πŸ—² 𝔭𝔯𝔬𝔧𝔒𝔠𝔱: 𝔭𝔦𝔡𝔒𝔩 𝔑𝔬𝔩𝔩𝔷, 𝔱π”₯𝔒 𝔭𝔦𝔠𝔯𝔒𝔴 πŸ—²

i'm currently in the mid-to-late stages of developing a dress up game for picrew in the style of prepz and uniquez, pixel dollz of old that you might remember if, like me, you were on the internet anytime between 1995 and like 2009ish.

a 'prep' style pixel doll with dark skin and long coily black hair, wearing a red sleeveless dress and matching platform sandals. a 'prep' style pixel doll with medium-light skin and long wavy blond hair, wearing a pink baseball tee and light blue flare jeans with several pink belts. text near her knee says 'dreamer'. a 'prep' style pixel doll with large purple fairy wings, medium-light skin, and long straight brown hair with purple streaks. wearing a pink tube top and purple flare jeans. a 'prep' style pixel doll with dark skin and long curly black hair in a partial ponytail, wearing a pink halter top and pink leopard-print flared pants. a 'prep' style pixel doll with light skin and long wavy black hair with orange streaks. wearing a black tee shirt with a skull decal over a long-sleeve shirt with black and white striped sleeves, and baggy black jeans with a studded belt and wallet chains.

(←i got all of these from
neocities dollzmania)

i'm remarkably unreliable and don't have an estimated release date, but you can sign up for email updates from me to be notified when it's up and playable!

i'm having so much fun delving into pixel art making this, and i don't plan to stop when the picrew's done. so stay tuned for more potential doll-related projects in the future!

πŸ—² 𝔰𝔬 𝔴π”₯π”žπ”± 𝔱π”₯𝔒 π”₯𝔒𝔩𝔩 π”žπ”―π”’ "𝔑𝔬𝔩𝔩𝔷"? πŸ—²

when i say "dollz" with a Z, i'm referring to the tiny pixel art dress up dolls that were popular on the web in the 90's and early 2000's. wikipedia has a modest paragraph dedicated to them here. click-and-drag pages where you could customize pre-drawn dollz and save them to your computer were referred to as "dollmakers".

i was born in '97, but that didn't stop me from loving these little fashion masterpieces at the tender age of eight, lmao. they were a huge part of my childhood. i even recall successfully using someone's premade javascript to put a dollmaker on my own freewebs page. children are truly a marvel.

"prepz" are the models you see above, typically traced from some of the earliest dollz that appeared as avatars on The Palace. "uniquez" are more or less the same (and often get lumped in with prepz), but include more poses. these happen to be my favorites, but they are far from the only styles of dollz out there!

you can trace the origins of picrew.me directly back to the japanese pixel dress up community of the 90's. and with the recent tidal wave of y2k nostalgia and a resurgence of interest in dollz, making this picrew just made sense to me.

if you're interested in seeing more dollz or reading more about them, you should check out the sites linked below! i also have some more doll-related links on my credits page.

a pink 88 by 31 pixel website button reading 'dollz mania,' with a pixel doll from the shoulders up on the right side. the doll has light skin, long blond hair, and teal fairy wings.
an animated pink 88 by 31 pixel website button reading 'dollz palace neocities,' two pixel dolls depicted from the shoulders up on the left side of the button. it has a blinking border.
an orange 88 by 31 pixel website button reading 'Silent Devotion,' with the head of a pixel doll on the left side; the doll has light skin and streaked black and orange hair.
an animated pink 88 by 31 pixel website button reading 'Dollz Revival,' with the head of a pixel doll on the left side; the doll has light skin and bobbed brown hair, and is smiling. the border of the button glitters faintly.