Saturday, October 10, 2009
10 October 2009, Saturday
Eloisa James is hosting a very exciting contest for September, and it's making PAPER DOLLS. A paper doll template was commissioned to be made especially for this contest and all we have to do is download the template and then... go wild *g*
It has been almost ten years since I last was anything creative so I'm so in love with what I created (even though they can't compare to the gorgeous ones I have seen). While I was making the paper dolls I took pictures of them in the process because I thought it'll be cool to see them transform from what was.
This is the first doll I attempted.
I don't know if it is a coincidence or not that the first one I made was that of my favorite color.
First, I cut out the material for the arms - cos I find this to be the easiest part.
Next, I cut the pattern for the skirt. Personally, I found this to be the most hardest part because there are so many layers of the skirt and if I accidentally cut it wrong it could ruin the other layers of the skirt, not to mention that I only had a limited amount of material so if I got it wrong the first time around, then basically I had no fall back plan. Another thing I found difficult was choosing what materials to put together. I couldn't put a pink underskirt onto a blue over skirt could I? Yes, I spent heaps of time agonizing over such trivial details =P
Now came the over skirt (can you tell I'm making up these words? Cos seriously, I am)... I wanted something that would stand out but at the same time blend in with the dress. Unfortunately, my initial choice of white was vetoed because of the simple fact that it wouldn't show up too well against the white paper - I still think white would look good, so instead I chose a very light sheer blue material that was very similar to white.
Lastly was the inside dress. I think I'm missing a picture here of just the creamy white material before I put the aqua gauze over it.
Phew.
That took a few hours.
But I felt as though something was missing from it...
So I made a second one!
I always expected to make more than one paper doll because knowing me, of all the ones I make, only one would turn out reasonable and that usually wouldn't be the first one! So like writing, I would make a first draft, then revise, then the final (not that I've ever reached the revision stage of my writing!)
Like my first paper doll, I firstly cut out the arms. This time I was a bit more adventurous and tried using red velvet, which in my low quality picture looks like dark brown. This was a mistake. Velvet does not cut well. As soon as I cut it the edges would immediately fray off. It was frustrating and I almost gave up on this one before I had even started.
Oh, and what you see on that dolls head was one of the hats I was going to use (but I didn't).
I didn't go for blending colored material since the last one turned out pretty awful, so instead I used contrasting colors of gold and red.
<-- Initially I was going to stop right here. Do you see that bit of material hanging out of the velvet flaps of the skirt? Yeah... that was what made me rethink my decision. I messed around with the bits of material I had hanging around everywhere and came upon...
This concoction.
I tore out the previous bits of material I had super glued down and then ripped everything apart, put it all back together without the flapping material, then put the red gauze and lace on top.
This time I didn't rush into gluing it down, I actually sat it on my table and stared at it for a few minutes to test out how I felt about it.
I suppose I decided it was okay looking because I ended up sticking to it.
Phew. That was a relief.
Unlike the last two paper dolls which I made on the same night, the last doll was made a few days after. In fact, it was totally unintentional since I hadn't planned on making another one, but since I was procrastinating...
I tried a different color this time round. I wanted it to be totally different. I didn't quite achieve that but I really liked colorful inside dress.
By now I think you may have realized that the outer skirts are a huge challenge to me. I found them reeaallly hard to do! So I took the easy way out and just did something simple that did not involve anything too complicated.
What turned out was a really simple paper doll... and an extremely exhausted blogger =D
