black, Poppy Red, Sunburst Yellow, Dark Umber, Cool Grey 50%, Pale Sage, Tuscan Red, Dark Green, Peach Beige, Grass Green, French Grey 30%, Black Grape, Lilac, Pumpkin Orange, Spring Green, Indigo Blue, Powder Blue, Sky Blue Light, Cool Grey 70%, Light Umber, Goldenrod, Yellowed Orange, Chartreuse, Yellow Chartreuse, Peacock Blue, Cream; Verithin Ultramarine, Orange, Crimson Red, Peacock Blue, Violet, Dark Brown, Grass Green, Cool Grey 70%; Sakura Soufflé White


Halloween ’10, Day 7: Black And White Cute Bat Costume

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After drawing six iterations of a half-hearted gown, I took elements of the bodice that I liked and drew a cute bat costume around them.

That might tell you all a little more about the way my mind works than I am entirely comfortable divulging, but there you have it.

Next week, we shall have masquerade gowns for a mythical ball. I haven’t come up with a story to catch them in, but even if I don’t, they should be so much fun that they won’t need one…

There’s still time to vote on the Good Queen’s next appearance, but you’ll have to scroll down for it, because now it’s time for my favorite part of the Halloween costume parade: what was your favorite this week? (And last week, actually — I can’t leave out my priestess robes.)


Halloween ’10 Day 6: Blue and White Ghost Costume with Red Ribbon

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For today, we just have a generic ghost costume. Although, to be sure, no ghost thinks of itself as generic, as you have to have a rather elevated opinion of your own unique grievances to bind yourself to the waking world in such a way. Sketch on a pair of wings, too, and throw away the red ribbon, and voilà! our ghostly friend gains redemption, and perhaps a second year of Halloween usage, as an angel costume.

Would you look at that? I do believe that’s a whole week of nicely colored costumes, plus the robes from the first. I think for now I can call my slump over, don’t you agree?

It is starting to look like we’ll be seeing an outfit from the Good Queen’s heyday, but I can’t help but be a little glad that at the moment fourteen percent of you are as morbid as I am…

Prismacolors used: French Grey 10%, 30%, 50%, 70%, 90%, Cloud Blue, Blue Violet Lake, Tuscan Red, Crimson Lake, Verithin Dark Brown, colorless blender