by Tomislav Tomić
Published by FOKUS na hit on December 2017
Style: Contains Extras, double page printing, Paper: medium quality
Pages: 40
Format: Card cover with fold out, Glue & Stitched
Vilin San Coloring Book Video Review
I hope you enjoyed the video review of Vilin San Coloring Book by Croatian artist, Tomislav Tomic.
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Vilin San Coloring Book  Review
Croatian illustrator, Tomislav Tomic has had a long and successful career as an illustrator. He has produced a number of coloring books but the most popular being Zemlja Snova the fantasy based book released last year.   Zemlja Snova stole the hearts of colorists around the world with the intricately detailed fairyland Tomislav created filled with fairies, elaborate castles and magnificent dragons.   Of course, everyone hoped for a follow up to this beautiful book and late last year Tomislav announced that Vilin San would be released in December.
It’s no surprise that Vilin San was automatically added to a lot of Christmas wish lists and Santa requests 🙂  Vilin San translates to Fairy’s Dream and has the same style and theme as Zemlja Snova making them a natural pairing.
Cover & Layout
The cover of Vilin San is the same size as Zemlja Snova measring 25cm x 25cm approximately but a thinner card than previously used in Zemlja Snova.  This, together with the smaller number of pages in the book, make it a little bendy. The cover is a matte laminate with a decal like title and artist name on it.  You could color the cover but you would need a product to penetrate the laminate without sliding off.
You will immediately notice that Vilin San is a lot thinner than Zemlja Snova.   The page count of Vilin San is 40 + a four page spread fold out poster whereas Zemlja Snova was a thick 84 pages.   Both books are the same price at the publisher’s marketplace.
The inside cover features text about the artist together with an intricate image of flowers at the front and without the text at the back. The inside cover is a lovely shade of purple with white line art.
Please note: A Dutch imprint of the book may be available later in the year.
Ancillary Pages
A decorated text title page starts the book with a gorgeous fairy on the reverse with details of copyright information.  This would be the best place to test out your mediums.   This is followed by a message from the artist on a beautifully decorated page.  However, as this has art work on the reverse it would not to be suitable for testing out your mediums.
Layout
Illustrations have been printed on both sides of the smooth, white, medium quality paper.   There are 10 double page scenes within the book.  Care has been taken to ensure the positioning of the images for the bulk of the time avoids the spine area of the book.  This attention to detail makes it easier to color in the double page scenes.
Coloring Book Images and Illustrations
You will notice a real sense of continuous with Vilin San, if you already have Zemlja Snova.  The same style of art work and fantasy theme is present in Vilin San.   You will see familiar but not the same fairies, dragons and castles most of which have some form of framing around them.
Whilst Zemlja Snova featured more people and other objects like boats as well, Vilin San concentrates on the purely magical, with an abundance of fairies, elves, mermaids and underwater scenes. In this fantastical world that Tomislav creates most things have wings. Naturally we expect fairies to have wings but I am pretty sure that this is the first time I’ve seen a Knight waiting to have shining armour with wings.  Throughout these beautifully illustrated images you feel that Tomislav is depicting a story of an adventure or a very imaginative fairy’s dream.  As well as the gorgeous birds, animals, dragons and fairies to color there are beautiful flowers, leaves, mushrooms and berries.
Although the page count is less than some colorists may expect the detail in the images will keep me going until Tomislav releases his next book (I still haven’t started Zemlja Snova!).   One of the curious things I find about Tomislav’s work is that I often think that I would just be happy looking at it without ever touching a pencil to it.  Then, I see the beautifully detailed castles and feel that I would just love to grab my pencils and give it a bit of a color.
Tomislav has a clear and steady hand and his line art is black and crisp.  In some illustrations he uses pointillism to depict texture and in others he uses a lighter grey dot.
Please click on an image to view more detail
[foogallery id=”11782″]Bonus
A four page poster is included in the book that also has some illustration on the reverse side.  It is difficult to get this completely in frame.
Fold out poster (excuse the lighting – had to photograph on the floor due to size)
Detail Level
Where to buy
| Etailer – Czech Republic | Fokus – Publishers | Etailer – ships worldwide |
Happy coloring x
Lea
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