by Sherri Ann Baldy
Published by Sherri Baldy My-Besties on April 1st 2016
Pages: 104
Goodreads
This Big Beautiful Fluffy Besties collection is volume #1 from Sherri's My Besties illustrations. Color them all up yourself OR have a coloring party and color with your Bestie Pals.... Sherri's Bestie images have been stamper's, crafter's and scrapbooker's fans favorites from all over the world and are now available in coloring books.
This post contains affiliate links you can use to purchase the product. If you buy a book using that link, I will receive a small commission. This does not affect the price that you pay. Your support is very much appreciated x
My Besties – Big Beautiful Fluffy Girls Review
Sherri Baldy the artist behind the My Besties brand has been creating images to color for a number of years. Her art work is very popular with card makers and scrapbookers and is becoming more and more popular with colorists in the coloring book market.
Big Beautiful Fluffy Girls has a theme of full figured big eyed girls.
Cover & Layout
The cover of Big Beautiful Fluffy Girls is white and glossy. The cover image is a lovely fluffy girl presented as a cake topper in a froth of delicious pink icing and decorations. I adore cupcakes, especially with pink icing, so the cover certainly enticed me. The image has been completely colored giving the colorist inspiration for their own creations.
The back cover contains 4 thumbnail images of drawings inside as well as 4 additional colored images as inspiration.
Big Beautiful Fluffy Girls is A4 sized measuring in at 28cm x 21.5 cm (11 in x 8.5 in).
I purchased my copy of this book from the artist’s website direct and you can see on the inside cover that it has been signed. Copies purchased from other outlets will not be personally signed.
An introduction from the artist starts the book which combines copyright information on the one page.
I would have loved to see the full line work for the feet here but it is not a deal breaker
The illustrations have been printed on single sided, white, trade stock paper. All of the images are portrait orientated. There are 25 original illustrations in the book which have been duplicated. In total there are 50 images to color yourself or share one copy with a friend. I know some colorists are not fond of the double up of images. I have to say I love coloring books that have this feature. I’m not a confident colorist. I often make mistakes and poor color choices so I love having the option to color again. It is also nice to be able to color along with someone and see how someone else colors the same picture. For this reason, I will probably give some of the doubles to my mother in law. She used to be an artist, so I feel a bit of pressure, but I’d love to see how she would color the same picture.
The rear of the book contains a page of links where you can connect with the artist.
Illustrations
My Besties have a very distinctive style in their art work. The art generally consists of what I call “big eyed girls”. The lovely ladies in this book are depicted with exaggerated eyelashes, big hair and pouty lips. This cartoony style of pin up girl is very cutesy and appealing to all ages.
You will find these fluffys in a variety of poses, having coffee, as a mermaid, hula dancer, shopping among others. The drawings on the whole provide a gorgeous illustration of the pin up fluffy with a beautiful face, full detailed hair and fun outfits to color. The cover image has been included for you to color.
The majority of the image do not have any background elements. I do not know, but feel that this is because this artist is used to colorists cutting out her big eyed girls and using them for card making.
The artist has centered the art work well on the page providing a nice area of white space around the image. The art work tends to be designed to fill the bulk of the page.
The positioning of the art work has been well thought out so that it does not abut the spine. Colorists should be able to color the whole of the page with ease.
The art work has been outlined in black with a fine line weight. Heavier line weight is evident for the root of eyelashes and irises are colored in solid black. I am unsure whether it is a printing issue or if it is by design, but some of the images in my book are fainter and not as sharp as others.
I feel that this image is not as sharp and crisply outlined as others in the book
One thing that I find attractive about this series of coloring books is the large spaces. As most of you already know, I’m always groping for my reading glasses to see anything and detest coloring fiddly bits because I cannot easily see them. The fluffy girls have a lot of large, big spaces making it easy for those with visual and motor issues to color. Skilled colorists can use all their blending techniques to bring out the beautiful skin tones on the face of the girls, the fullness of the hair and the folds on the clothes. Other colorists may be just as happy to color the spaces in solid color, quickly and easily.
On a cold winter’s day, this image really makes me wish for summer!
There are some images where all the elements are not present on the page, for example only half the legs are drawn. I always prefer complete elements within a drawing without any open lines but sometimes from an artistic point of view it looks better that way.
My Besties – Big Beautiful Fluffy Girls Video Review
Enjoy the video review of Big Beautiful Fluffy Girls below:
Where to buy My Besties – Big Beautiful Fluffy Girls Volume 1
| Amazon US | Amazon UK | Amazon Canada | Book Depository |
Happy coloring x
Lea
Leave a Comment