How to make a standing paper doll [3/5]

Four steps to design the standing board

There are four steps to designing the standing paper doll. For the final example please see the download file

1. Standing board should be 1/3 the height at least to connect to the character. For example, my character is 26 cm tall, the connected standing board is 10 cm tall.
2. Standing board both wings at the corner ends should have a certain width before the slot. Such as the one here, it only has 0.5 cm on the end. Which means, she can’t stand on a table, it should be designed at least one cm width.
3. The width between the slots on the rectangle part should be 0.5 cm wider than the flat side of the character. For example, the character which I designed has a 4 cm width front, the width between slots on the rectangle is 4.5 cm.
4. If the clothes which you design for the paper doll will be heavy on the front, it’s better to stick cardboard at her back and make her front toe a little bit longer to fold, to support from the front side.

1 Cut out the paper doll

1-1 Trim her out from the paper

Follow the outline around her carefully while you are cutting her. If you cut her incorrectly and trim her edges into wrong shapes, she won’t look as good when you draw and paint her. Make sure you keep the standing board connected to her legs. Also, cut out another part of the rectangle standing board too. Please keep the rest of the paper which you trim off from her, you will need it for the next step.

About the area between her arm and body, I am going to use the Stanley knife and cutting mat to make a hole first. Then, it will be easy to trim this area off.

The white and pink dressed ladies should be processed in the same way.

1-2 Trim her hand out from her body

After that, get your scissors to trim her hand out from her body. It is because the handcrafted her dress will be placed under her hand and make her look really three-denominational.

Also, process the ladies wearing white and pink slip dress too.

2. Out-stand her hand

As a result, I am going to use the rest of the paper which I cut off her. Get a small piece that is just big enough to go behind her bottom to cover the hole made for her hand. Also, don’t forget to glue the paper behind her.

Once the patch has dried out, I am going to paint in the same colour as her slip dress. Get the scissors again to trim the excess off.

The white and pink dressed ladies should be processed in the same way.

3. Stick cardboard behind

Trim a 21 x 1.5 cm rectangle from the cardboard. The high should be lower than her shoulder. The width will be narrower than the width of the narrowest part of her legs. After that, stick the cardboard aligned to the bottom of her standing board and wait for it dry out.

Do the same process to the white and pink dressed ladies too.