About this time last year, a lot of colorists started to experience a yearning that they hadn’t felt before. They needed a book that was difficult to get, but so worth it, when it arrived. The book, of course, was Zemlja Snova or Dreamland by the amazingly talented, Croatian artist, Tomislav Tomic.
If Johanna Basford is considered the Queen of Coloring then Tomislav must surely be the King of Coloring. The amount of detail in the fantasy based Zemlja Snova makes it a book that you could either color or just enjoy the art in, without every laying a pencil on it. The illustrations are perfectly formed and finely detailed. You have to wonder at the imagination that can create such detailed and exquisite scenes. It remains one of my favorite coloring books in my massive collection. So much so, that when the opportunity to spend a little less on postage and obtain the Dutch imprint, Dromenvanger, arose I grabbed a copy or three.
Vilin San illustrated by Tomislav Tomic due to be released in December 2017
At the end of September 2017 Tomislav announced that he was creating a new coloring book and colorists and fans immediately collectively put it on their must have wish list. When I emailed Tomislav he told me that the coloring book would likely follow the same theme as Zemlja Snova, being fantasy based (although it was too early to be sure).
The new title has now been announced, Vilin San Coloring Book. From my online translator, this appears to mean “I Dreamed”. Luckily however, a lovely reader from Croatia has advised that the correct title is Fairy’s Dream. That sounds even better! The title makes me think that this will be a fantasy based theme like the lovely Zemlja Snova.
Vilin San has now been released in Croatia as at December 2017.
As Zemlja Snova has only ever been released as a Dutch imprint and not in English, I doubt that Vilin San will be released as an English edition.
From the product listing on the Publisher’s site, Fokus the page count is 40 as opposed to the 84 in Zemlja Snova but it also appears to include a poster as well. I was wondering if the page count was correct as the way pages are normally counted is the front and back of a page is 2 pages, not one page as some people often count it. Looking at the weight of the book though at 520 gm as opposed to the 721 gm of Zemlja Snova it does appear that there are fewer pages in this book. Due to the language barrier though, I cannot say 100% for sure that that is the case.
There are a couple of options for purchasing Vilin San Coloring Book by Tomislav Tomic:
You can purchase from the publisher here (with free shipping within Croatia). For International customers, however, sit down before you check out the shipping 🙂 I have installed the Google Translate app on my chrome browser which makes it easy to change languages on the website (see images below to see the checkout process)
On the top right you will see Google Translate translating the original text to English
Add your product to the basket and go to the Checkout page. You may need to go to the top of the browser and convert the language again through the process.
Checkout page, shipping will update when you input your address in
You can use a currency converter like this one here to convert the Croatian Krona to your currency. You can follow my tutorial on buying from overseas sites here.
You can purchase from this online etailer (which for Australians works out a little cheaper than the publisher’s site)
Although there was an offer of a signed copy of the book by one etailer, that offer has now expired.
Happy coloring x
Lea
Dear Lea,
On Etsy there is a seller from America selling, Colorfulbirdhouse, is selling the book Vilin San. But I will wait for the Dutch version of the book. Beacause I saw that they are printing a Dutch version of the Japanese coloring book Menuet bonheur in march 2018. From the seller Colorfulbird I bought the coloringbook Eirene by Nicholas F. Chandraweinata this week on Etsy.com (I don’t know if it is a good seller, because I haven’t received my order yet.) Also on Etsy.com you can buy Serene by Nicholas F. Chandraweinata from about 3 sellers. I hope my 2 coloring books Serene and Eirene will arrive soon in good condition, because I have been waiting very long for those coloring who are difficult to find.
Sincerely,
Fam (from the Netherlands)
Colorful Birdhouse is a very respected seller on Etsy and a member of my FB group. Other members have received orders from her in good condition so I don’t think you have any reason to worry 🙂 Unfortunately my coloring budget just couldn’t stretch to Nicholas’ books but I have plenty of others so not to worry 🙂 Personally, I’d wait for the Dutch edition as well of Vilin San unless you really needed/wanted it now. I purchased the Croatian edition from the publishers and it still hasn’t arrived yet in Australia. It was expensive (as I expected with the shipping). It is smaller than the first book with a fold out poster. If the same sort of pricing as previously is used for the Dutch edition then I could have bought a few books for the price of one lol! Enjoy your new books! – Lea
I have received my book Eirene by Nicholas F. Chandrawienata this week from seller Colorfulbirdhouse. Very fast shipping and in very good condition. I still have to wait for Serene, but that book I ordered from a seller in South-Korea, because of shipping price. I have been waiting for about a year for Serene since I saw the book on youtube. I see those books by Nicholas F. Chandrawienata more like artbooks than coloring books, because they are so beautiful. For an art book I would pay more than a coloring book. I also bought the Fantasia coloring book on sale price on amazon.com, and I will use that 1 as coloring book.
I’m looking forward to see your flipthrough of the new Tomislav Tomic coloring book. Maybe I buy the book earlier after I see the beautiful illustrations inside, because I can’t find any pictures of the inside of the book, only the frontcover.
Sincerely,
Fam
Glad to hear you have received your new book! As you are in The Netherlands, you may want to wait for the Dutch imprint of Vilin San. I understand that there will be a Dutch edition but not sure what the release date is for it at the moment. Happy coloring x
I have contacted the dutch publisher BBNC for information about the release date for the dutch version of the book Vilin San. They confirmed that later this year there will be a dutch release of the book. I hope it will be earlier than october 2018, because the book Dromenvanger was released in october 2017. I have also contacted Fokus about shipping price for the Netherlands. The shipping is less expensive for me than last year. In 2017 I paid about €34 for shipping for 2 copies of the book Zemlja Snova. For the book Vilin San it will be about €14 for shipping. That is a big difference, so I think I will buy the croatian version of the book in february. Also Fokus told that they are working on changing the settings of the website to english, what makes it easier to order the book.
Sincerely,
Fam
Thanks for letting us know that information Fam! I use Google Chrome so that it translates the website for me but it would be great if it was already in English (Google translate is often wildly inaccurate). Remember Vilin San is a lot thinner than Zemlja Snova …I found the postage to be super expensive for the size to Australia. Enjoy your February shopping. Happy coloring x
Good evening, Coloringqueen,
It is Wednesday, February 02, 2022 as I write this to you. You have a lovely post here about purchasing a new copy of “Vilin San” by Tomosav Tomovic by the original Creation publisher. I followed your links to the publishers page, found a new copy of the coloring book (Looks like it was 1/2 off original price?), as best as I can understand it I filled out the order form, but, I am stuck. I am not a tech person at all, don’t know how to change language on that publishers page. I am unable to figure out how to pay for it + shipping to California, USA.
ANY advice would be greatly appreciated!
Several years ago I was able to buy several copies of the Dutch versions of each of his 2 coloring books, and I think I also bought thru an Etsy store 1 of each book in 2018? But, I can’t check as I am 1/2 way thru a move and everything is packed!
I am a fellow life long coloring addict,
Thank you,
Kris in San Francisco, CA
Hi Kris, the simplest way I know of and what I use all the time is to install Google Translate on your Chrome browser. While it is not a perfect translation, you can generally get the gist of the language.
I have updated the post with some screenshots to show what the checkout process would then look like for you once you have done that. Hope that helps, Lea x