Halloween Masquerade Series #1: Black and White Masquerade Gown (with bonus colored brown and red elf gown)

Click for larger version (black and white masquerade gown) (PNG), click for larger version (brown and red elf dress) (PNG); click for PDF version (black and white masquerade gown), click for PDF version (brown and red elf dress).Click here for the list of dolls.

Sorry for missing yesterday – the time went past a lot quicker than it’s supposed to. There is a chance I won’t post tomorrow, but that is because I want my masquerade series to be great and I don’t want to rush it… We’ll see, wish me luck. If I don’t post tomorrow, you have this black and white masquerade gown to keep you company…

The elf dress coloring was suggested by Monica, who guessed my favorite warm color to be Sunburst Yellow (it’s in there, actually, in the gold part). Hope you like it! As before, I’ll color the masquerade dress to the order of whoever guesses this week’s question, and it’s kind of a strange one…
I learned my technique for coloring gold (fabric, metal) a while back, when I tried copying a costume from a specific singer or musical group. Which singer / musical group was it?
Not giving you any more clues than that… One guess per person please!

Leaving the poll on the LOTR costumes up a little longer…


Halloween LOTR Costume Series #6: Goldberry’s Green Gown with Gold Flag Lily Belt

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

I’m amazed that the first week is almost over… I’m very much looking forwards to next week. I’ve got an idea for next week, and that often means trouble…

Anyways, today we have a dress based off of Goldberry’s initial description in the Fellowship of the Ring. She’s described as wearing a green gown with silver “like beads of dew,” and a belt of gold in the form of flag-lilies with forget-me nots. And as her arms are described as white, I decided she didn’t need any sleeves… So this is just my interpretation of her costume, and if I could have just about anything I’ve drawn as a real costume, I think this might be it. It’s even prettier on the paper, I wish you all could see…

As always, vote in the poll if you haven’t yet… Have I ever gotten this many poll responses before? It’s almost up to 300.


Mermaid Monday #13: Green Mermaid Tail with White and Gold Top and Bracelet

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

I do believe this is Ivy’s first Mermaid Monday… here’s a nice basic mermaid tail to welcome her into the club. Sometime soon I really should do a tail tutorial… It’s really a lot easier than it looks. I spent more time trying to come up with a top I like, honestly.

The Prismacolor sure is elusive, so OK… I’ll give you a hint. Between today and the 24th, I made extensive use of this color in one of the dresses… and you know it’s not green. Now someone should get it, right?

At this rate, the first week of Halloween will be fairies, but Lord of the Rings – or Ghostbusters, if my husband organizes his forces properly – could make a comeback. So vote in the poll, if you haven’t already!


Nera’s Dress from Dragon Quest V: Hand of the Heavenly Bride

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

Brian got Dragon Quest V: Hand of the Heavenly Bride a little while back, and we traded off turns playing it for weeks. In terms of overall plot it’s pulled straight from the big book of RPG cliches – evil dude wants to take over! only the legendary hero can defeat him! queens are kidnapped! – but there’s two things that really make it great. One is “party talk,” where in different situations (entering a new town or dungeon level, for example, or after talking to most NPCs) you can talk to the characters that are in your group. The amount of dialogue this game must have is staggering – imagine writing a different response for all those different characters! It’s amusing because a lot of the time it’s stuff that you, the player, are probably thinking, so hearing it from another character in their own voice can be a little startling. It really helps make the characters real, too, when they have their own takes on situations or wonder about things that you might not even have noticed. That leads into the other thing that makes the game great: the generation system. You start out as a little kid, then time skips forward and you play as an adult, getting married, and then time skips forward again and your children are old enough to go adventuring with you. So it’s not like your character is accompanied by some random red mage, fighter and white mage: you’re almost always with friends, often with family, and they always have some interesting thing to say. For someone like me, who likes story and character interaction better than battle systems and so on, the game was great fun.

In the DS version of the game, you have the option to marry three women: Bianca, your childhood friend, Nera, the kind and gentle daughter of a rich family, and Deborah, Nera’s haughty and blunt sister. The game pushes you to choose Bianca (you have adventures with her in your childhoods, Nera has another guy that loves her, heck, in the old versions of the game if you didn’t choose Bianca her father died) but you can choose any of them. So I did choose Bianca my first time around, but Nera definitely has the prettier dress, and anyways she’s more my type, if I was a male RPG hero. (Although I suspect that playing the game with Deborah around to talk to is the most fun.)