Black and Pink Lacy Babydoll Dress with Black Gloves and Striped Stockings inspired by Misa Amane from Death Note

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

Brian and I are watching Death Note on Hulu these days. I watch some anime, but mostly only when I’m intensely studying Japanese, so it’s been a while since I’ve watched any just for the sake of watching it. I think Misa is the first “bubbly moron” type of anime character that I’ve ever liked, although goodness knows I’ve seen enough of them. There’s just something about the way she so blithely screws up Light’s game that I enjoy, and I really do feel sorry for her because the way he deals with her must be painful on some level, so she can talk about herself in the third person all she wants and I don’t mind.

This isn’t directly from any of the outfits that she wears, but since she has a sort of sexy goth style (I’m sure there’s a name and a subculture for it) I thought this would be the kind of outfit she would like. My shipment of new colored pencils came today — a couple of the pink ones make an appearance in this outfit, and the lace is thanks to Verithin Cool Grey 70%. The gloves aren’t proper gloves, but come to a point over the hand, so take care when cutting them out.

One more day for this poll…


Blood-Stained Violet Embroidered White Victorian Night Dress from J. Sheridan Le Fanu’s Carmilla

Click for larger version bloody / clean; click for the list of dolls.

So the server held up all right, but I’m still reeling from the Metafilter aftershocks. Usually I get about 400 unique visitors every day, and I was really excited when that turned into 500, late October when everyone was searching for Halloween stuff — how long will it take me to top 2,824?

Even if nothing will ever be as good again, life must go on. I’ve been thinking about all the audiobooks I listened to this year and never did a paperdoll outfit for — just off the top of my head I can think of half a dozen that offered fertile paperdolling grounds. So I think now that the year is coming to a close, it’s a good time to stop regretting the outfits that never were and start making them happen!

This is from J. Sheridan Le Fanu’s classic 1872 vampire novel Carmilla, which isn’t as well known as Dracula but heavily influenced it. I listened to the Librivox version read by Elizabeth Klett a couple months back. Even though it was published so long ago I feel rather like I’m spoiling it, but in any case it’s no surprise that the Carmilla of the title is the vampire, preying on the sheltered and innocent Laura as well as just about everyone else in the town. In one scene she is portrayed as standing at the foot of Laura’s bed, “in her white nightdress, bathed, from her chin to her feet, in one great stain of blood.” As you know, I aim for accuracy in all things. (Brian said he could hardly stand looking at it…)

Now undoubtedly there are those of you out there thinking not “Poor, poor Laura, so near succumbing to the vampire Carmilla!” but instead thinking “Poor, poor night dress, so beautifully made and so sadly stained with Carmilla’s dinner!” Don’t worry, I’ve learned from my experience with the Good Queen. Look, through the magic of paperdolling you can wake up with Laura and be quite sure that it was all a bad dream…

I still haven’t finished my Halloween poll series. I fear that the nightshade fairy has quite an advantage, though…


One Last Dress from My Fair Lady and Two Dresses from Titanic from Liana’s Paper Doll Boutique

Click for the doll.

My apologies, my time management skills have been lacking the last couple of days! So, here are a couple of Boutique dresses instead, and I will draw something new tomorrow. I’m glad I worked on the Boutique so diligently all that time ago, it’ll be a while before I run out of things to post. Anyways, these are the green dress from My Fair Lady and the beaded gown and boarding dress from Titanic.

The other poll is still going to be open for a few days, but I also want to move on to the next batch…


Two More Dresses from My Fair Lady from Liana’s Paper Doll Boutique

Click for the doll.

So today I hardly know what to do with myself without a month-long theme. I did make a couple of fixes to the Halloween costumes — the gypsy now has a little bandanna, and the scarecrow has a hat. Plus, the pirate costume legs didn’t work all that well, so I edited that, and also edited the mermaid a bit to fit better. (The nurse also needs editing, so don’t print her out just yet.) Since I didn’t draw anything new, here are some Boutique dresses from My Fair Lady.

Janel tagged me for a meme a while back, and since it is only six things about myself, my apologies for putting it off so long!

1) I speak Japanese at a lower-intermediate level; higher when I’ve been studying, lower when I haven’t been. I feel like I haven’t forgotten most of what I’ve learned, but I need to study to draw it out, so when I haven’t been studying (like recently) it’s not really a skill I can count on. My favorite part is studying kanji, and my very, very long-term goal is to be able to read the Tale of Genji.

2) I can’t really draw anything besides paper doll clothes. Just look at Sylvia and Iris’ feet! (Or, you know, please don’t look at their feet.) Before our cat Maggie died, I was practicing drawing human figures more, but afterwards I lost the desire to draw for a while and then I never got back into it. Now, I’d like to get a second sketchbook and practice drawing hands, feet, all the things I can’t stand.

3) My husband and I have been together for a decade, married for five years; we met online through a website that I had when I was sixteen and he was seventeen. We have the sort of life where, if you filmed part of it for a movie, it would have to be some sort of horror or suspense movie where bad things happen to us, because the first few scenes of our lives are so wonderful you just know bad luck is bound to come into our lives. So far nothing really bad has happened yet, and I’ve quit worrying that the Sword of Damocles is an inch away.

4) I’m a morning person (while my husband would happily wake up at noon and sleep at three or four) and I do my best work in the morning — but I start work at 8:30, so usually I draw after getting off work. And man, if I don’t have a decent idea and the beginnings of a sketch at 8, 9 PM, that’s the time when I post a Boutique dress or two and call it a day…

5) I have been a horrible hermit this year; I have a couple of good friends who moved away, and my parents moved to Washington State, plus I work at home! I’m an introvert, so it doesn’t really bother me, but I think next year I’ll try to be more social…

6) I can’t tell my right from my left easily, I have to make an L with my left hand to know which is which. My mom used to think this was something I should learn not to do, and she bothered me about it when I was driving with her in the car. I still do it, and when we’re together she drives. Someday I may have to drive her around, and then I think I will have to blindfold her.

I’m running out of time for tonight, so I’ll decide who to tag later…

I extended this poll a few days: