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Friday, July 13, 2012

Guinevere Paper Doll - Pretty in Pastels



My last Guinevere post (inspired by the BBC production of Merlin) featured Gwen's earliest dresses, designed to emphasise her position in this part of the story as a servant in the castle.   After Season 1 Gwen's wardrobe was given a complete revamp.  Out went the baggy gowns made from coarse, hard-wearing material.  In came a selection of 'peasant' style dresses that became her signature look in seasons 2 and 3.

I loved these outfits.  The material is soft and feminine, the pastel colours are pretty and the corsets add an original touch.  Gwen is still a 'working girl' but these dresses have a pastoral feel about them.  I can picture her strolling through flower meadows instead of scrubbing kitchens.  


Guinevere - Queen of Camelot

One of the strengths of the pink dress was that it did not feature very often and so kept its allure of being something special.  Gwen first wore it (if I remember correctly) for her picnic 'date' with Arthur.  She looked lovely.  Its a dress that cannot be worn successfully by too many people.  The colour and over-the-top girlishness of the design would look dreadful on the wrong person, but on Angel Coulby it was stunning.

Guinevere - Pink Dress

Guinevere - Pink Dress

Guinevere - Pink Dress Sketch


Some of the dresses and corsets were so similar that I never realised at first they were different outfits.  Sometimes an apron was added, other times the skirt was left plain.  The Lilac Dragon Dress that I chose for my first Gwen post is another dress that belongs to this period and for me is possibly the one that she is best remembered in.

Guinevere - Gold Corset

Guinevere - Gold Corset

Guinevere - Gold Corset Sketch


I was very sorry when Gwen stopped wearing these dresses.  I think they are the ones I will always associate her with.

I'd like to thank everyone who posted such lovely comments about my other Gwen posts.  Its always nice to get complimentary feedback!  When I decide on my next paper doll I think I will check out the Original Paper Doll Artist Guild and see what their requirements are.  I'd been wanting to make dolls of Morgana and Gwen for some time - I've done them for my own enjoyment and am thrilled if anyone else enjoys looking at them as well.  They have proved quite popular - the original Morgana doll has had well over 1000 page views and the initial Gwen post reached 50 page views in the first week.  For a small blog like mine I think that's quite good going.

I am very conscious of the fact that these dolls are based on a TV show - for that reason I'd never try to make any money out of them as I am technically not the owner of the concept.  I'm assuming the BBC won't mind that I'm making these as a type of fan tribute and that its ok as long as I don't try to cash in on them!



 Season 1 dresses for Gwen can be found here (posted 10 July 2012)










         Gwen's lilac dragon dress can be found here (posted 2 July 2012)











Season 4 dresses for Gwen can be found here (posted 19 Aug 2012)

Gwen's Season 5 Velvet Burgundy dress can be found here (posted 6 Aug 2012)
     
The companion Morgana paper doll can be found here (posted 1 Jan 2012)










 Copyright Sharon Souter - not to be used for commercial purposes


6 comments:

  1. Love these!

    Hmm. No idea what the policy would be on that, as they are from a TV show. I assume you;d have to buy a license to sell them but for free I don;t think it should be a problem. I've run into a lot of celebrity paper dolls out there and to the best of my knowledge no one's been in trouble for them :) (I even did a couple myself a few years ago, LOL!)

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  2. 1000 hits! That’s amazing it just shows how much interest there is out there. I suppose you would need some kind of licensing deal to be able to sell them. It would be worth looking into as it would be a shame not to use your talents.

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  3. Beautiful work Sharon! Google is being finicky and not updating your blog on my list, so I added it to my Google Reader. Hope I can keep up now! Have a great week! Diane

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  4. I'm with you on the original outfits. So delicate and beautiful, but then she is so delicate and beautiful.

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  5. Allexandra (Sweden)July 22, 2012 at 4:29 PM

    Wonderful work and I admire your talent as an artist. I am a big fan of the tv-show Merlin so I was thrilled to look att all these amazing paperdolls. Hope there will be more of them in the future.

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  6. Thank you very much Allexandra, I really appreciate your comment. I already have more dresses planned so watch this space!

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