Besides being a compulsive colourist, I am also a big Disney fan. So my colouring collection wouldn’t be complete without a Disney colouring book. When I visited Disney Paris I didn’t find any colouring books that I really liked. The ones that I saw were more aimed towards children. However, I saw a couple of book reviews of these wonderful Japanese colouring books, which are more for adult colourists.
Disney Lovely Coloring Lesson Book (07/16) is by Japanese illustrator and knitting artist, Inko Kotoriyama. This book is part of a series of Japanese Disney colouring books that include lessons on how to colour the characters and scenes in a variety of styles.
This is actually the first of three books of the series. The other books have very similar names, but the front cover and the line art inside are all unique from each other. The other books in the series are Adult Disney Lovely Painting Lesson Book to the world of dreams (12/16) and Adult Disney Love’s gift Lovely painting lesson book (Full of love scenes) (04/17). Inko had previously illustrated two more Japanese colouring books, which are very different to the Disney themed books. They are Romantic Journey (09/15) and Happy Birthday (02/16). According to Amazon Japan, she also has another colouring book due this November, called Nice dream of beautiful Coloring ruby with a story. Coloring Queen has done fantastic reviews and flip-throughs of all of Inko Kotoriyama’s colouring books, except for the book I am reviewing for you. Her reviews were actually the reason I bought this book. So if your interested in Inko’s books I recommend checking them out on Coloring Queens website or youtube channel.
The book has a soft cover with a dust jacket. The cover art is an evening scene of Mickey and Minnie, which is included in the book with tips on how to colour it. The back of the book gives you some examples of the kinds of lessons you will find in the book.
Once you get inside the book you will find examples of three chapters layout and recommended colouring material. The book is in Japanese, but it does show photos of the materials, which are Faber-Castell Classic Watercolor pencils 24 set, Faber-Castell Studio Oil Pastels 24 set, Black fine liners; white, gold and silver Uniball Signo gel pens, and Tombow Light Touch Eraser. There is also a colour chart for the pencils, which include the pencil numbers.
The book is then split up into three chapters. In Chapter one there are simple little lessons on how to colour the some of the Disney characters. You are invited to try to colour them using detailed Japanese instructions. These images are not reused later in the book. They are great to get a feel for how to colour the characters and the kind of colours and shading you will need to do to bring them to life. Although this is all written in Japanese, except for the pencil numbers, they are pretty self-explanatory. Chapter two gives you tips on how to colour elements that you will find in line art later in the book. These tips also give you the pencil numbers for the Faber-Castell Classic Watercolor pencils. In Chapter three are all the one page and two-page spreads of Disney characters. There are a variety of different styles from classic to more modern imagery. The thickness and the density of the colour of the line really varies. The kind of characters you will find include Mickey and Friends, Snow White and the Evil Queen, Cinderella, Beauty and the Beast, Tinkerbelle, Ariel, Winnie the Pooh, Alice in Wonderland, Rapunzel, Aristocats, Bambi, Nemo and Dory.
When I first got the book I tried to find the similar colours in my Faber-Castell Polychromos. However, it was difficult to figure out some of them, as the colour printing in the book is not accurate. So the next day I went out and bought the Faber-Castell Classic Watercolor pencils 24 set from Office Works. These pencils are very cheap as they are student grade. The brush that is included is pretty cheap quality, so I prefer to use them with my Pental Aquash Brushes.
Here are some of the Lessons that I did in Chapter one. I only did the Mickey and Friends lessons, since I intended on colouring similar pictures in Chapter three. However, there are lessons to colour Belle, Cinderella and more. The first picture below I did with my Faber-Castell Polychromos. The following two were doing with Faber-Castell Watercolour pencils and black fine liner. The paper quality is wonderful and I had no bleed through or shadowing with any of these materials.
The first whole page I took on was this sweet Mickey and Minnie picture. There was no lesson or tip for this image. I used Faber-Castell Watercolour pencils and White Signo Gel pen. I really enjoyed doing this one and happy how it turned out. I would have preferred no flowers or perhaps different style to match the classic styled characters. The paper had no issues with the watercolour at all.
The next picture I did was Mickey’s Circus, which took me forever. I used Prismacolor pencils and Gel pens. I did the curtains and background first. I not really happy with the background, its a bit scratchy, which was probably my fault for getting a bit burnt out and not being careful. The rest of the picture is a bit of a colour explosion. I don’t love it but now its done I don’t mind the overall look.
Next picture is the Evil Queen from Snow White. I love the unexpectedly simplicity of this image that reminds me of tattoo art. She is also the only Villian in this book. I used Polychromos pencils, blended it with Prismacolor White and Derwent Blender. I also used some white and red gel pens. I really loved this one.
The next one is the of Snow White, which is situated next to the Evil Queen. This page actually had a tip of how to colour it in Chapter two. I decided to ignore that and colour it my way. I again used Polychromos pencils, Prismacolor White, Derwent Blender and a variety of gel pens. I tried to only reuse colours I had already used so I got some really interesting colours combinations for the border. She looks very pretty and complements her dark evil villian.
The last picture I did was my favourite Disney princess, Belle from Beauty and the beast. In chapter two there a tip for how to colour the stain-glass border. I didn’t really like the colour combination, so I went with my own colours, which I reused for the scene. I again used Polychromos and White Signo Gel pen. I loved bringing my favourite characters to life. My only issue with this picture is the arms. They look a bit strange and I couldn’t tell if she’s meant to be wearing gloves since her upper arm has lines to look as if there is fabric there. So I guess she had a dress alteration and took off the fancy gloves to get down into a really good book.
I hope you liked my extremely long review. If you interested in purchasing this book please see the links below:
Live Eat Colour 
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