Click for larger version; click for the doll.

A weakness of mine, nine or ten years ago when I was drawing dresses like these for the Paperdoll Boutique, was always letting my desire for perfection (or completion, perhaps) take over, ultimately impeding what I actually wanted to do. It wasn’t enough to have one great outfit from a movie: they all had beauty and value and it was only worth doing if I did them all. Ideas and dresses I felt obligated to do crowded my mind and at a certain point it is easier to accept getting nothing done than it is to accept you can’t do everything you want to do. I do this all the time, and not just with paperdolls; I combat this tendency by drawing one thing a day, none if I’m just not feeling it (like tonight *yawn*) and not holding myself responsible for paperdolling every beautiful dress humans have ever created, or feeling guilty if I can’t draw everything waiting for its turn in my head.

But now I look back and I’m sometimes pretty impressed by the dedication I had to chronicling every single bit of something that I felt needed paperdolling. There are five in this group, here are two: and I guarantee you that at the time I felt bad that I didn’t get her dress from the ball.