Season Two of Downton Abbey is winding down on PBS tonight with the Christmas Special. Americans can watch previous episodes online through March 6, 2012. All I can say is – it’s about time. I don’t know about you, but this season seems a bit long and dragged out. I don’t think the one-hour airings between 2-hour book-ended shows helped. Several of us talked over the water cooler at work and felt that the one-hour airings were too short and ended abruptly. Plus some of the plot lines were a bit predictable. Be that as it may, I still prefer this series heads and shoulders above almost anything shown on cable these days.
To assuage your Downton Abbey cravings before Season 3 airs (Yesss!), an excellent artist named Kyle Hilton has created a series of paper dolls for you to download and play with. (The concept was by Willa Paskin. Vulture commissioned the four sets of paper dolls.) Perhaps you could even create your own story lines. Matthew and Mary come with a surprise, and Violet’s been given a range of expressions! Or not.
The paper dolls that are missing whose story line I would like to change are those for Mr. Bates and Anna. Perhaps Kyle is studying up on prison uniforms of the time, or figuring out how to place those two dolls in their marital bed. I also miss having the earl and his countess.
I quibble, however. These are such fun! Click on the links below to print out the paper dolls. You will have to cut them out the old-fashioned way – with scissors.
Meanwhile, I shall be on tenterhooks all night long waiting for the Christmas finale. See you there and at the twitter party with moi and one of your favorite Janeite friends, Laurel Ann Natress, editor of the anthology, Jane Austen Made Me Do It. Hash tag: #DowntonPBS
Paper dolls courtesy of Kyle Hilton
Links:
- Flannel Animal showcases Kyle Hilton’s work, which I find fascinating!
- More art work by Kyle Hilton
- Information via Vulture. The site also recaps Downton Abbey
- Print out Violet, Dowager Countess
- Print out Sybil
- Print out Thomas and O’Brien
- Print out Matthew and Mary
Personally, I think artists selling artwork that is largely someone else’s intellectual property is wrong. It may not be a clear, black and white illegal issue, but the selling designs of t-shirts, posters, or even something like these paper dolls that are based off something someone else created (like tv shows, movies, etc) is to me, a cheap and easy way to make money. There are a ton of shirts and posters out there that get around the issue by not directly showing a character or a logo, but in my opinion are still depending on the intellectual property of someone else’s creation. I know not every illustrator sees it the same way, but for me, I’d rather make these dolls because I love doing it, share them for free at the highest resolution Tumblr allows and not get involved in trying to make money that for the most part belongs to people like Vince Gilligan, Mitch Hurwitz and Tim and Eric. Plus, how often is stuff free? Not getting money for these means I’m free to make terrible, terrible mistakes!
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