Fantastic Cities: A Coloring Book of Amazing Places Real and Imagined (Adult Coloring Books, City Coloring Books, Coloring Books for Adults)

Amazing coloring book, worth the money

Fab book. Bought it for my mother who I introduced to colouring 2 years back to alleviate her anxiety levels. This maybe her 15th book and I'm so happy I decided to go for this one. The quality of the book, the paper and the drawings is simply great. Even the seller is meticulous with procuring feedback. If you are looking for the next level of challenge in your pursuit of colouring, grab this book immediately.

Good

Get one if you like coloring and architecture!

Bellissimo e difficile libro da colorare. I soggetti sono molto belli e rappresentano tratti di città e monumenti più o meno conosciuti. La carta è spessa e anche colorando con i pennarelli il tratto non passa sul retro della pagina.

Súper entretenido y excelente calidad está súper padre para pasar un buen ratito de relax

Ein Malbuch für Erwachsene? Als ich zum ersten Mal davon las, musste ich schmunzeln, als ich mir vorstellte, dass so etwas Fans finden würde, doch dann erinnerte ich mich an meine Kindheit in der ich mich oft, wenn ich mich vom Schulstress zurückziehen wollte, mit einem Malbuch oder einem Zeichenblock an meinen Schreibtisch setzte und malte. Schon damals hatten es mir Gebäude, Häuserfluchten und symmetrische Figuren angetan. Genau das bietet 'Fantastic Cities'. Das großformatige Buch enthält 52 Malvorlagen auf dickem Papier. Die Malbücher meiner Kindheit waren oft aus sehr holzigem Papier, das jeden Filzstift leersaugte und bei dem die aufgemalte Farbe über die Ränder hinauslief. Dieses Papier ist glatt und hat zudem einen Rand zum Buchrücken hin, auf dem das dargestellte Motiv benannt ist. Dieser Rand bietet die Möglichkeit, dass man sein 'Werk' auch herausschneiden kann. Die Motive sind sehr unterschiedlich; es finden sich z.B. Städtebilder, wie von Toronto, Amsterdam, Singapur, Tokyo, New York usw. Teilweise sind es sehr realistisch wirkende Abbildungen, teilweise sind die Städte-Motive als Mandala entworfen. Verantwortlich für diese interessanten Bilder ist der Künstler Steve McDonalds, der in Saudi Arabien, Italien, Indien und Indonesien gelebt hat und viele weitere Länder bereist hat. Seine Bilder inspirieren und scheinen gerade zu erwarten, dass man sie mit Farbe füllt. Ich war erstaunt, wie sehr ich beim Ausmalen abschalten konnte. Damals, wie auch heute läuft Musik, wenn ich male und ich nehme mir die Zeit für das Bild, experimentiere mit Farben, Farbverläufen und gestalte mir die Motive so nach meinen Vorstellungen und Wünschen und wie schon als Kind kann ich mit diesem Tun meine Gedanken abschalten und total entspannen. Ich bin froh, dass ich diese Entspannungsmöglichkeit wieder entdeckt habe und wünsche den 'Erfindern' dieses Konzepts, dass diese Art der kleinen Alltagsflucht noch von viel mehr Leuten entdeckt wird.

The biggest reason I love this book is for the paper quality! I am using watercolors in three ways, watercolor pencils, half pan cakes, and liquid (from the tube) watercolors. I'm using an aquabrush (I prefer the Pentel brand) with absolutely no bleed through at all! I've tried this with all my other coloring books including the Secret Garden series, and I get some bleed through on all of them. I started "The Magical City" coloring book and I'm doing it all in inktense watercolor pencils and I love it! I definitely get bleed through and paper wrinkling but it's been acceptable and so much fun that I wanted to try it again with more realistic architectural pictures to color. Fantastic Cities fit the bill! The drawings are incredible with lots of detail. My favorite thing about the drawings is the amount of perspective. It gives me a chance to challenge my watercolor skills in creating depth by using the perspective already correctly drawn. I just need to try to choose colors that accentuate what the artist has provided me with to begin with. Using the half pan watercolor cakes, I started with my least favorite page (in case I ruined it and to familiarize myself with how the paper would respond) , which was a city scape turned into a mandala/kaleidoscope view. I was shocked that no color bled through at all. I decided to be a little more free with my water and again, no bleed through! Even in larger areas that I used a wash. Then I tried both Inktense and regular Derwent watercolor pencils and the water brush. Still no bleed through. Finally I tried my traditional, from the tube and diluted with water, watercolors. Again, no bleed through. Now, to be fair, I'm not leaving puddles of water on the page but I'm also not using the least amount of water possible. After trial and hardly any errors, I feel almost no restriction using any of my watercolor supplies (listed above) other than totally drenching the paper and lots of rewetting and scrubbing. So far there has been very little buckling of the paper also. I expected a lot of buckling as I get that with water color paper too to some degree at times and this is not watercolor paper. The only issue I've run across with watercolor is that the paper does pill after you've gone over the same area multiple times but that is acceptable to me and much less than expected. The paper is smooth, heavy with a very slight cream tone. The book is also larger than most others. Drawings are on both sides of the paper but that hasn't been an issue. All in all, I really enjoy the coloring book. It has a lot of detail but that's making it more fun for me. I don't care for the mandala scenes that much because I am interested in the architectural aspect but they may break it up for a lot of people. I would love if they did a landscape book, but don't skimp on those details because the detail makes this book great. It would be fun if they printed the line art in a softer grey for those who like to do watercolor but I don't think the black lines take away from the book at all. It's a coloring book after all. I just happen to be using watercolor for fun. I don't think this paper would hold up to juicy markers. Even with all the praise I've given the paper. Less juicy, maybe, but I just don't think markers are an option for most two sides coloring books period. I'm very happy with my purchase! It arrived quickly with Prime in excellent condition for a reasonable price. Especially for the quality of the paper!

I really like Fantastic Cities. The images from different cities certainly gives lots of variety. The only drawback would be that the images are on both sides of the paper and since I have not used markers on the pages I do not know what the bleed factor is. If you like the look of aerial views of cities then you will find this book quite enjoyable and will give you a lot of hours of colouring.