Daily Archives: October 28, 2016

Color Your Own Star Wars

By: John Cassaday

Rating: 5 of 5

This is my third book in the Color Your Own series by Marvel. In addition to Star Wars, I also have the Civil War and the Young Marvel books. I have really been impressed with the quality of the artwork and the publishing in all of these books. I enjoy Star Wars perhaps best of all three based on my lifelong enjoyment of the films.

The book has many of the characters in a wide variety of scenes. Most of the designs resemble the characters quite well. There are a couple that could have been improved but those are in the minority.
The designs are detailed and, in many cases, have intricate and very small areas to color. There is a heavy use of shading and of black as part of the designs. That has been true of the prior books as well, so it was not a surprise for me here. I’ve learned to embrace the black as part of my overall design and that has worked well.
When there is so much black on the page, I’ve also learned to be really careful if I am using colored pencils. Lighter colors over the black show up. If I use markers, that problem doesn’t happen as the color seeps through instead of sitting on the surface. I use both but am extra careful with I am using lighter colored pencils.
This is what I experienced while coloring in this book and testing my color medium on the paper:
59 Design pages based on Star Wars
Designs are printed on one side of the page
Paper is medium weight, white, slightly rough, and perforated
Glue bound but you can easily remove pages at the perforations
Designs cross over the perforation by a very small amount. If you remove pages from the book, you will not lose essential elements.
Easy to color in all corners of the design (though many designs extend to the border of the page on three sides.)
Alcohol-based markers bleed through this paper
Water-based markers, India ink pens, and gel pens all leave colorful shadows on the back of the page.
Colored pencils work well with this paper. I was able to get good color, blend, and layer well with both wax and oil based pencils. Hard lead pencils can dent through the page.
I will either remove the page from the book to color or put a safety blotter page under my working page. That will keep the pages below safe from seeping ink or dents. I like to use card stock or a couple of sheets of heavier weight paper.