Creative Haven Steampunk Devices Coloring Book (Adult Coloring)
By: Jeremy Elder
Rating: 5 of 5
I own a couple of steampunk style coloring books and those books focus on the fashions and on people rather than on machines and methods of transportation. I was pleased to find this older Creative Haven book which is more about the devices.
The coloring book, by Jeremy Elder, has a much more masculine feel to it. There are bold lines and scenarios that are more Jules Verne than the more romantic and stylized designs in my other books. The people in this book have more of a cartoon look and feel than anything true to life. The fun part of coloring in this book is in making the robots come to life or playing with shading color to bring attention to a newly imagined type of machinery or transportation.
For my first two projects, I had fun using a variety of colored pencils. For the boat, I used Prismacolor Premier Soft core pencils and for the robot, I used Marco Raffine’s 72 color pencils.
This is what I found in coloring and testing my mediums in this book:
31 Steampunk style designs with focus on machines and transportation
Printed on one side of white page
Paper is white, slightly rough, and is perforated
Glue Bound
Designs stop before the perforation. Most, but not all, designs have either a framing line around the outer edge or finished elements.
Alcohol and water based markers leak through this paper. The alcohol markers bleed through immediately while the water-based markers leave heavy spots of color depending on how much I have to use to fill in the spot properly.
Gel pens and India ink pens leave shadows of color on the back of the page
Coloring pencils work well with this standard Creative Haven paper. Both wax and oil-based soft pencils lay down good color. My preference is several coats of light finish to get the pigment I prefer. I was able to blend and layer well with this paper as well. Hard lead pencils may leave dents on the back of the page.
I use a blotter page under my working page or I remove each page at the perforation before coloring to prevent damage from seeping ink or marring dents.