Official Dreamworks Coloring book (beware of imitation books) – printed both sides of the page

DreamWorks: The Official Coloring Book

By: Random House

Rating: 4 of 5

The designs in this coloring book are based on the following animation movies: How to Train Your Dragon, Kung Fu Panda, Madagascar, Puss In Boots, and Shrek. These are a number of my grandchildren’s favorites so coloring in this book, for us, is a family deal.

My grandson is able to color well at age 5 but his little sister is not yet able to, so she picks the picture and the colors and has me color it for her (and she adds her final touches – a bit of scribble scrabble that she loves.)

The one real problem I have with this book is the intricate and extremely difficult to color backgrounds on some of the pages. They were not necessary and the problem could have been avoided but since they chose to do this I knocked a star from the rating. Some of the background illustrations (especially those that are done in a manner that can be colored) added much to this design.

Otherwise, the character illustrations are fun and easy to color. I will probably just use a single color in a watercolor brush marker to color the detailed backgrounds.

This is what I found in this coloring book

Printed on both sides of the page

Paper is heavyweight, white, slightly rough, and non-perforated

Glue bound

Some Designs are printed across two pages

Designs merge into the binding area

This book can be opened to a fairly flat position by breaking the spine.

Alcohol-based markers bleed through the page. If you use these, you will ruin the design on the back of the page.

Water-based markers, gel pens and India ink pens do not bleed through the page.

Colored pencils do very well with this paper. It has a nice amount of tooth and both oil and wax-based pencils perform well. I was able to get nice pigment and to layer the same color, multiple colors, and blending easily using a pencil style blending stick.

Here are some sample photos from the book: