Audrey, my fourth doll!

A pale-skinned adult woman doll. She has wavy red hair that falls partially over one eye, curved eyebrows, grey-green eyes and smokey eyeshadow. She has thin coral lips and small pearl earrings. She's wearing a sleeveless white top with a high scoop neck, patterned with swirls and flowers, and a long skirt that goes from light green to dark bluish-green and sparkles all over. It's gathered in front and fans out around the ankles, giving it a mermaid silhouette. There's a golden belt around the hips, accented with a orange gem ringed with pearls, and she wears a golden circlet decorated with golden beads, pearls and a small orange gem.Please welcome the long-awaited Audrey! I asked my mailing list and social media followers to vote in a poll to decide on her name, but both times there were problems with the poll. However, both times Audrey was way ahead, so I’ll be continuing the pattern of two-syllable names stressed on the first syllable. I’ve also done some work to streamline the doll-making process, as before this I was working from files that were confusing, saved in several different locations and so large they slowed my computer down considerably. So my hope is that the next doll won’t take so long to make!

As always, if you’re printing her out a lot of the outfits will need you to cut between her hair and her shoulders, so that the tabs can slip between them. She also has a version with underwear and a version with a pink dress; so far, the only outfit that doesn’t work with the pink dress is the mermaid tail.

Next week will be a princess dress like you’ve never seen before! In the meantime, you can download combined color and black and white PDFs of all of my dolls and outfits for free! (Even the 2015 ones – I’ve finally added them.) Also follow me on Facebook, Twitter or Pinterest for sneak previews, grousing about polls and gorgeous dresses. If you enjoy my work, I'd also appreciate your support through Patreon.


Shimmery Blue Princess Gown

An off-the shoulder gown with a tight bodice and a trumpet-shaped skirt. There are pearly white ruffles over the shoulders, while the bodice is light blue with a small swirl pattern and a silver pattern at the neckline. The ruffled overskirt is in three layers, which start near the hip and get increasingly longer until they touch the ground on the other side of the dress. The top one is light blue, the middle one is a deeper blue and the bottom one is a darker purple-blue. They all have a silver swirl pattern on the edges. They're over a pearly white full skirt with a subtle swirl pattern in white on it.Happy 2015! Coming a little late to the party, am I? Well, I’ve still got a large portion of the year to make up for it. And I think this is going to be a good year for paperdolls and, hopefully, for some stories to go with them.

This dress is a princess gown I designed when I was doing my other princess gown series, but just never got around to it. I wanted to give it the time it deserved, and I think it turned out pretty well!

Next week, I hope to have a new paperdoll, but they always take a little longer than I expect, so it may just be a dress. Until then, you can download combined color and black and white PDFs of all of my 2014 dolls and outfits for free! Also follow me on Facebook, Twitter or Pinterest for gorgeous African print skirts, grousing about working in 200 DPI and sneak previews. If you enjoy my work, I'd also appreciate your support through Patreon.


White and Purple Gown

A sleeveless white gown with a boat neck that fits tightly over the legs. There's a pattern all over the gown of large purple and magenta scrolls edged with rhinestones. At the left hip is a length of iridescent trumpet-shaped fabric that falls over the gown to the floor. It's magenta near the top, fading into purple, and is sparkly.I experimented with a new coloring technique with this dress, which you can see in the pink and purple part. I confess I don’t have much else to say about it — it was fun to color, that’s all! My imagination’s been going towards NaNoWriMo (just hit 20,000 words!) and my Christmas project.

Next week, I’m probably going to try coloring something else this way. Until then, you can download combined color and black and white PDFs of all of my 2014 dolls and outfits for free! Also follow me on Facebook, Twitter or Pinterest for sneak previews, paperdoll thoughts and gorgeous jewelry. If you enjoy my work, I'd also appreciate your support through Patreon.


Rainbow Ball Gown with Rhinestones

A sleeveless ballgown with a black bodice and a sweetheart neckline. The bodice is covered with rhinestones in varying sizes and patterns. The skirt is floor-length, full and bell-shaped, and the colors on it go in a rainbow pattern, from red near the waist, then orange, yellow, green, blue and purple at the hem. There is a pattern of black lines over the fabric, giving it a dramatic look.As I wrote last week, I came up with a new way of doing my rhinestones, and this is the result of my experiments. To go into Photoshop talk for a moment, I like to sketch out the design on my iPad and turn it into a path, then go over it with a rhinestone brush. (That’s just a circle brush with spaces and a layer style — the same basic technique that I wrote about in my Tiny Tutorial #2 for making a basic bead brush.) I turn it into a path automatically instead of going over it with the pen tool, which would produce a much cleaner path but takes more time. What I realized is that drawing shapes, not lines, makes this work better, as well as putting those shapes on separate layers so that I can make some parts in smaller rhinestones and some parts in larger ones. There’s more experimentation to be done, but this is a good start!

Next week, you may see more experimentation with the technique. Until then, you can download combined color and black and white PDFs of all of my 2014 dolls and outfits for free! Also follow me on Facebook, Twitter or Pinterest for sneak previews, paperdoll thoughts and the occasional non-clothes related pin. If you enjoy my work, I'd also appreciate your support through Patreon.