dress

Grey High-Collared Suit Based On Anna’s Outfits from V

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Click for larger version (PNG); click for PDF version. Click here for the list of dolls.

I’ve been watching V, ABC’s remake of an older show about an alien presence on Earth, out of sheer love for Firefly’s Morena Baccarin, who plays the alien queen Anna with creepy aplomb. Inexplicably, V got renewed, and inexplicably, I’m still watching each episode the whole way through, instead of just skipping to the scenes that she’s in. A story about evil aliens and scrappy resistance members sounds great, but the focus seems awfully narrow considering that the whole world is involved, and our main characters seem just a little Too Dumb To Live at times. Plus, the dialogue is leaden. Erica, the main character, had a line when she was trying to reassure a regular guy who had gotten in over his head, saying that she, too, up until recently, had just been a normal mom… oh, and also an FBI agent. It sounds like it could be funny, but it just felt like it hadn’t really been thought out all the way. My husband commented, “There should be certain lines where, if you write them in your script, the orbital Hollywood satellite fires its laser and the laser hits the ground and forms a little crater.”

The only reason I’m still watching is because I keep hoping that Anna’s going to snack on Tyler, Erica’s massively unsympathetic son. Hopefully there’d be just enough time between the big reveal and dinner that he could truly comprehend the depths of his own gullibility before making himself useful for once and providing Anna with some nutrients. (And believe you me, I wouldn’t say no to seeing fawning newscaster Chad served up as dessert, either.) Actually, the more annoying humans Anna ate on-screen, the more I think I’d like the show. Unfortunately, it’s a little shy about revealing anything that matters, such as what exactly the Vs are actually here for, the mysterious “mineral” they supposedly want that no one seems to want an explanation about, or the hybrid baby’s face. (A wiggly tail doesn’t do it for me, I want to see goo-goo eyes and a full set of chompers.)

Anna’s wardrobe is about as far removed from Inara’s sumptuous silks as you can get, with the exception of that peach robe that I longed to run over my palms. For me, it does a good job of conveying the thought the Vs put into human clothing — a point that is underscored by Anna’s contemplation of a purple kimono in one of the early episodes, as she contemplates a pose of modest femininity to impress and reassure the very people she plans to eventually run generically creepy tests on. She could be an executive in her somber outfits, but the high collars are just sci-fi enough to be out of place. No pants, ever (that I remember): she sticks to skirts, conveying just a shade less power. No jewelry, minimal decoration. It’s all unearthly in a style specifically designed to appeal to modern humans. (Oh, and she has a fantastic wardrobe selection mechanism. For the sake of the doomed Earth fashionistas, I hope she at least bestowed it on humanity along with the healing centers and blue energy.)

This outfit is based on the various outfits she’s worn. I thought it could be something she could wear to create a softer image, because of the rounded corners of the jacket, the less severe hemline and the gentle grey tones. I’m sure there are times she’d want to project a softer image, don’t you think? Like, as she lulls Tyler and/or Chad into a false sense of security in order to get them relaxed so that their meat tastes better. I’ll keep my fingers crossed for such a scene next season.

No one’s got the right answer yet… One hint, it’s under 1,000. You guys realize that these pencils are about $1.25 if you buy them individually, right? Thanks to online shopping and that store closing I haven’t paid full price for them in a while, but… still!

Question: How many Prismacolor pencils do I own as of May 18th?
This includes the ones that I use, all the stubby little pencils that are too short for my current sharpener but I just can’t toss, all the ones I have in reserve and my set of Verithin pencils I hardly ever use.

Just to restate the rules:
1) It’s a new year, so even if you’ve already won one, feel free to guess again.
2) One guess per person per post.
3) If no one gets the exact number by noon EST, May 25th, I’ll pick the closest guess.

Black and White Gown with Layered Ruffles

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Click for larger version (PNG); click for PDF version. Click here for the list of dolls.

Yeah… I’ve been spending a little too much time looking at Japanese “color dresses” (カラードレス), dresses that a Japanese bride might wear for part of the reception. Still, this was just playing around with drawing ruffles, for the most part. I wouldn’t class this as my attempt to draw a color dress, because it’s just too darn sober and restrained. Don’t believe me? Let’s do a google image search for カラードレス…　In any case, I had this conversation with my husband after finishing it:

“I dunno if I like it. It looks like one of those princess skirt cakes.”

“They’re gonna eat it up. You’re just pandering directly to your core audience with this. I think it’s completely craven. You know? … You’re not quoting me are you?”

Forgive my craven nature, paperdoll fans… Anyways, I think this would look nice colored, maybe all in shades of some nice warm color, but I started it too late to give it a shot. Hope someone else does, though! Or maybe I will soon, or maybe I’ll do another contest. I still have to color the masquerade dress from the last contest, though.

And would you look at that… I made it through a whole week. I’m posting this one a little late, admittedly, but it’s 10:45, and that’s well before midnight. Having Sunday as my day to sketch and think about the next week worked pretty well, so I’m going to keep doing that. See you on Mermaid Monday!

White and Blue Cherry Blossom Prom Gown

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Click for larger version (PNG); click for PDF version. Click here for the list of dolls.

So it is harder than a person might think, trying to both draw a paperdoll outfit every day and keep studying Japanese at the same time. The thing is, neither one is just about doing the work itself, whether that work is drawing little flowers on a skirt or writing out row after row of kanji. To really do well at either of them, I have to be open to associated experiences. That is, when I’m studying Japanese, it means I listen to Japanese stories on my iPod while washing dishes, I read books about the modernization of Japan, the yakuza, and marriage and alliances in traditional families, I cook rice and miso soup, I even play video games in Japanese (until I get impatient, skim screens and screens of dialogue, then can’t quite tell exactly what’s going on anymore). If I’m paperdolling, I listen to audiobooks instead, I watch more movies and read more books in English, I take more time to notice how things fit together and how colors and textures around me work, I play around with my Prismacolors. Basically, I try to create as many opportunities as I can to link my life to my hobby, thinking “How can this make my Japanese better?” or “How can I can turn this into a paperdoll blog entry?” In short, I get obsessive. I do my best work in the grip of an obsession, but there are disadvantages too, like six-month paperdoll page vacations. Trying to indulge two obsessions at once? It’s kind of like… crossing the streams. Could be bad.

Ah, well, I’m coping (doesn’t hurt that my work schedule’s been light this month) and I’ve been thinking of ways to combine the two. Of course everyone suggested I draw Japanese clothes last time I brought this up, but actually, I don’t know much about Japanese clothes! Now, I draw things I don’t know much about all the time. I don’t mind drawing things like this robe à la polonaise or this 1920s dress on the strength of a couple days’ worth of research and a bunch of reference images, and if the colors are wrong, the hemline a few inches high or the shoes anachronistic, I don’t lose a lot of sleep over it. I’m not a historian, I just like learning new things and drawing something pretty. But I know enough about traditional Japanese clothes and more recent trends to feel like I can’t quite fake it in the same way, because it would seriously annoy me to get the details wrong. I don’t know how to choose an obi to go with a kimono, what impressions various colors and patterns give, and most of the time I’m lucky if I remember that the front folds left over right (because the other way around is how you dress a corpse). Basically, I can kind of make an informed guess about what looks right for a Regency gown, but I’m lost with a kimono. So, of course, the answer is to learn the details; I’m working on that but it’ll take me a while. Incidentally, if anyone can point me to any good online resources (especially ones with lots and lots of pictures) I’d appreciate it! I got a nice new book about kimono, too, so that holds promise…

I’m a little late for cherry blossom season, but getting back into paperdolling reminds me of something some of my Japanese friends mentioned, which is that spring is seen as a time to start new projects and things like that. I never seem to start new projects, though, I just go back to my paperdolls. Well, that’s OK though! Anyways, I don’t know if this is the kind of thing kids are wearing to prom these days (off my lawn, etc.) but that’s kind of how it looked to me when I was done with it.

Black, Blue and Aquamarine Merines Gown based on Tales of Legendia

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Click for larger version (PNG); click for PDF version. Click here for the list of dolls.

I played Tales of Legendia recently. I’ve never played any of the Tales games, but a friend of mine recommended it to me a while back, so when I felt like I wanted a new RPG, that was the one I went for. I initially just thought it was cute and superficial, but it got emotional later on, and I came to really like all of the characters and enjoy their interactions with each other. I just loved the music, too (I still listen to it a lot when I’m working on something) and the character and setting design.

This is a slight spoiler for the game, but it is four years old so… One of the characters, Shirley, goes from being your standard cute, squeaky, vaguely holy girl whose primary trait is bland niceness to becoming the Merines, the embodiment of the genocidal will of the sea. With this vast improvement in her personality comes an upgrade to her wardrobe as well; she goes from an outfit that made Brian describe her as a “milkmaid” (and then he kept on calling the weapon that gets powered by Shirley’s energy the “Milkmaid Cannon”) to a black-and-blue ensemble. I didn’t much like Shirley until after I had finished some of the Character Quests later on in the game, and even then, although I didn’t mind her, she was my least favorite, but her Merines outfit was great. This outfit isn’t from the game, but it is based on the general Merines color palette and on the other clothes that her people wore.