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Introducing Leyla!

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An adult female paper doll in a white and purple gown. She has dark brown skin and black hair arranged in several small box braids that curve gently around her face and fall past her shoulders. Her eyes are brown with tiny gold flecks, and she has sparkly gold eyeshadow. Her lips are full and deep red, and she is wearing pearl earrings. She is wearing a sleeveless dress with a scoop neck, slightly gathered at the shoulders. The top is white satin, decorated with a pattern of light grey spirals. Around her hips is a belt made of gold, with a sunburst pattern in the middle. Set in the middle of the belt is a brilliant topaz rounded with pearls. The skirt is long and trumpet shaped, flaring out at the calves, and is light magenta at the top and deep purple at the base. It is covered all over with sequins. She also wears a gold circlet decorated with pearls and a second topaz.Please welcome my second paper doll in the new series, Leyla! Her name was chosen from a set of six names I picked out, and as with Mia’s name it was close for a while there but Leyla was the winner. I hope you like her! I’m very happy with her, I had a good time drawing her hair.

With my previous sets of dolls I’ve only made two for each set, but my intention is to keep going and do a new one every month until I have enough dolls to put together a soccer team. Since Leyla has been released on time, I feel very confident that I will be able to pull that off. Their outfits aren’t going to get any more varied, I’m afraid, because the dolls themselves are rather a lot of work. I’m happy with the series dress theme, though. In my imagination, Mia, Leyla and the dolls to come after are the new goddesses of my paperdollverse, and so I thought to myself, what would this little pantheon like to wear? The answer, apparently, is “lots of sparkles.”

Speaking of goddesses, the contest on Twitter is over, and the winner is Karen Martin! (Her favorite Greek goddess, by the way, is Athena.) You will see how she chose to color an ancient Greek outfit next Friday. As I mentioned before, I’m going to start doing the contests on the blog after this, so if you would like to take part next time, just keep reading!

The Oscars are on March 2nd, and that means Oscar dresses! Twice before, I’ve “livedolled” the Oscars – that is, drawn some dresses straight from the red carpet. I did this in 2009, drawing three gowns, and in 2011, drawing an amazing four gowns. I’m ready to do it again this year, but with a twist. I’ll sketch the gowns I like on my iPad and post them here as I draw them. At the end, I’ll put up a poll for which one you all like best, then I’ll make the winner into a proper dress. Also, there’ll be a special Oscars contest! The red carpet starts at 7 PM EST, 4 PM Pacific. Join me and we’ll enjoy all those great gowns together!

As always, you can follow me on Facebook, Twitter and Pinterest for update notifications, links to things I find interesting and many, many fashion plates. If you enjoy my work, I’d also appreciate your support through Patreon.

In preparation for our Academy Awards party, let’s have a poll…

poll by twiigs.com

Masquerade Gown with Black Velvet Bodice, White Lace, Purple Skirt and Glittering Strands

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A masquerade gown with a black velvet bodice with a damask pattern. The neckline is off the shoulders and slightly V-shaped, and is trimmed with a line of light purple ribbon. There is a decoration of rhinestones at the bust. The sleeves are three-quarter, and their edges are trimmed with more purple ribbon. There are long ruffles attached to the edges of the sleeves, and they are purple and decorated with strands of glowing rhinestones. The bodice extends over the top of the skirt and is gathered at one hip, decorated with a light purple bow. From the bow, four rows of ruffles fall towards the base of the skirt like a waterfall. Each one is made of white lace. The skirt is purple, and falls to the floor. It is decorated with looped strands of delicate rhinestones.Click for larger version (PNG); click for PDF version. Click here for the list of dolls.

Another masquerade gown! I must confess I’m getting a little bored of recoloring but I’m learning a great deal. I think, though, that I’ll start doing new things next week. I’ll try for a Monday, Wednesday and Friday schedule. The lace and the sparklies are from Obsidian Dawn and the damask pattern is from sofi01.

The contest I had going has already been won… Sarah, tell me how you’d like me to color this one, please!

1930s Evening Gown in Sparkly Purple

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A 1930's style evening gown. It is sleeveless, and has a deep V neck with ruching at the shoulders and chest. It has a peplum around the hips and a long, fitted skirt that flares out slightly at the ankles. It is a warm, dark purple and is covered with sequins, making it sparkle brilliantly all over.Click for larger version (PNG); click for PDF version. Click here for the list of dolls.

After several hours of dinking around with brushes and layer styles, I finally have a method of doing sparkles like this. I suspect you’ll see many more sparkly outfits in the future, because I’d really like to get it right. It’s one thing I couldn’t do as well with colored pencils: this sparkly dress came out really well, but I still remember the hand pain. The brushes I used to create the sparkly effect came from Obsidian Dawn.

Don’t forget I’ve got a contest going on!
What is Milo’s favorite food?
The first person to answer correctly gets to tell me how I should color this 1930s black and white gown. (I’m going to color other ones eventually, but for now I want to practice on this one.) One entry only please, and you can enter even if you’ve won a contest before. No one got it last time, so if you guessed yesterday, you can guess again today. (Well, technically only one person even guessed… I really have been away for too long!)

I’m going to try to do a new recoloring every day this week, so let’s have a poll to help me decide what to try next…

poll by twiigs.com

Black and Blue Assassin Princess Gown

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A dramatic ball gown with a black sequined bodice and long sleeves, puffed blue sleeves at the shoulder and a full, shiny blue skirt with a black sequined hem. There's a wide purple satin sash around the waist and purple satin at the wrists.Click for larger version (PNG); click for PDF version. Click here for the list of dolls.

A few weeks ago, there was a thread on Metafilter written by a woman who works as a party princess, talking about what her job is like. That is, she gets dressed up as Cinderella, Rapunzel or so on, then arrives at the birthday girl’s house to direct games, tell stories and otherwise let the good times roll. Her tales of how much the little girls love princesses are hilarious, and they’re accompanied by some adorable, funny illustrations. (They’ve also made me wonder why I haven’t found a good way to make millions off my paperdolls. The dresses seem to be a major selling point with this whole princess adoration thing.) They’re posted on the Something Awful forums, so you can’t easily read through them all at once, but here are links to the ones currently available. one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten.

Since I’ve been enjoying these stories so much I thought I’d make a paperdoll for them, based off the name she uses on Twitter, Assassin Princess. What kind of outfit might an assassin princess wear? I imagine she is going to the ball not to win Prince Charming’s heart but to stab it. In such a lovely dark gown, snatching the prince’s attention away from a simpering beauty in pink is hardly a challenge. A few dances later, they are standing on a secluded balcony, making small talk about the moon and stars, and he leans in for a kiss… Unfortunately the poofy skirt hides several pockets, one of which holds a dagger. As he’s laying on the ground, the last thing he sees is the *sparklesparkle* of the sequins on the swishy hem of her skirt.

poll by twiigs.com