Mermaid Monday #8: Artic Mermaid with Deep Blue Tail and White and Blue Top Trimmed with Pearls and Sapphires

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I was going to do an unfortunate light-green colored mermaid this week, but it is the first of the month. You may remember from last week’s installment that mermaids associate light green with death, and even if it is a superstition I created with no basis in mythology or reality, it still seems inauspicious to start one’s month with an ill omen. Instead, since it’s getting snowy here, I thought I’d do a wintery-looking mermaid.

Now, mermaids tolerate cold temperatures very well; their clothes are almost entirely ornamental and they can swim around entirely naked if they choose, although for obvious reasons I end up focusing on the ones who opt for shirts and shells. So even the mermaids who live further to the north in colder waters, like this one, don’t have to do much covering up. Don’t be fooled by her sleeves, they provide about as much warmth as the average silk scarf and their only purpose is to swish fetchingly around her wrists as she chats animatedly with her friends.

Bella Swan’s Hyacinth Blue Prom Dress from Twilight by Stephenie Meyer

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So I read Twilight a while back, after reading about how it was the hot new thing for starry-eyed young girls and their unappreciated mothers. (I had to go through a waiting list of about 114 people for it, too.) I admit that I enjoyed it, in the same way I’ll admit to liking Naruto — it’s definitely shallow, artless wish-fulfillment, but that straightforwardness in and of itself makes it rather sweet. Also, Edward reminds me of Brian in one respect, in that he’s always teasing me about something or another. Beyond that the comparisons are few, but between me and Bella, I’ve got the better guy.

The criticisms of the book depicting really lousy relationship behaviors as desirable, Bella and Edward being Mary Sue characters (e.g. entirely perfect — clumsiness is not a character flaw, thank you), Bella being a moron (I don’t agree with that one, I felt like she was depicted as a book-smart, classics-reading, aloof old soul) and so forth have been addressed at length elsewhere, I’m sure, so I’ll stick to what I know — what? no good dress descriptions? Bella is always wearing things like jeans and flannel, or a brown turtleneck or some such monstrosity. What’s the fun of a proper vampire romance if you’re wearing flannel? The only fancy dress she gets comes in at the end, and isn’t very well described besides being hyacinth blue and off the shoulder. On Stephenie Myers’ website is a cut first draft of the dressing for prom scene, in which the dress gets a little more attention. It wouldn’t work for my paperdolls since I don’t do see-through fabric (so Sylvia and Iris, as well as any other skin colors I draw, can both wear anything), but even if I did, even after much musing on the relevant paragraph, I’m not sure quite what to make of the description. Mostly I’m stuck on the sash at the waist, which is “paled-flowered, hyacinth fabric, that pleated together to form a thin ruffle down the left side” and then goes on to be long at the back and open at the front. Rosalie calls it haute couture, and given that a lot of haute couture is a little beyond me too, maybe the problem is on my side after all. But anyways, that dress is merely from the first draft; I decided on my own version for the paperdoll. For that is the appeal, after all, to put yourself in the heroine’s shoes and stunning gown, imagining yourself the target of slavish devotion from the perfect man. I like it that way, because a quick search through DeviantArt will show as many Bella prom dresses as there are Twilight fanartists, all the way from “her dad wouldn’t let her out of the house wearing that” to full-on medieval princess. Even the movie’s version looks nothing like the others. Me, I envisioned the dress as somewhere between a 1950s party dress and something out of Gone With The Wind, and so that’s what we have here.

I probably won’t go see the movie - I’ve got enough vampirism in my own house.

Anyways! I think the last two polls are pretty clearly over, so let’s start the Grand Halloween Showdown!

Laura’s Blue and White 1870s Victorian Day Dress from J. Sheridan Le Fanu’s Carmilla

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So yesterday I did the vampire Carmilla’s bloody nightgown, and then I got to thinking how unfair it was that she got all the attention and long-suffering Laura got none. As a matter of fact, I can’t even remember Laura’s name without referring to Wikipedia or my previous entry. Face it, you really have to pile on the lace to make mild victims as interesting as seductive vampire women in bloody nightgowns. And so pile I did, and here is a dress from 1870 that Laura might have worn. To be honest, even though as near as I can tell 1870 is an accurate enough date for the book’s setting, I thought long and hard about going back a few years for inspiration. After all, Laura and her father lived in a castle in Germany in the middle of nowhere and who knows how well Laura kept up with English fashion in between vampire ravishings. But then I thought, she was still a growing girl and if her dresses were two or three years old, maybe she’d have outgrown them and wouldn’t be wearing anything that old? Maybe since her father is sort of vaguely rich, she orders a lot of new dresses? Maybe she spends a lot of time remaking her dresses referring to whatever fashion news she can get, because life in an isolated castle is so boring? So I over-thought this until I got fed up and tried to make an 1870s style day dress anyways, like I had initially planned. Since it’s not a copy of any one dress, it’s probably not historically accurate (I definitely have my misgivings about the way the overskirt turned out) but oh well, it was sure fun to draw.

New poll tomorrow, but this one will remain open for a few days yet…

Colorblock Mini Dress (inspired by the Metafilter colors) with White Go-Go Boots

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Hello Mefites! Wow, this very well may cure me of just abandoning my site for a few weeks…

Anyways, for those of you who aren’t Metafilter readers, it’s a community blog for the “best of the web,” and someone posted a very thorough writeup of my paperdoll blog. Metafilter being no trifling little site, my traffic has gone something like this: plodplodplodplodWHEEEEEEEEE. I’ll post a picture later.

For those of you just arriving, I thought I’d point out some of my favorites that the writeup didn’t mention:
I did twenty outfits for my Halloween Costume Series, some of which are my favorite things that I’ve ever drawn. (My mom really likes the first one, the Good Queen’s Ghost, but she wants to give it a good washing.)

One of my mermaids was linked to from the Metafilter post, but there are many more. My favorite, of course, is the wedding mermaid, although she throws people searching for mermaid-style wedding dresses for a loop.

For some reason, my drawings of Princess Garnet’s white gown and Princess Ashe’s Wedding Dress (from FFIX and FFXII, respectively) both turn up very high in a Google image search for either of the two characters; Ashe’s wedding dress is my site’s single most popular image. I’m glad, then, that they turned out reasonably well, unlike Cloud’s dress, which I will probably redo before the end of the year.

I have been known to do nice things for people who link to me. Hint, hint.

This is just the tip of the paperdoll iceberg; I have a whole other series of paperdolls from earlier in my life. (The Boutique paperdolls that I’ve been putting up are even older than that, too…)

Thank you for visiting, and I hope you enjoy the site!

Halloween Costume Series Day Five Billion: Ro-Bat and Its Lesser Bipedal Accomplice

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Radar the kitten here! Reportin for duty! Here’s the deal! Liana went to sleep, what a joke! Everybody knows that kittens sleep 22 hours a day yet somehow manage to continually find themselves underfood underfoot and climbing on stuff! Ha-ha! But I have been reformed! So I am pulling my weight (all 2½ pounds!) by helping out! It is pretty rad to be a kitten!

So I scanned in these drawings Liana made of things that aren’t cat food! And here’s what they are! The thing here is the TERRIBLE Ro-Bat! O woe the Ro-Bat! It is sensitive to light on account of its multi creepoid compound eyes! So the Ro-Bat wheels around looking for planets to ruin and despoil! Only to be blinded by the astrobulb on the helm of its lesser bipedal accomplice!

While this is bad news for them! It’s good news for us! Means I am liable to get more of that gnarly cat food! You should try some! Here! Let me put some in your shoes! AWESOME! It is even cute because I am a kitten!

<3 Radar the kitten!

P.S. — Here is a picture of me! Because the only thing cuter than a kitten is a kitten somebody is looking at on the internet!!

Halloween Costume Series Day 17: Dorcas Snodgrass’ 1910s Light Blue Nurse Outfit with Full White Apron and Cap

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“Nurse,” of course, is one of the more popular women’s Halloween costumes but I think they’re often of the “sexy” variety; I suppose the connotation is “hot yet nurturing” but it always makes me think of things like getting blood drawn, which isn’t really the intended effect. Thinking about nurse costumes did remind me of this Metafilter article about a nurse named Dorcas Snodgrass who died under mysterious circumstances in 1912. The article links to this picture of her in the Library of Congress photostream, under which there’s a great comment that brings together some New York Times articles about her disappearance and death, officially ruled a suicide. (The Metafilter thread itself is mostly just good for theories and chatting about the name Snodgrass.) So there — not much of an elaborate costume, but a genuinely creepy nurse story for Halloween.

Halloween Costume Series Day 14: Christine Daae’s Star Princess Masquerade Costume In Black, Blue and White with Black Domino Mask

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Kathleen asked, earlier this month, that I do one of Christine Daae’s outfits from the Phantom of the Opera, which was a timely request because I recently got the musical soundtrack from the library. (One of the sad things about the times when I am not drawing is that I must mourn the Outfits which Could Have Been. I listened to the original text many months ago, and then I forced Brian to sit with the recent movie version with me. That he endured as a proof of his love, but he was much more enthusastiac about the next Phantom spinoff we watched, The Phantom of the Paradise. Tagline: “He sold his soul for rock’n'roll.” Anyways, I do regret that I didn’t do a paperdoll series of these Phantoms and Christines. But I digress.) So since I got the soundtrack, I’ve been singing along — portions of my brain which went on strike during geometry class apparently devoted themselves thoroughly to memorizing the whole musical, it seems — even getting Brian in on the fun, singing Phantom duets along with him to which we make up the words. He’s joined in with me a couple times as I trilled “Music of the Night” in the shower, scaring the living daylights out of me each time (”didn’t you ever see Psycho?” I asked) and gamely followed along with Raoul’s part to “All I Ask Of You.” (”How can anyone LISTEN to this? No one will FIND you? Your fears are far BEHIND you?” he asks. “Just be quiet and sing it,” I reply perfectly logically and reasonably.)

Of course, for Halloween I must do a Masquerade dress, the first step of which was blithely breaking the “no research” rule once again. The movie dress was a pink concoction; I read somewhere it was supposed to represent the influence of the scarlet-garbed Phantom, but I personally didn’t think it quite worked that way — I thought it just looked too conventional, kind of like “Totally Ingenue Barbie!” although certainly it was very beautiful. The stage outfit was rather more what I would prefer, for a masquerade ball — a blue and pink silver-starred ballet outfit, referred to as her “Star Princess” dress. Here you can see a picture of the costume design sketch, some images from the stage and a fan’s reproduction of the dress, and this forum post includes a discussion of the dress and links to pictures of it from different productions. I liked the shape, but didn’t want to just copy one of them, and so looked to the original text for further inspiration. Now, the thing I should have quite liked to paperdoll from the original text was the Phantom’s “immense red-velvet cloak, which trailed along the floor like a king’s train; and on this cloak was embroidered, in gold letters, which every one read and repeated aloud, ‘Don’t touch me! I am Red Death stalking abroad!’” But as for Christine, the only thing described is her black domino mask, and re-reading that scene, it is such a very dark time for her… So here she is, as my Star Princess for the masquerade, but not the stars giving way to dawn as on the stage; the night has laid claim to this Christine.

We are coming to the end of the zombie slaughter poll, so vote…

Halloween Costume Series Day 13: Greek Goddess White Chiton with Blue and Purple Patterns

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Here we have a generic Greek goddess wearing a white chiton, edged with blue and purple patterns. Since it is a costume, call her Hera or Aphrodite or Hestia or whoever, but I don’t think this one quite works as Artemis, not very good for hunting. This one broke the “no research” Halloween rule; it’s modeled after this image from Ancient Greek Female Costume. I should just do a proper costume, which seems to be a rather different beast than a regular old chiton…

Who knew the Green Princess was such a force to be reckoned with? I may have to take another look at her and her story. In the meantime, vote vote vote…

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

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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…

Halloween Costume Series Day 8: Cleopatra White Linen Egyptian Dress with Blue Lotus Pattern, with Jeweled Collar and Red Sash

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I kind of broke my “no research all month” rule for this one, but it is not hard for me to find an excuse to look at ancient Egyptian clothes. This one is vaguely accurate, although I think the lotus pattern may be over the top, there’s no melting perfume cone and the clothes should be sheer anyways, for full royal style. That’s even further than today’s ’sexy Cleopatra’ revelers want to go… I used to want to be an Egyptologist, and I’ve even got a book or two on learning hieroglyphs in the other room. Then I discovered Japanese and kanji. No kidding.

If you’ve already taken my poll and answered “obscure costumes,” can you leave a comment and tell me what kinds of costumes you’re talking about? I’m very curious now, since that category’s done so well. I expected that sexy costumes would be low on the list for this crowd, but I wasn’t expecting that no one would choose ‘pop culture’ for a costume. What, no Jedis in this group? No Jokers? I thought everyone wanted to be the Joker this year…