Star Wars Art of Colouring The Force Awakens by Lucasfilm
| Star Wars Art of Colouring The Force Awakens by Lucasfilm | |
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| Category: Crafts | |
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Reviewer: John Lloyd
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| Summary: Somewhat late as a Force Awakens tie-in is this colouring book, but it's designed to make sure you don't fret about that – or anything. It's actually pleasantly successful. | |
| Buy? Yes | Borrow? No |
| Pages: 128 | Date: March 2017 |
| Publisher: Egmont | |
| ISBN: 9781405285797 | |
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Without giving any spoilers away, the end of The Force Awakens sees a character and their peace interrupted. While said person probably has The Force to give them some restful ease, you never know what else they used. They may, for one, have dabbled in colouring-in books, and their much-lauded effect on the mind – that of calming it and providing a meditative, simple yet creative task for it. Whether that is the case or not, there are books set in the Star Wars universe for people to join in in that way – and this is the best I've seen.
We start with a tiny, easing essay, relieving a point I belaboured the last time I met with one of these books, about how accurate you're supposed to remain to the film, and how much leeway you should give yourself to just go create. Maximum leeway is offered here, so it's pencils out and let's stop playing mini-lightsabres with them and get drawing. On the whole, every right-hand page is a character or scene from the film, right down to the most minor of personnel I've long since forgotten ever featured. The reverse of those is generally a mandala set, although sometimes this becomes a double-page spread of a pattern.
On those occasions, you get the usual impossible-to-get-down-the-centrefold problem, but I think on the whole this is a sensibly constructed volume. Yes, you have to crack the spine to get anywhere, especially with the mandala sets going right into to the centre of the spread, but the scenes and characters are generally in a large field of blank you can leave white, and there's no issue here. Some of the mandalas are fun in the way they play around with spherical metallic shapes, and Millennium Falcons – I did laugh at the almost heraldic rose patterns made out of Stormtrooper helmets. The portraits are generally embellished with ribbons, banners and wafty bits of filigree, so however much veracity you seek you can always try and have some harmonious colour matching.
As before, a couple of the images are very black, leaving you with little to do – at least there is no Darth Vader this time for you to conclude illustrating. But if you want a lime green Chewbacca for a change, go for it – this world is your world on these pages, and you can take on board as little or as much as you know about the film as takes your fancy. It's actually quite amazing to expect such passivity and pleasance to come from such a high-octane source, but the creators have managed it here.
I must thank the publishers for my review copy.
There is always Star Wars: Colouring By Numbers by LucasFilm if even colour decisions are too stressful for you.
Star Wars Art of Colouring The Force Awakens by Lucasfilm is in the Our Top 10 Colouring Books for Lockdown.
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You can read more book reviews or buy Star Wars Art of Colouring The Force Awakens by Lucasfilm at Amazon.com.
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