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Recolored Lavender Mermaid Tail with White Top

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A bluish-lavender mermaid tail with lighter, warmer fins along the top, sides and base of the tail. The tail shimmers in shades of pink, purple, yellow and blue. The top is a one-shoulder Greek inspired white top that shows the midriff and is bordered with gold scroll patterns. At the shoulder is a golden starfish brooch with an opal in the middle, and there are strands of pearls looped over the shoulder and upper arm.You may remember this mermaid tail? I wasn’t satisfied with it at the time, and I wanted to practice a mermaid scale technique I saw used on official Ariel artwork and immediately coveted. So I reused this drawing so I could spend the time experimenting and trying to get the tail looking good. It certainly is an exuberant technique — maybe I went a bit overboard? Well, you know me, I like my glitter.

I’m still working on that mermaid story I mentioned in the previous post. I started actually writing it for NaNoWriMo but 40,000 words in I’m realizing I have to rework the entire second part and most of the first, and am currently having all sorts of fun planning to cut out several thousand of those words.

Next week, I probably will actually finish up that new doll. 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 beautiful saris, sneak previews and paperdoll thoughts. If you enjoy my work, I'd also appreciate your support through Patreon.

White and Purple Gown

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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.

The Mythic Ball, Part 3: The Glow Cloud’s Gown with Third Eye Mask

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A strapless white gown. The skirt is made of puffy, multicolored clouds, lit from behind by a bright light source. The clouds are various shades of purple edged with bright blue or green, and there are bright spots of vivid yellow within the clouds. There's a white mask that goes with it that covers the whole face and has no decoration except for a large third eye drawn in glowing purple tones.A newcomer’s arrival always causes excitement in a gathering populated by archetypes that may be hundreds, even thousands of years old. Those that have endured over the years can’t help but judge the newer ones whose sudden popularity or unexpected flexibility brings them to the ball. They may retain their appeal and get used in new ways in new stories, turning into a true archetype, something greater than their original form… or they’ll wind up with the sorry lot that hangs out on the fringes of the party. Those poor creatures sneak strawberries from the snack table as if they don’t deserve to eat good things and trade stories about whatever triumph first won them an invitation to the party — while stringently avoiding any mention of the present day. If any of the organizers should notice that they haven’t made that jump from potential archetype to true archetype, and probably won’t, there may not be another invitation the next year…

The Glow Cloud is new; furthermore, she’s a creation popularized by the Internet, not by ballads, storybooks or rumors. So the others regard her with a certain amount of skepticism until she drifts by, and…

All hail the mighty Glow Cloud.

All hail.

The old-timers discuss the Glow Cloud in whispers, several minutes after she passes.
“Rather specialized, don’t you think?” Dragon says, her expression thoughtful.
“Do you really see an archetype like that getting popular in *other* stories?” asks Fairy disdainfully.
“It’s basically just a cloud,” agrees Kitsune.
“There’s some precursors, you know. Like the Airborne Toxic Event. And Lakitu, that almost counts,” Robot says. (Robot has more sympathy for newcomers than the other, older archetypes.)
“True,” says Dragon. “Well, we’ll see if there’s staying power there.”
“We’ll see,” echoes Fairy.

The dismissive words are intended to mask how shaken they are.

For those of you who may not be familiar with the Glow Cloud, it’s from a popular podcast called Welcome to Night Vale, which is a story built around fictional news from a town where weird things are a feature of daily life. I used this cloud tutorial and brush, in case anyone else wants to try some digital clouds! Next week we’ll be meeting Kitsune, a popular Japanese fox spirit archetype and the winner of my poll. In the meantime, 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 eye-centric teaser pictures. If you enjoy my work, I’d also appreciate your support through Patreon.

The Mythic Ball, Part 2: Kraken’s Purple and Silver Gown with Tentacles

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An off-the-shoulder dress with fin-like webbing on the upper arms, a corset top, a tight, sparkly silver skirt edged with more fin-like webbing and several tentacles coming from the skirt and spilling over the floor. The corset is patterned with an abstract tentacle pattern and is a deep purple. It's made of shiny fabric which is nearly pink where the light hits it, and the top of the corset is covered in sparkly silver glitter. The fin-like webbing is done in garish shades of yellow, orange and magenta. The skirt is gathered at the back and drapes over the front from the waist to the knees in graceful folds, and the entire skirt is covered in silver sequins that glitter as they catch the light. The silhouette suggests a late 1800s gown, although the colors, glitter and tentacles don't. There are about ten tentacles, shiny and colored in shades of purple, with large suckers on them. They fall towards the ground, where they spill out and curl around on the floor. There's also a shiny silver mask to go with the outfit.

Kraken had been a favorite in the Victorian era, then airplanes came along, things went poorly for her and she had slunk around the edges of the party for some time. But these days, she’s trendy again. Downright hip, in a way that ever-popular Dragon can’t be: a t-shirt screenprinted with a dragon runs the risk of being cliché and laughable, but Kraken-themed accessories have creepy steampunk style. She suggests mystery, complexity, and a hint of the taboo (as the Great Old Ones are pointedly not invited to the festivities).

Her habit of arriving at the ball with a gleeful cry of “Release the Kraken!” is getting a little old, but no one’s had the nerve to suggest a more subtle entrance to her; Kraken simply doesn’t do subtle, as her flashy dress might suggest. Plus, she has a theatrical streak a mile wide: when Vampire gave her a disdainful look and told her that her ensemble was “very Ursula” Kraken just grinned and started belting out “Poor Unfortunate Souls” right there. Can there be anything better, Kraken thought to herself, than showing off a popular sea-monster themed show tune and mortifying Vampire in the same night? She can think of a few things, but it’s enough of a triumph for this particular quarter of an hour.

Help me out — I have plans to introduce three more guests this month, and I know who two of them are but I’m not sold on the third…

poll by twiigs.com

Who comes next? I’ll give you a hint: if you recognize next week’s archetype you can congratulate yourself for being hip to Internet pop culture. In the meantime, don’t forget that you can now 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 drawing tutorials I think might be useful. If you enjoy my work, I’d also appreciate your support through Patreon.