Daily Archives: April 15, 2016

Legendary Worlds is the second in a series of collaborative coloring books. It is the first of the series that I have tried but it will certainly not be the last. The book is a larger format than most coloring books which gives me much more room to color and, though detailed, the designs are not tiny and hard to color.

The designs are from seven different artists, including: Witek Radomski, Carrie Wong, Kamala Melzack, Al Sayers, Anonymous(!), Matthew Dorad, and Nony Dar Sagol. I had not seen these individuals artwork before but am very impressed by how well the clean lines translate into coloring designs. There is a brief bio for each artist, even Anonymous, at the back of the book as well as thumbnails of each design and attribution to which artist created it.

Worlds of imagination are brought to life on the pages of this book, from giant mushrooms to knights with castles and dragons to to futuristic cities or even to something as simply beautiful as a hummingbird gathering nectar (my choice for my first project in Tombows and Prismacolor Premier Soft Core), the designs are a way to take the artists vision and then to color it the way I envision it.

This is what I found when I tested and colored in the book:

86 Pages of Unusual and Imaginative Designs
Designs printed on both sides of heavyweight, white, fairly smooth non-perforated paper.
Designs merge into the binding area
A few designs spread across two pages
Sewn Binding
Alcohol-based markers bleed through the page
Water-based markers did not bleed through but some (Stabilio 88 and Staedler triplus fineliners and the fine point end of Tombows) left the lightest of shadows on the back of the page. Using the brush end of the Tombows worked well for me and did not show through.
Gel pens did not bleed through but required additional drying time.
India ink pens did not bleed through the page.
Coloring pencils were mixed. I had good results with waxed-based soft lead pencils and hard lead pencils in general. Oil-based soft lead pencils laid down good color but did not blend well.

This coloring book was provided to me as a free sample for test and review purposes.