roses

White Regency Gown with Blue Wrap, Red Roses and Forget Me Nots for Valentine’s Day

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A white regency gown trimmed with white lace at the neck and sleeves. The sleeves are gently puffed and the bodice is ruched, trimmed on the right side with red roses and blue forget-me-nots. Under the bust is a pink ribbon sash decorated with a scroll pattern. The dress fabric is decorated with small embroidered white flowers, then at the edge of the skirt are pink swags, trimmed with lace, with pink hearts, red roses and blue forget-me-nots at the top of each swag. Intricate white embroidery surrounds the flowers. Under the swags are pleated frills that fan out to the ground and are trimmed with white lace. Long white gloves are attached to the outfit, and there is a blue wrap over the arms that is decorated with a shiny gold paisley pattern. At the neck is a thin gold chain and a pearl pendant.Happy Valentine’s Day! Here is my gift to all my beloved readers, whether you’ve just found my page recently or have been following me for a while. I’ve been drawing on and off for a long time now, but it’s been off a lot more than it’s been on. That means I have very patient fans, so I wanted to do something extra pretty for all of you!

This gown is not based on any particular Regency style, so it is more of a costume than a historically accurate dress. I also tried some new coloring tricks with this one. I use Photoshop’s paths tool to make the lines so nice and clean, but it doesn’t really lend itself to details, so the roses and a lot of other details were drawn in Procreate, my iPad drawing app.

The medieval dress I posted last week was the result of January’s contest — want to help decide what the next theme will be, and maybe get the chance to pick out the coloring yourself? I’m currently running February’s poll over Twitter! I’ve tweeted three categories to choose from, so if you’re using Twitter just follow me and tweet your favorite category. (Don’t forget to include my username, @LianaPaperDolls, so I can see it.) I’ll draw a gown from the winning category and start the contest over Twitter next week!

Come back next week for a outfit based on one of the most popular dramas on Japanese TV! As always, you can follow me on Facebook, Twitter and Pinterest for update notifications, peeks into how I work, thoughts about designing paper dolls and pretty pictures of jewelry. If you enjoy my work, I’d also appreciate your support through Patreon. If I can rustle up a few more patrons, I’ll be able to post a bonus dress!

Red and Green Medieval Gown with Oak, Rose and Violet Embroidery and Fur Trim

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A gown with a red overdress and green underskirts. The overdress has a scoop neck trimmed with brown fur, and it has sleeves that are fitted to the elbow, trimmed at the elbow with brown fur, then fan out in a wide bell shape, with the edge of the sleeve very long at the wrist. At the edge of the sleeve is a stripe of golden ribbon patterned with scrolls. The red fabric is a shiny brocade with a pattern of oak leaves, scrolls and roses. Down the front of the dress is a stripe of embroidery over an ivory base. The embroidery shows red roses, purple violets, green oak leaves and scrolls, and the flowers are trimmed with small pearls. The embroidery is bordered with stripes of golden ribbon patterned with scrolls. The front of the overdress is split and open at the waist, curving down and ending at the knees with the front of the underskirts entirely visible. The hem of the overdress is trimmed with brown fur. There is a wide golden belt in a pattern of large, overlapping loops that falls at the hips. Set in the front of the belt is a large, smooth purple gemstone. The underskirts, which fall to the floor, are in two layers. One layer is a bright grass green in a shiny brocade patterned with oak leaves, scrolls and roses. It is open at the front and split, showing the second underskirt underneath. It is bordered with stripes of gold ribbon patterned with scrolls. The underskirt is sea green and patterned with golden curling vines.One quick thing before I get into talking about the new dress: I’ve signed up with Patreon, a service that helps people become patrons of the art and media they like. If you would like to support me and my work, please take a look at it!

This gown is the result of my most recent contest, which consisted of two parts. I held it on Facebook, and in part 1, I asked my followers to choose between three categories: evening gowns, medieval dresses and mermaid tails. Medieval dresses won, so I spent some time collecting images of medieval dresses I liked on Pinterest and making some sketches, leading to this black and white sketch and contest part #2. (You’ll note there’s no necklace on the finished dress — I made one, then decided it was just gilding the lily.) In this stage of the contest, people just had to like the post to enter. Eleven people did, and the first winner, chosen by a random number generator, was Nikki Paulsen, but she never got back to me by the following Sunday, and so unfortunately I needed to pick someone else, too. (Nikki, if you read this, I’ll still recolor it for you any time! Just e-mail me or leave a comment here or on Facebook.) The second winner was Hannah Bristol, and here was her request:

The style of the dress makes it seem like a very foresty, homey type of gown. I think I’d like to see the overcoat in earthy tones of red with gold accents, maybe with a brownish-gray fur trim, and the underskirts in shades of green.

I’m not sure if I exactly hit “homey” and “foresty” notes with all of the embroidery, satin and gold trim, but the results are lovely, so maybe it’s something Maid Marian could wear when she needs to get dressed up. Hannah, I hope you like how it turned out! I really enjoy trying to fulfill someone else’s color scheme, because I feel like I always learn something I wouldn’t have when I color it by myself. I posted a series of pictures showing the steps in making this dress on my Tumblr, if anyone is interested in that.

My intention is to hold these contests once a month and spread them among my various social media venues, the blog and the mailing list. I haven’t decided where the next one will show up, but it will start on the 13th.

Next time there will be a special Valentine’s Day present for all of my beloved readers, so come back next Friday! Don’t forget to follow me on Facebook for updates and fun things, Twitter for my thoughts and sneak previews, or Pinterest for lovely dresses and jewelry. You can also sign up for my mailing list at the top of this page!

Black Lace and Red Satin Ballgown with Gold Bats, Plus An Announcement!

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A dramatic ballgown with a fitted bodice and overskirt made of rose-patterned black lace over white fabric. It has one shoulder strap decorated with a gold bat with red eyes, and there's four more bats evenly spaced around the scalloped edge of the overskirt. The underskirt is shiny red satin and flares out from underneath the underskirt. The skirt is bell-shaped and reaches the floor.Click for larger version (PNG); click for PDF version. Click here for the list of dolls.

How sad, it is almost the end of October and I have hardly thought about Halloween costumes… To tell you the truth, I’ve had quite a lot to think about, recently, because I’m pregnant! I’m in the second trimester, and if all goes well the baby will be arriving late April. Things are going well, I’m healthy and doing much better than I was in the first trimester, when I was exhausted and had pretty crazy morning sickness — all within the range of normal, but crazy nonetheless. (If you’re interested, I wrote about it for a new baby-centric tumblelog Brian set up: First Trimester Recap: “Hm, what does this button do?” But it is mostly a bunch of complaining about eating nothing but cereal bars and saltines, plus one of the ultrasound pictures.)

Baby news aside, it is almost Halloween, and that’s important around here, no matter how pregnant I am. It’s always the best time for paperdolling, and as it so happens I feel energetic enough that this October may not be a total waste… So check back again before the 31st!

I guess the only thing Halloween-ish about this ballgown is the “bat bling,” as Brian termed it. (They started life as albino bats, but there was too little contrast, so now they’re gold.) I don’t really know where the roses came from. But no matter, it is dramatic enough that one could acquit oneself honorably at a vampires’ ball.

1885 Ball Gown in Blue, White and Silver

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

Angie was one of the two people who guessed all four winners for Best Picture, Best Costume Design, Best Actor and Best Actress, and her coloring request was:

How do you think the 1885 Black and White Ballgown done in a dark blue with silver and white accents would look?

Well, here’s how it looks – I hope you like it, Angie!

The other winner was my husband – after some deliberation, I decided to allow him to participate, but I regretted that when he chose the winners (using, according to him, the most cynical selection technique possible). You can go see for yourself what he’s making me do, I don’t want to think about it until I have to do it!