Daily Archives: September 22, 2016

Supernatural: The Official Coloring Book

By: Insight Editions

Rating: 4.5 of 5

My husband and I really enjoy watching Supernatural so when I saw this coloring book, I pre-ordered it immediately. The designs in the book are lots of fun and bring back a lot of memories of the previous seasons and some iconic scenes.

Sam and Dean Winchester are the main focus of the coloring book but lots of the other characters (including Castiel and Crowley) are included as well. The drawings are well done and, for the most part, look very realistic. There are a few pages of wallpaper style designs (repeated patterns) but not too many. There are also designs of items that are symbolic to the show.

I wish that a better grade of paper had been used and that less pictures spread across two pages. The two page spreads make it difficult to color into the binding to finish the design. The paper is ivory but is thin enough that, in some cases, the heavy black lines from the design on the back of the page shows through. This could have been solved by a better grade of paper or lighter lines versus heavy black ones. I haved detracted a half star for these issues but as I as can’t do that on Amazon, I rounded it up there and gave the book a 5 star rating instead of a 4.5.

This is what I experienced while coloring in this book and testing the paper with my coloring medium. I will include, in the comments section below, a list of the coloring medium I use for testing and for most of my coloring projects.

78 pages of designs inspired by the Supernatural television series
plus 16 pages of color photo pages. These photo pages are of some of the designs included in the book.

Designs are printed on both sides of the page

Paper is thin, ivory, slightly rough (good tooth for colored pencils) and non-perforated

Glue binding

Designs merge into the binding area

Many designs spread across two pages

The coloring book is difficult to open to a flat position and coloring into the binding area will be difficult as well

Alcohol-based markers bleed through the paper quickly. I don’t recommend these as they bleed through and ruin the design on the back of the page.

Water-based markers can show the slightest of shadows on the back of the page depending on the color used and how heavily you apply it.

Gel pens and India ink pens left shadows on the back of the page.

Colored pencils did the best with this paper. This is the medium I will use to color in the book. I tested oil and wax-based pencils and got good results with both. I was able to get good pigment with light application and deeper pigment with multiple layers. I also was able to layer multiple colors well and blend easily using a blending stick.