long skirt

Black and White Regency Gown with Flower Lace

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

This is my second black and white regency gown, I know, but I only had an hour between activities to get something drawn and scanned. Regency gowns are so cute, fun to design, easy to draw and popular that they’re like the potato chips of the paperdoll universe. I could do a whole blog of just regency gowns, and it would likely be more popular in certain quarters than my current hodgepodge of video game dresses, random bits of pop culture and mermaids. Oh well, if my aim was only to become popular, I suppose it’s more likely I’d do nothing but dresses inspired by Twilight and Taylor Swift, as the wedding dress and the Love Story dress are currently the two most popular ones I’ve drawn. But that would be quite a different blog, and I would have to be a rather different person, I suppose.

Anyways! I think next week I may very well focus on wedding dresses. I’ll be starting off with a red mermaid wedding gown (which barely won in the poll, with 52% of the vote at the moment — don’t worry, the week after I will return to the sea), so the timing is good. If you have any suggestions for favorite time periods, really interesting wedding dresses for me to look at and so on, feel free to post them in the comments. This poll may or may not influence what I wind up drawing; mostly it’s just because I’m curious.

poll by twiigs.com

Colored Ruffle Gown in Ivory and Gold

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Dani won my last contest, and she said, “Could you maybe do the ruffly dress from the 15th of May in some gold/creamy tones? Since it’s just turned into winter down here in NZ, I miss the warm tones of autumn :P”

I should have held off and not done two yellow dresses in a row, but oh well, it’s cute so I imagine you all can cope. Hope you like it, Dani! I wasn’t too sure about the black and white version, but I think the color really perks it up a little.

I find the poll results pretty curious. To those of you who voted “sometimes,” what precisely does that mean to you? A couple times a month? A couple times a week? If I make a dress I particularly like, or one that’s hard to visualize off the doll? If I make a really boring outfit that needs something else to make it interesting? Since I don’t have any sort of online dress-up option yet, I like having it on the doll, but I can see the logic in the arguments against it, too. I’m open to being swayed, here.

poll by twiigs.com

Black And White Short-Sleeved Princess Gown with Wave Patterns

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I wanted to draw a princess-ish dress today, but it’s too hot and even drawing loads of fabric seems unappealing. (OK, so even with short sleeves, even if you imagine the fabric to be fairly light this is still quite a lot of imaginary fabric, but Ivy doesn’t have the same concerns in her life that I do, so it’s all right.) This one seems a little boring to me, but colored (maybe in light, cool colors) with a little pattern here and there, I bet it’d be really cute.

Brian and I saw The Secret of Kells today, a fantastic animated movie about The Book of Kells. The art style is absolutely gorgeous and intricate, and the story was charming as well. The waves here are kind of influenced by it, come to think of it, although I didn’t really realize until Brian pointed it out!

Time for a new contest! Winner gets to pick any one of my black-and-white dresses and tell me how they want it to be colored. The last one got a mite tedious, so this one will run from now until 9:00 PM EST, June 2nd.

How many visits did my site get between (and including) April 1, 2010 and April 30, 2010?

Don’t forget the rules…
1) If you’ve already won this year, please don’t enter.
2) One guess per person per post.
3) If no one gets the exact number by 9:00 PM EST, June 2nd, I’ll pick the closest guess.
4) I’ll give one hint each day the contest goes on.

Edit: It’s Sunday, and I’m not posting a paperdoll today but I am posting a hint! It’s between 10,000 and 30,000.

For my poll, it looks like summer has pulled ahead slightly…

poll by twiigs.com

Mermaid Monday #16: Blue Strapless Gown with Silver Sash and Ocean Pattern

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

I don’t really think this is the type of thing a mermaid would wear for a ball on land… too subdued. It’s got a melancholy feeling to me, as if the wearer would much rather be back among the waves, but barring that, she will settle for having them on her hem. And so I wonder what brought her to land in the first place? Is she a diplomat or an ambassador of some sort? Did she make an ill-advised marriage with a sailor or a prince? Is she cursed never to touch foot to salt water again?

Tomorrow is the end of the contest, so today is your last chance to guess! Good luck!

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.

No love for winter, huh? Winter is my favorite season until about February 3rd…

poll by twiigs.com