Maskara : Bursting Midnight Enchantment – Artist Edition Adult Coloring Book + 1 mini poster, spiral bound, single sided, perforated pages, toothy paper
By: Mardel Rubio
Rating: 5 of 5
I have enjoyed Mardel Rubio’s coloring books for quite a while. My first books from him were in a doodle creature style. While Maskara is not in that style as much, I do see some evidence of the doodle elements in this book which were missing in Mr. Rubio’s recent Sirena coloring book. The focus of the designs in this book is on masks. While most of the figures are those of lovely females, there are a few men in the mix of designs as well as a really cute cat and a great owl design (based on which I’d love to see an animal book by this designer!)
The designs are detailed and some have intricate and small areas to color. Most of the pages are black line designs on white; however, some have black printed backgrounds. Once again as in Sirena there is a fairly heavy use of black on some designs though in this case, it is the backgrounds. The lines of the designs are a heavy black as well.
Phoenix Amulet (the publisher) has indeed set the bar high for other publishers to try to match. The paper a good heavy weight with good tooth for colored pencils. The designs are printed one-sided, the pages have excellent perforations and, best of all, has a covered spiral binding that makes it easy to open and lay this book flat for coloring. The only improvement I could suggest would be a framing line at the outer edges of the design so that I don’t have to try to color at the edges of the page.
This is what I found in coloring in this book and testing my coloring medium on the paper
41 Mask inspired designs including one poster page that is a double size fold-out page.
Printed on one side of the page
Paper is white, medium/heavy weight, rough with excellent tooth and perforated pages
Binding is spiral with the cover protecting the spiral.
The book lays flat in the open position for ease of coloring.
The designs stop short of the perforations and removing pages is very easy if you wish to do so. There are unfinished elements at all edges of the page
Alcohol based markers bleed through this paper. If you use this coloring medium, I highly suggest that you either remove pages before coloring, or as I do, use card stock or several sheets of paper as a blotter below the working page. That will keep the pages or the surface below from being marred.
Water based markers, India ink pens and gel pens do not bleed through the paper though some left the slight shadow of the back of the page.
Coloring pencils extremely worked well. The paper is definitely rough to the touch and has excellent tooth for pencils. Both oil and wax based pencils worked very well for providing good pigment. I was able to layer the same color for deeper tones, layer multiple colors and to blend easily using a pencil style blending stick as well as wet blending medium for excellent results.