Beautifully illustrated Architectural Coloring book of 54 designs printed on both sides of the heavyweight page

I purchased Steve McDonald’s first coloring book, Fantastic Cities last year and that hooked me on coloring architectural designs. I’ve look for coloring books of the same quality but have not found one until Mr. McDonald’s Fantastic Structures appeared. The coloring book is filled with 54 intricate and detailed architectural illustrations that will be great fun to color.

The designs range from real to imagined. In some cases, Mr. McDonald has an illustration of a real building and then he does a riff on it with a mandala style illustration pinpointing some of the architectural details that make the building instantly recognizable. He has even included a run-way at LAX.

As with Fantastic Cities, Mr. McDonald takes us on a trip around the world to see some outstanding examples of unusual and/or iconic buildings. I will include a photo that has the long list of the buildings, etc. which are including in the book.

For my first projects in this book, I decided to use Tombow water-based markers (as they did not bleed through the paper see coloring mediums below.) I loved making the terminal at LAX into a color wheel. I’ve spent too much of life waiting for planes at LAX and I could only wish to be able to look out of the drab surroundings and see a beautiful rainbow of airplanes waiting to take me on an adventure.

I will provide details of the physical attributes of the book below but here is a quick overview of what I found:

54 Detailed and Intricate Architectural Designs
Printed on both sides of heavyweight, non-perforated pages
Sewn Binding
Designs do not merge into binding area
Book can be opened to a flat position
Alcohol-based markers bleed through page
Water-based markers, gel pens, and India ink artist pens do not bleed through or leave color shadows on back on page
Coloring pencils work fantastic with this paper

The coloring book is very well made. The designs are printed on both sides of the heavyweight, non-perforated white paper. The designs do not merge into the binding area and, in fact, there is a small print listing identifying the building on the bound edge of the page. The binding is sewn with a bright color thread. You can snip those threads and remove a few page at a time in whole if you wish to remove pages from the book. That the thread is bright colored makes it easier than ever to snip them. I could press hard on the spine area and get the book to lay flat for coloring.

I test all of my coloring books with a wide range of coloring medium. I will list, at the end of this review, those that I used for testing this book. Here is what my tests showed:

Alcohol-based markers easily bleed through the page. Water-based markers of all types and tips and India ink pens did not bleed through or leave shadows at the back of the page. Gels pens did not bleed through but too more drying time that usual. Coloring pencils worked fantastic with the paper. The soft lead went on thick and full and blended well. The hard lead pencils make precise lines and good color and did not dent through the back of the page.

If you decide to use alcohol-based markers or another medium that might bleed through, you will lose the design on the back of the page. I plan to use my water-based markers, India ink pens, gel pens, and especially, my colored pencils with this book. That will provide a wide range of medium for me and I will be able to color on both sides of the page.

These are the coloring medium that I use for testing. If there is something else you feel I should be testing, please let me know and I will see if I can add it to my growing pile:

Alcohol-based markers Copic Sketch, Prismacolor double ended markers (brush and fine point), Sharpies (fine and ultra-fine) Bic Mark-its (fine and ultra-fine)

Waater-based markers Tombows dual end markers (brush and fine point), Stabilo 88, and Staedler triplus fineliners

India Ink: Faber-Castell PITT artist pens (brush tip)

Gel Pens: Sakura, Fiskars, Uni-ball Signo in the following sizes – 0.28/0.38/0.5/1.0 and Tekwriter

Coloring Pencils: Prismacolor Premier Soft Core, Derwent Colorsoft, Prismacolor Verithins, Caran D’Ache Pablo Colored Pencils and Faber-Castell Polychromos