Mass Effect Adult Coloring Book
By: Bioware
Rating: 5 of 5
Once again, Bioware has teamed up with Dark Horse to release an outstanding coloring book. This time, the book is based on Mass Effect (the previous one was Dragon Age.) The designs are detailed and fun to color. Some of them contain small and intricate areas to color.
The designs include the characters I hoped to see from the game. The illustrations are by a group of artists (Juann Cabal, Ron Chan, Gabriel Guzman, Andres Ponce and Martin Tunica.) While I can see style differences in the designs, I think the illustrations work well together and the coloring book flows well in the story line. Many of the designs are beautiful and are elegantly drawn. The designs are on the right side of the page with the applicable quote on left side of the page.
This is what I found while coloring in this book and testing my coloring medium on the paper:
45 great illustrations derived from Mass Effect trilogy and Mass Effect Andromeda.
Designs printed on one side of the page with a quote on the back of the page
Paper is heavyweight, white, slightly rough and non-perforated
Glue Binding
Designs merge into the binding area
I could get the book to lay fairly flat for coloring by breaking/creasing the spine.
Alcohol-based markers bleed through the page. If you use this medium, I suggest using a blotter page to keep ink from seeping through. I use card stock but a couple of pages of paper should work as well. It will bleed through to the quote on the back of the page, which doesn’t bother me, but I want to note it if it is an issue for you.
Water-based markers, India ink pens and gel pens do not bleed through the page. Some do leave light, colorful shadows on the back of the page.
Colored pencils worked well with this paper. It has good tooth and allowed for applying layers of the same color to get rich pigment. I could also layer multiple colors well and I could blend both oil and wax based pencils easily with a pencil style blending stick.