Santa's Kitty Helpers Coloring Book Review

Santa's Kitty Helpers Holiday Coloring Book Buy on Book Depository|Buy from Bol in The Netherlands
by Kayomi Harai
Published by Design Originals on September 26th 2017
Format: Soft cover

Goodreads

The expressive-eyed furry friends depicted in the artistry of acclaimed illustrator Kayomi Harai have a wonderful way of capturing hearts. Now her delightful felines are even melting Santa's heart in this adorable Christmas coloring book. Each design is printed on one side only of archival-grade, acid-free, 200-year paper. Each perforated page detaches easily for gifting or display.

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Santa’s Kitty Helpers Coloring Book Review
Cover & Layout
Coloring Book Images and Illustrations
Detail Level
Where to buy Santa’s Kitty Helpers Coloring Book

Santa’s Kitty Helpers Coloring Book Review

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Santa’s Kitty Helpers Coloring Book Video Review

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Santa’s Kitty Helpers Coloring Book Review

As most readers know I love cute cats. I had long been wanting to buy a coloring book from Kayomi Harai as she has already published two. Buying Santa’s Kitty Helpers, being the latest coloring book, was an easy decision to make.

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Kayomi’s books are published by Design Originals who produce great coloring books. They generally have perforated pages, inspirational full page colored pictures, tips and color palettes. This book does not have all of those features. There are perforated pages, some thumbnail colored images front and back, no tips, no color palettes and some odd image sizing. The image sizing now makes sense to me …read on to find out why.

Not only that, but a You Tube viewer alerted me that the illustrations in Santa’s Kitty Helpers, are the same as in Santa’s Furry Helpers. As I do not own Santa’s Furry Helpers, I found a few reviews online. The video review below is not in English but has the best viewing quality

I have emailed Design Originals asking them to explain the differences between the two books to me. Unless I’m going completely insane, the illustrations are exactly the same. Not only that, but when you look at how much colored printing and how many full page colored images are included in Santa’s Furry Helpers coloring book ……it makes me really mad.

Design Originals never responded to my email query why the title and description on the product listing did not denote that it was a repackaged version of Santa’s Furry Helpers released a year prior, with a different cover on it. Since my review they have seen fit to note this in their Amazon listing and Book Depository listing to show that it’s the cheaper version (what they should have done in the first place to avoid misleading their potential customers and actual real paying customers). As I feel that that is unacceptable I will no longer purchase books from them for review or for giveaways. I still do have some in my “to review” pile which I will review but they have lost a customer and fan with me. A simple email reply acknowledging that they stuffed up and offering to replace the book would have gone a long way. Everyone stuffs up ..it’s the way you deal with it that makes the difference.

I have to say, that if I was to buy a book by this artist again, knowing what I know now, it would be [easyazon_link identifier=”1497202272″ locale=”US” tag=”mygamingweb-20″]Santa’s Furry Helpers[/easyazon_link] rather than this one, which has the tips and color palettes. If you are already confident with color choices and technique then you may feel differently.

Don’t get me wrong, I still love the book as I love cats but I would have liked to have been able to be in a position to make an informed buying decision on which book I would purchase. If I had known they were the same book with a different cover (and this one certainly the poor cousin with its lack of tips and color) then I would NOT have bought it.

Cover & Layout

Santa’s Kitty Helpers has a soft cover. The illustration on the front of a sweetly colored kitten in a sleigh is enough to warm a cold heart. On the back of the book there are two colored thumbnail illustrations.

The inside back cover contains 9 colored thumbnail images of illustrations from the book by various colorists. The front inside cover, contains three colored thumbnail images.

There are no color palettes, instructions and tips as you would normally find with a book from Design Originals

Santa’s Kitty Helpers Coloring Book is approximately A4 sized

Ancillary Pages

There are no ancillary pages to test your mediums.

Layout

Illustrations hae been printed on single pages with a faint gray kitten quote on the reverse.

When I was videoing the book I was confused about the illustration sizing on some of the pages. Some of the illustrations are not the whole of the page but more 3/4 sized with large areas of white space top and bottom. It was too big to be used as a notecard but smaller than the other images. After watching the video of Santa’s Furry Friends it appears to me that this is the area that the color palette would have been placed for that drawing. Rather than resizing the image to fit the whole of the page, for consistency, the image has been plonked on the page without regard to the odd areas of white space surrounding it.

Coloring Book Images and Illustrations

The illustrations of sweet kittys are adorable in this coloring book. HOwever, there there is not a large variety of breeds of cats in the book so if you were hoping to see your favorite feline you will be left with the cute kitty depicted on the cover art.

The illustrations are adorable of kitties in stockings, wreaths and on Santa’s sleigh. For colorists there’s a lot of opportunity to do great background effects, snow, blizzards and starry nights.

The line art is a fine to medium, black line which is crisp and easy to see. The markings on the little helpers have been applied using a light grey so you can color in and texture to your kitty.

Please click on an image to view more detail

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