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Daffodil Fairy Dress with Crocuses

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

Here in Tacoma, the daffodils have been blooming for a while now; I got a lot of mileage out of this fact when I was back in Michigan, where the bitter cold on my legs brought back memories of ten years of winters that just refused to turn lamb-like. I’d get asked “So what’s it like out there?” A smug “well, the daffodils are already blooming” seldom failed to put an adorable look of hopelessness on the face of my winter-worn questioner. This is, certainly, the flip side of being teased for the endless rain.

I bought a bunch of ten daffodils from the store the other day, when they hadn’t even started to think about opening yet and you could just barely see a touch of yellow at the ends. Now, they look like this – brilliant orange and yellow. You know me, I can’t see such a pretty image without wanting to make a skirt out of it. I’ve included some bonus crocuses, too.

I don’t really do fairies very much; I have no shame about spending my time making up all kinds of mermaid tails and stories, but fairies bore me in much the same way blue jeans and real royalty bore me. But really, who else would wear this dress? Now, back when I was drawing clothes for the Boutique, I worked out a way to make separate fairy wings, through some system of cutting a slit in the doll’s chest and poking a tab through. I think sometimes I should sort that out again, but I draw fairy outfits so seldom that it always sinks back down to the bottom of the pool of things on my mind at any given moment.

Let’s have a new contest… The winner gets to tell me how to color one of my black-and-white dresses, as usual!
What’s my favorite flower?
Update: Ana got it – it’s the morning glory. (Heavenly Blue, preferably.)

March Birthday Gown with Blue Tunic and Daffodils

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

Today, we have a March birthday gown; the birthstone is aquamarine and the birth flower is the daffodil. I always like doing these, but I have an uncomfortable feeling that in all these months I’ve been drawing them, I’ve skipped a couple of months entirely… I had better make a chart sometime.

“What do you think you’ll do today?” my husband asked me.
“Oh, a March paperdoll.”
“Like the Ides of March?”
“Well, not that kind of March.”
Please do refrain from getting backstabbed in this dress, the blue is far too nice to spoil!

I think I have pretty much recovered from being so horribly sick, so I’ll do my best to get back on the paperdoll schedule! (True, today’s is a little late, but where I am, it’s 10:30. That’s not even approaching midnight! Plenty of time.)

Mouse’s Marriage (ネズミの嫁入り) and my New Year’s resolution

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Click for larger version (PNG):page 1, page 2; click for PDF version: page 1, page 2. Click here for the list of dolls.

I drew this for my mom for Christmas, and she gave me permission to post it. I hope you all like it as much as she did! I’m still learning the ins and outs of kimono drawing, so please forgive any inaccuracies. The original Japanese story can be read here: ネズミの嫁入り (Mouse’s Marriage). I’ve been in contact with the maintainer of that site, actually, and she’s given me permission to translate the other stories there, so I plan to do a lot of those in 2011.

Speaking of 2011… Sometimes, people will e-mail me and ask how to draw dolls, and the advice I give is essentially just to keep practicing, using resources like SenshiStock and library books on figure drawing. That makes me feel like a fraud, because I myself am lousy at drawing humans, and it really shows in my dolls. (I’m happy with Ivy for now, but drawing her took days.) I look at the work of some of my internet buddies like Lys, who does this great daily fashion journal and Boots, who draws dolls in really natural, comfortable poses, and I think, wow, if I could draw dynamic poses like that, or if I could draw great faces like that, or if my hands had that much expression… But then, to borrow a phrase from Jane Austen, I have always supposed it to be my own fault—because I will not take the trouble of practicing.

I don’t have a great track record with New Year’s resolutions, and I believe last year I had none at all (which, really, I rather enjoyed). But I’m going to try one this year. I resolve to spend 20 minutes each day – or, perhaps, each day I can, let us not raise the bar too high now – sketching people. I know this is one I can do, because actually I have already been doing it off and on for a few weeks now.

Two questions for you all. First, would you like me to post the results of my progress? It might help keep me on the straight and narrow to just scan my sketches and link to them at the end of posts, but I can’t imagine it would be very interesting. (Plus, the idea is slightly frightening – I do these sketches of hands that look more like dead sea anemones, and my pride tells me “better hide those, Liana.”) Second, since I’ll just be using freely available reference and stock images and possibly a book or two from the library, would anyone like to adopt my resolution and join me? I was thinking, if there’s interest from a couple other people, we might set up some sort of blog or forum, pick out the day’s pose, share our sketches and keep each other motivated. It’s just a thought, but if you’re interested, whatever your skill level is, e-mail me or post a comment.

poll by twiigs.com

My next post will be on the 4th. Happy New Year!

Fallout Retro Blue and Yellow Vault Dweller Jumpsuit

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

Brian and I got ourselves a PS3 for Christmas – a little early – and so this Saturday has been devoted to gaming, specifically marathon sessions of Fallout 3. We both loved the first Fallout (and I think he liked Fallout 2, though I never played it), so it was an obvious choice for our first PS3 game.

I took a stab at playing it this morning, but I’m not all that good at any game I deem “twitchy,” which means anything that requires more coordination than taking out your average Dragon Warrior slime, because, although it’s not apparent from this blog – at least, I do hope it’s not apparent – I’ve got some mild coordination issues. Thanks to rather a lot of physical therapy when I was very young, it only really plagues me when I’m trying to remember which button changes the perspective, and the camera is pointed somewhere at my feet, I may have accidentally given my pistol to a dead ant, and oh, by the way, there’s a pair of rabid molerats trying to eat me and I just simply can’t deal. On the upside, that doesn’t happen to me very often, because I play the kind of games where everyone takes turns beating on each other like civilized folk. I can handle a very small amount of twitch in my games – I did play through the first Fallout, once as a pacifist – but past a certain point, I’m pretty hopeless.

Also, I’m pathetically easy to creep out – something about horrifying post-nuclear wastelands just tends to make me antsy, you know? When I played the first Fallout, I nearly held my breath the whole time I was in the Glow. Still, I notice that Brian is just now, after playing all day, wandering around the area I got myself repeatedly killed in earlier, so I wonder if my problem is that I got in too over my head and didn’t realize it?

In any case, Fallout 3 features some nicely tailored, practical-looking Vault jumpsuits, but me, I’ve got a soft spot for the shiny retro ones. The Vault number is on the back, so you can choose for yourself which vaults Ivy and Grace hail from.