Mythos of Greek Gods and Goddesses - A Coloring & Illustrative Book

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Mythos – A Coloring & Illustrative Book

Mythos is a beautifully presented coloring book celebrating Greek Gods and Goddesses. The illustrations are all presented as they would be in an art book with a banner or image stating the name and details of the particular God or Goddess. It makes the book appear very artistic and educational as well as a functional coloring book.

Cover & Layout

The cover is black matte with gold printing on it. The gold looks like foil highlights but is not. The contrast between the line art and the cover and the gold printing is quite striking and makes the book look quite luxurious. The cover also features an ink splatter type background – I didn’t spill anything on it 🙂 The back cover features the same design style but with a collage image created of various elements and featuring a modern day Zeus.

The book is by an indy artist and usually when self publishing artists choose white paper. This artist has selected cream trade stock paper for the art work. Although, according to the publisher’s website, the paper is the same weight, it appears to have more tooth than the white paper. This could possibly be my imagination 🙂

The cover has been reproduced as the title page of the book. There is an elaborate nameplate/copyright page in the book that would be a great place to test your mediums.

Illustrations

In addition to the introductory pages there are 30 illustrations to color in the book. The artist has produced drawings that take the whole of the page and use a vivid and striking imagery. The Gods and Goddesses featured in the coloring book are: Zeus, Poseidon, Hades, Hera, Hermes, Apollo, Athena, Ares, Aphrodite, Hephaestus, Artemis, Demeter, Dionysus, Helios, Hestia, Asclepius, Pesephone, Janus, Morpheus, Pan, Thanatos, Eros, Cronus, Oceanus and Hyperion.

The artist has also used his talents to depict Zeus, Poseidon, Hades and Hermes as 21st century Gods.

The black line work is easy to see against the cream paper. The artist has used a range of variations in the line art to create the dimensions and shadowing necessary on the illustrations. The bulk of the illustrations feature a merger of elements combined to form a distinctive and unique imagery which encompasses the mythology. It must have taken a long time to achieve the look of the various elements forming an image. I’m not at all surprised that the artist worked on this book for a year.

The artist uses fine hatching to give the illustrations definition and movement. The hatching overall is quite fine.

These images are so detailed and full of elements that they will take a skilled colorist hours if not days to complete.

On some of the illustrations the artist has given a partial background in the spatter effect that is similar to the cover of the book.

A lot of the illustrations abut the spine of the book in parts and some illustrations have not been fully contained within the page as some elements have been cut off. This may be by design but it always niggles me to see half a flower petal for example.

Mythos is a very well illustrated coloring book. The illustrations would look beautiful in frames without the benefit of coloring. I think the artist chose wisely with the cream paper as it does tend to give the coloring book a point of difference amongst others and softens the images to give them more of a mythical aura.