Personalized Paper Dolls

cowgirl
Originally uploaded by Green Kitchen.


witch
Originally uploaded by Green Kitchen.

princess
Originally uploaded by Green Kitchen.

In the olden days of yore,* like early 1990, I learned to use a computer and do graphics at the same time on an Apple IIci or something like that. I had PageMaker, Photoshop, and Illustrator; two fonts (Times & Helvetica); and the world's slowest scanner. I used to write ad copy and do the ad production for a small local record chain. It was a fun job (lots of free concert tickets and cds), but not especially creative. One of the first fun things I did when I got a grip on the pen tool was make a set of paper dolls for a coworker. It was definitely not a hip thing to be doing straight out of college, but it was soooooo much fun. I drew her a mermaid, a cowgirl, an elf, and a witch costume to dress a photo I had scanned of her as a little girl. That was the first and last time I made a paper doll until recently.

Now, I'm not much of a doll person. I didn't really have lots of dolls like my sister. I preferred to make stew with poor Barbie's parts instead of putting together the right outfit for her night out with Ken. But, paper dolls are a different story. Actually, truth be told, I don't want to play with paper dolls either, but, I do want to make them. I picked up this book the other day and it got me itchin' to make some more, it has been eighteen years after all. Eighteen years! Holy shit, how did I get old all of a sudden. Anyway, since it is preschool/birthday season I had the perfect excuse to buy the book. We had a birthday party we were supposed to go to Friday, but missed because of preschool/cold season. I did manage to make a gift, though, of some personalized paper doll outfits made to fit a photo of the birthday girl. I drew another cowgirl (what I wish I was wearing), another witch (thought of you Alice — the hair, not the witch part), and the requisite princess — seems I don't change much.

I made the doll outfits in Photoshop, using lots of layers, but could just as easily have made them in Illustrator. I was thinking about using scanned images of fabric, but didn't have time to explore that option. I printed out the photo of the birthday girl and Super77ed her to museum board, then cut around her with an Exacto knife. I printed out each outfit on an 8.5 x 11-inch page. I would have liked to add some themed decorative elements to the background of each outfit's page, but didn't have time for that either. Then, I burned all the images onto a cd so that the family can print out additional copies as needed.

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*Blaize claims this to be any time before 1992.