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Disneybound Snow White Outfit with Yellow Tulle Skirt

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A shimmery dark blue camisole with a scoop neck tucked into a knee-length golden yellow tulle skirt. There's a light blue bolero jacket over the shoulders with lightly puffed cap sleeves. Each sleeve is ringed with a red ribbon and a small red bow.I recently got a book about drawing Disney princesses, “Learn To Draw Disney’s Enchanted Princesses” and although it’s ostensibly for ages six and up, I pity the poor six-year old who gets it for her birthday, sits down with her brand new sketchbook and tries to draw her favorite princess. The very first exercise is how to draw Snow White’s head, and if you’re wondering how to draw her eyes, well, here’s step 1 and step 2…
A picture of an oval next to a picture of a fully drawn cartoon eye.Looks like they’re missing two or three steps there to me!

That’s to say nothing of the later exercises: once you get to Tiana, who’s near the end of the book, they don’t even pretend to be holding your hand anymore.
Step 1: A circle for the head and a long curved line indicating the way the body will move. Step 2: A simplified body and large bell-shaped skirt drawn over the previous image.

“How To Draw The Tick” was a joke, but the difference between steps 1 and 2 here is no joke at all. This book either should be a lot longer, or should focus on only two or three princesses; either way I think the steps should be broken down a bit more for the benefit of readers who might not have several years of drawing experience to back them up.

However, I’m glad I bought the book, because of the very complexity that makes it so frustrating. If you have patience and drawing skill, it teaches you how to draw the princesses — not simplified approximations, but the princesses everyone wants to see more of, princesses that will make you the Queen of Buzzfeed for a day if you master them and pick some pop culture reference or art style to mash them up with. All you need is to be stubborn enough to draw the same thing over and over and over. There’s a movie about a tour of the Disney studios, The Reluctant Dragon, in which the man taking the tour meets with animator Ward Kimball, who dashes off a sketch and, when praised, answers that the first 100,000 drawings are the hardest. Even if the book broke down every step properly, it can’t do those 100,000 drawings for you. I’m starting to feel like I really will need to do that many drawings just to produce a Snow White head that looks like Snow White, because the slightest mistake is so noticeable.

So I’ve been spending a lot of time with Snow White lately, and I’m not even particularly all that much of a fan of Snow White unless she’s the Snow White in Castle Waiting. As with so many other expressions of femininity, like ballet and applying natural makeup, it takes a lot of hard work to produce a princess face that looks natural, simple and attractive. Trying to draw Snow White reminded me of a blog post by Andreas Deja, who worked as an animator at Disney for 30 years, where he wrote about Cinderella that “if you are off by the width of a pencil line, this character would look like an alien from outer space.” In my quest to draw Snow White, I’ve fallen right into the uncanny valley several times, and you’ll note that I’m not posting any sketches here! (You can see some if you stalk my Twitter account, but I’m not helping you out with a direct link.) But hey, I’m much better at drawing Snow White now than when I first started.

Today’s outfit is inspired by Disneybounding, which is putting together casual outfits that are an allusion to a Disney character. Here’s an article about Disneybounding, the Disneybounding tumblr that started it all, and a cool Pinterest board with examples of real-life Disneybounding. For my take on a Snow-White themed outfit, I started with a trendy tulle skirt and added a subtly sparkly blue camisole and a blue bolero jacket. (In my imagination the bolero jacket belongs to a bridesmaid’s dress ensemble, and the wearer added the ribbons later.)

Next week… well, you may actually see that fourth doll, who’s coming along nicely! Until then, you can download combined color and black and white PDFs of all of my 2014 dolls and outfits for free! (I’ll add the 2015 ones soon…) Also follow me on Facebook, Twitter or Pinterest for sneak previews, fashion plates and malformed sketches of Snow White’s head. If you enjoy my work, I'd also appreciate your support through Patreon.

White Cake Dress with Pink Ombre Rosettes for Broken Age

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A very light ivory ballgown with an almost exaggeratedly large, floor length skirt. It is off the shoulder, with a line of pink rosettes across the top. The bodice is fitted and decorated with a pattern of white lines and dots arranged into a sunburst shape, with a polka dot and grid pattern covering the background. Both patterns are shaded to look as if they're white frosting on a white cake. The waist is V-shaped and is edged with a line of small silver balls. The overskirt is open at the front, showing a large part of the underskirt. The top half of the underskirt has a pattern of delicate white scrolls and the words "Treat Yourself!" written in loopy cursive in pink frosting. The bottom half consists of three large rows of rosettes, designed to look like they were made out of icing. The top rosette row is very pale pink, the second is a shade darker and the third is even more darker, creating an ombre effect. The overskirt is edged with lines of small silver balls and is decorated with sunburst-shaped patterns of lines and dots going up the front sides and a polka dot and grid pattern covering the background.This ballgown was inspired by a recently released adventure game, Broken Age. Vella, our heroine and one of the two protagonists, is a young woman who lives in a town of bakers that is terrorized by a horrendous monster called Mog Chothra every 14 years. In a scene that you’ll always remember whenever you see a cake made to look like the skirt of a Barbie doll or a princess, our heroine, along with four other young women of the village, is offered to the monster as a human sacrifice at an event called the “Maidens Feast.” They are all embedded in gigantic cakes that look like skirts, which are gorgeously decorated with all the skill the villagers have and inscribed with tempting slogans like “Delish,” “Hot Stuff” and “Up For Grabs!” Each of the young women is hoping to protect her village and bring honor to her family by being selected (that is, eaten) by Mog Chothra… except for Vella. But how do you escape a floating monster the size of a mansion when you’re stuck in a cake, ready to be served up?

Broken Age is a point-and-click adventure game, notable for being one of the first Kickstarter successes. To put it simply, adventure games are rather out of fashion, but two years ago Tim Schafer, known for other classics like Grim Fandango, said to the Internet “We’ll make a new game if you give us money” and people got out their wallets, leading to this game’s release. In games like these, you solve puzzles by exploring, talking to people, finding objects and using them in the right place. Some were notorious for being unforgiving (looking at you, King’s Quest series), and some had goofy, implausible puzzles (like one where you had to disguise yourself by making a mustache from cat hair and syrup), but Broken Age is nicely designed: you can never get in a situation that you can’t get out of, and the puzzles are entertaining but not exasperating. The art is lovely, with a style that looks almost as if it was all painted, and the settings are all detailed and fun to explore. Vella is also a fun, capable heroine, who rejects her world’s passive acceptance of Mog Chothra and breaks free of the cake skirt to find a different way to protect her village. The other half of the game explores the story of a young man named Shay, whose world couldn’t be any more different from Vella’s…

Right now, only the first half of the game is out, with the second half to come later this year. I think it’s well worth the price, and if you check it out, please let me know what you think of it!

It looks our our Oscar night winner is Lupita Nyong’o’s blue Prada gown! I don’t know when I will have that up – I will try for before the end of the month, but it might be later. Also, a 1910s outfit will be our contest prize; it beat out a pirate outfit and an evening gown with over half the vote. I will do some research and some sketches, so come back next Friday for a contest and a Japanese fairytale! Until then, you can follow me on Facebook, Twitter and Pinterest for site updates, sneak previews and ridiculous amounts of fashion plates. If you enjoy my work, I’d also appreciate your support through Patreon.