Black and White Medieval Gown with Flower Garlands

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

I wanted to play with long sleeves a little more, so that’s where this dress came from. You would have to cut the edge of the sleeve for the hand to fit, but I have confidence my readers or their adult paperdoll providers can figure it out.

I said there was a special contest coming up, and here it is! I use last.fm, a site that provides music recommendations, Internet radio and so on, mostly because I always listen to the radio while I’m working, but also partially because I’m a sucker for little graphs based on what I listen to. I was thinking it would be fun to do some paperdolls based on the music I like listening to, but there’s so much I couldn’t decide what to try.

That’s where you come in! To enter, take a look through my last.fm profile, choose any artist I’ve ever listened to, and post it as a comment. On the 28th, I’ll use a random number generator to pick five comments, and then draw something based in some way on those artists. For example, if one of the winners picked Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov, I listen to the Scheherazade suite all the time, so perhaps I’d do something based off of the Arabian Nights, something from the ballet, or maybe something from 1888 when it was composed.

Here’s the rules:
1) Even if you’ve won one of my black-and-white contests, you can enter this one.
2) You can only make one guess, and it has to be on this post.
3) Entries will be accepted until 9 PM EST, June 28th.
4) Yes, Brian, even you can enter.
5) I’ll take suggestions, but I reserve the right to make the final decision on what exactly to draw.

White Medieval Wedding Gown with Long Sleeves and Gold and Silver Embroidery

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

“This may or may not influence what I end up drawing,” I wrote when I put up the wedding dress poll, but then “flowing, fantasy” gowns got over 50% of the vote, and, well, allow me to shamelessly pander for a night. I hope this is the sort of thing that people were envisioning; sorry that the bouquet looks so awkward. I envisioned it as a bouquet of ivy and sweet peas, incidentally, although I got a little tired towards the end.

Hey, let’s do a new contest! This one will be easy, so someone’s bound to guess it soon.
Last week (from the 8th to the 14th), how many different countries did my site visitors come from?
Post your guess in the comments! Again, the rules:
1) If you’ve already won this year, please don’t enter.
2) One guess per person per day.
3) If no one gets the exact date by 9:00 PM EST, June 19th, I’ll pick the closest guess.
4) I’ll give one hint each day the contest goes on.

Don’t worry, trazy, I will color yours next week, after I’m done with my week of weddings.

Halloween Lord of the Rings Costume Series #1: Eowyn's Blue Dress with Silver Ties and Embroidered Edging

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

So! Today officially starts day one of my Halloween costume month extravaganza. I foresee a lot of elves in my future, but I like Eowyn and couldn’t help but start with something she might wear. The dress isn’t intended to represent any specific costume from the movie – as much as I like the movie costumes, I won’t just be reproducing them all week because that would be boring – but it is vaguely based on this white gown that I loved.

I will try to re-read as much as I can of the Lord of the Rings trilogy this week, but keep in mind I’m not a LOTR geek in the same way that I am, say, a Final Fantasy geek. My mom tried to get me to read The Hobbit when I was younger, and it didn’t hold my interest until I was older for some reason. Although I have read the LOTR trilogy too, of course, it really has been quite some time. So if I draw an elf dress in some specific shade of purple that the Silmarillion says is reserved for mourning a nephew or something please do forgive me.

Here’s the poll for week 2 of Halloween costume possibilities. I dropped the bottom three results from last week, added the suggestions from yesterday’s post and added one of my own… Please vote!

Inara Serra's Red Satin Gown with Gold Girdle from The Train Job episode of Firefly

Click for larger version; click for the list of dolls.

As I noted earlier, Brian and I have been watching Firefly (and we just finished the full series plus the movie, so spoil away if you feel the need). I enjoyed it a lot, although I felt that some of the later episodes were rather weak and that the first five minutes of the movie changed a lot of my perception of the whole first season, which is a kind of jarring way to start out a movie. Brian had to pause while I was going “Wait… what?” In general I loved the dialogue and the characters, but the thing that really hooked me was Inara Serra’s costumes. Inara is a Companion, a sort of futuristic geisha or courtesan, and her clothes are amazing. She wears mostly warm colors (lots of reds and golds) and sumptuous fabrics and has this great style, sort of a mashup of Asian and Indian influences with a big dose of 1930s starlet. I want to paperdoll just about everything she wears! Look at this page with her outfits. Brian and I watched the Dollhouse pilot and weren’t all that impressed, but even if the next few episodes aren’t all that great I’ll probably keep watching just because Shawna Trpcic, the same costume designer that did Firefly, worked on Dollhouse as well. (So far most of the costumes are centered around yoga pants, but that tiny white dress Echo wore to the guy’s birthday party was smashing, even if she probably had to tape it to her thighs.)

I’m afraid the banding looks horrible on this one, and the color isn’t all that great either — the real thing is really pretty, if I do say so myself, and the scanned version is a pale imitation. I’ve been putting off the search for a new scanner, but it looks like I’d better get started. If anyone has any suggestions, I’d appreciate them!

Halloween Costume Series Day 10: Queen Guinevere's Gold-Edged Heavenly Blue Kirtle with Flowered Girdle and Crown

Click for larger version; click for the list of dolls.

I’ve got to log in for work — but I love you all so I’m posting this real quick with no story or complaining about how I don’t like the girdle. Thanks to rainbowjehan for help (way back when!) with Arthurian garments!

Last call for this poll…