Advance Paper Doll wearing Ao dai

It is a month away from Tet (Vietnamese’s New Year) which is in Febuary 14th, on a Sunday and Valentine day of 2010. Vietnamese people in Vietnam don’t really wear ao dai during Vietnamese’s New Year but in America, we wear it to the New Year festival so I decided to make a paper doll wearing ao dai.

Tradition ao dai is always white and Vietnamese high school students wear it to school every Monday. But since white would look boring on the doll so I am going to change that a little. Back then, Vietnamese female wore ao dai with non (straw-hat) so I am going to include it on the doll too.


The doll can be your Lamdollie Bookmark or you can put it in front of your folder to show-off or to give someone you love (I will show how to make a Lamdollie Stand to put the doll on a desk as a decoration later on).

You will need:

1. Computer papers

2. Scrap-papers

    a. Solid colored scrap-papers for the doll's hair

    b. Decorated scrap-papers for clothes/shoes

c. Flashcard

d. Pencil, black pen, and eraser

e. Glue

f. Small scissor for sharp cut

Before you start
1. Pick your favorite girl in your favorite ao dai or you can combine an anime-character in ao dai (Japanese+Vietnamese=Japamese)

 

2. Quick sketch of your favorite picture on a computer paper

Let’s get started:

Head
1. Cut a head by using Microsoft Word/Paint Window to sketch OR you can draw by hand

2. Cut it off the paper after you sketch it

3. Put it in a zip-loc, we will glue them together later

Neck

1. Cut a rectangle piece out of the flashcard

2. Reason for using flash-card instead of computer paper: You are going to use the scrap-paper for the hair and non (straw-hat) so the head will be heavy and so you have to use flash-card, which is hard, to support the head from falling back and forth
3. Put it in a zip-loc

Hair
1. Use a black-solid-scrap-paper (black-paper) for the hair. I ran out of black so I was using gray.
2. Take out the head from the zip-loc and sketch on the black-paper

3. Draw the hair on the sketched-head

a. Front: draw bang

b. Back: draw long hair

c. Extra hair: two rectangles with a small cut at the end of the hair

4. After the sketch, cut the front, back and extra hair out and put it in the zip-loc. The bang would look like a bowl-cut… for now.

Non/Hat
1. Take out the doll’s back-hair
2. Sketch the hair and stop half-way

3. Draw one triangle over the back-hair sketch

4. Cut out the triangle
5. Trace the triangle that you just cut out and cut out again

6. You should have two triangles as non. Put it in the zip-loc
7. It should look like this when you put the items together

Ao dai/ Long shirt

1. Sketch ao dai on your favorite decorated-scrap-paper. I used purple-plaid for my ao dai for the doll.

2. Make sure you do both back and front

3. Cut them out then store in the zip-loc

Pants
1. Sketch the pants on a white solid-scrap-paper or on a flash card
2. Cut them out

3. Store the back and front in the zip-loc

Shoes

1. Use the purple-plaid and sketch four ovals

2. The shoes should look like this under the pants

3. Zip-loc again please

Arms/Hands
1. Sketch from the elbow to the “fingers” on a flash card
2. One for left hand and the other for right hand.

Glue, Get, Set, Go!
1. Take the neck and glue to the head. The neck should be one centimeter under the head.
2. Before you glue the extra-hair on the face, take the bang and extra-hair and put them together then take out the bang and glue the extra hair.
3. Then glue the bang on the head.
4. Glue the front ao dai on the neck, make sure there is a half centimeter showing between the face and the ao dai.
5. Glue the pant onto the front ao dai.
6. Here is where the hands jump in.
7. The glue back ao dai onto the front ao dai, make sure you cover the pants completely.
8. Glue the shoes under the pants
9. Now glue the back hair onto the head.
10. Draw the face features with pencil then trace with pen. Black pen looks better than blue
11. I will show how to draw the face features for the dollie.

Hope you like it.  It might be difficult at first but I hope I made myself clear about the instructions.

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