Sherlock: The Mind Palace: The Official Colouring Book by Mike Collins
| Sherlock: The Mind Palace: The Official Colouring Book by Mike Collins | |
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| Category: Crafts | |
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Reviewer: Sue Magee
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| Summary: Intricate, true to life and brings the series to life. More skill required than in many colouring books, but a treat, particularly for any fan of the series. Highly recommended. | |
| Buy? Yes | Borrow? No |
| Pages: 80 | Date: November 2015 |
| Publisher: BBC Books | |
| ISBN: 978-1785940439 | |
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Colouring books for adults are all the rage at the moment, but one of the problems with popularity is that the books do tend to become a bit, well, samey. Once you've coloured in one peacock's tail, it's not easy to get inspiration for another and there's a limit to the number of flowers, patterns and mystical beasts which you can attach to the fridge door. We've seen all sorts of variations, such as mindfulness, but what we really want is something fresh and with a bit of something extra to get the brain cells going. Welcome Sherlock: The Mind Palace.
The man behind the pencil is Mike Collins, whom you might know from Panini Doctor Who Magazine. He's got the CV which makes him perfect for this book and he produces over fifty pieces of artwork for you to colour - and they're intricate, very intricate, some of them. You can recreate scenes from the television series and add colour to the interiors. If your taste is just to complete a pattern then it's there for you - there's something for every mood. There's a vital clue from each episode hidden in the black and white drawings, but you'll need to be in the wide-awake club as they might not be hidden in the corresponding episode. (The answers are provided at the back of the book, so no need to get stressy about it.)
Now, you will need a little more skill than you do for most colouring books and a greater assortment of colours to work with. Usually, if you're doing a peacock's tail and what you have is lime green, acid yellow and cerise then you can make it look good. (Well, it looked good to me...) But if you're doing Sherlock's face you require a little more subtlety. If Benedict Cumberbatch is considering a spray tan I can tell him that the look is not a good one on him. The upside is that the paper is of good quality and I didn't get bleed-through to the reverse, which can happen on cheaper books.
It's probably one of the best colouring books we've seen. Ok, it doesn't have the millboard back, which gives greater flexibility about where you can use it, or blank reverses to the page so that you can magnet them all to the front of the fridge, but with a cover price of just £9.99, you're getting hours of fun, particularly if you're a fan of the series and we reckon that's good value for money. We'd like to thank the publishers for sending a copy to the Bookbag.
If you'd like something equally complex then we can recommend Field Guide: Creatures Great and Small (Field Guides) by Lucy Engelman. We've recently seen a lovely gift edition of the original Sherlock Holmes stories and if you're present hunting Sherlock: The Essential Arthur Conan Doyle Adventures by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle might be perfect. You could even add in a colouring book...
Sherlock: The Mind Palace: The Official Colouring Book by Mike Collins is in the Our Top 10 Colouring Books for Lockdown.
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You can read more book reviews or buy Sherlock: The Mind Palace: The Official Colouring Book by Mike Collins at Amazon.co.uk Amazon currently charges £2.99 for standard delivery for orders under £20, over which delivery is free.
You can read more book reviews or buy Sherlock: The Mind Palace: The Official Colouring Book by Mike Collins at Amazon.com.
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