Cleverpedia’s series of monthly new releases announcements have been on hiatus for a while, but we’ve been making up for lost time by going a season at a time! A few weeks ago we covered the best new coloring books from summer 2017, and in this post we’re going to cover some of the best new coloring books released in fall 2017. In the next post, we’ll resume our monthly series with December 2017.
In this monthly series, I will be rounding up the list of the hottest new releases in the coloring book world for the past month, so you don’t need to dig to find new books you’ll love. Feel free to sound off about other new releases you’ve got your eyes on in the comments!
Get Free Coloring Pages!
Subscribe today and get access to the coloring page library, with over 40 pages contributed by the artists! Just enter your email address in the box below to join my free email newsletter and be the first to know about new coloring book releases, giveaways, and other stress-busting advice for creatives.
Your email address will only be used to send you our newsletter, and at any time you may unsubscribe. For more information, please visit our Privacy Policy.
1. The Fantastic World of the Brothers Grimm Adult Coloring Book
Release Date: September 6, 2017
I am just in love with this gorgeous new coloring book produced by Okami coloring and Storytroll! Though the book is credited to the name Julia Rivers, this appears to be a pen name used by a publishing company for multiple artists’ work, similar to the Jade Summer line of coloring books. Overall, I find the illustrations in this book to be of much higher quality than the ones you might find in a typical Jade Summer book, however.
This book includes 40 original illustrations based on the Brothers Grimm stories. The designs are printed on just one side of letter-size (8.5 x 11) pages. The paper is lightweight CreateSpace paper that does start to curl with wetter media, though it’s perfect for colored pencils.
One thing I particularly like about these designs is that they all have a sort of natural, round border built into the design. This just makes for such a clean, polished feel to the image, unlike some designs that just stop short of the edge of the page for no apparent reason.
Overall, I was really impressed with this book and it’s my favorite of the books I am featuring in this roundup. Despite the light paper and the lack of clarity about the illustrator, this is just all-around a beautiful book and looks like fun to color!
2. The Beauty of Horror 2: Ghouliana’s Creepatorium: Another GOREgeous Coloring Book
Release Date: September 19, 2017
This acclaimed Halloween coloring book is a followup to another great coloring book with the same name, and I described it in more detail in my post about the best Halloween coloring books for adults. This book features nearly 80 pages of gore-inspired illustrations, printed on both sides of heavy weight paper.
3. Magical Beauties Coloring Book: Book 2
Release Date: September 25, 2017
This book, illustrated by Cristina McAllister, is a followup to bestselling coloring book Magical Beauties. McAllister’s unique style involves grayscale shaded areas that can really make your finished drawing pop!
This book includes 20 original illustrations printed on one side of the page. The book also includes “pro” coloring tips and a grayscale testing page where you can try out your art supplies on the grayscale tones without losing one of your coloring pages. The paper is light weight, CreateSpace paper.
4. Seasonal Mandalas
Release Date: October 20, 2017
You know me… I’ve got a weakness for original mandala designs, and I really liked this collection, illustrated by Olga Zaytseva. Zaytseva is a Chicago-based cake artist (how cool!), and this is her second coloring book.
The hand-drawn mandalas in this collection take their inspiration from signs of the season: flowers, butterflies and beetles, boots and umbrellas, ice cream and cupcakes, snowflakes, stockings, cardinals, and more! There are no abstract, geometric designs in this book; all the mandalas are made out of real-world objects, like you see in the sample pages above, and they feature mandalas connected to all four seasons.
The book is a full-size 8.5 x 11 and features 36 original designs to color, printed on just one side of the page. The paper is lightweight CreateSpace paper, so definitely slip a few sheets between the pages of the book if you use markers to protect the pages below. According to the artist, these mandalas range in difficulty from moderately detailed designs to very intricate, so have your fineliners and pencil sharpener ready!
5. Creative Haven Mermaids Coloring Book
Release Date: October 19, 2017
Do you enjoy fantasy art? Then you will love this book full of original mermaid designs, illustrated by Barbara Lanza! I just love their long, flowing locks and all the opportunities for shading fish scales in greens, blues, purples, and any other colors you can imagine!
This book features 31 designs printed on one side of medium weight paper. The paper is perforated for ease of removal if you prefer to color outside the book or want to display your finished artwork.
The book is also available with spiral binding if that is something you are interested in!
6. Grimm Fairy Tales Coloring Book Box Set
Release Date: November 28, 2017
It’s finally here — the boxed set of Zenescope Entertainment’s two new Grimm Fairy Tales coloring books and a bunch of other great coloring goodies! I won’t go too much into detail since you can see the contents of the box in the image above, and read more about it in this review I did earlier this year!
7. Beautiful Birds and Treetop Treasures
Release Date: September 5, 2017
Yes, it’s true — this is a new book by acclaimed coloring book artist Millie Marotta! Marotta’s intricate Zendoodle-style animal drawings made her popular with colorists several years ago, and this book just carries on that tradition, with a focus on birds and other treetop animals this time! The animals featured include hummingbirds, cockatoos, lyrebirds, cardinals, spatuletails, pygmy owls, and kookaburras. At the end of the book, you’ll find an index that lists all of the animals in page order by name.
As you can see from the preview pages above, her style focuses on lots and lots of small spaces to fill with color. It’s not too intricate, but it is very detailed, if that makes any sense! The results are truly gorgeous.
This book is a unique size and shape, just shy of 10 inches square. The book is paperback, with a gold-foil enhanced cover that has some glossiness, but could still be colored with some media. The paper is heavy and over 70 pages of designs are printed on both sides of the page.
Reviewers note that some markers do bleed through to the opposite side of the page. In my experience with this kind of paper, water-based markers like the Tombows I generally use in my own reviews tend to not show through unless you are really building up layers of ink or leave the pen sitting in one place for too long. Alcohol-based inks will unfortunately bleed to the other side of the page.
8. Other Worlds: An Intergalactic Coloring Book
Release Date: October 4, 2017
This new coloring book was illustrated by artist Saul Rosenbaum and explores an original side to the galaxy that is in part science fiction Odyssey and part Yellow Submarine. Though Rosenbaum’s illustration style tends towards simple shapes and super heavy outlines, I have to admit, I really like it. The thick outlines would be super forgiving with marker, and let’s just be honest… this looks like a ton of fun to color!
The book features 27 original illustrations to color, printed on just one side of lightweight paper. Do you love the sample images above as much as I do? Pick up a copy today on Amazon, just click the button below!
9. Animal Skeletons: Adult Coloring Book
Release Date: September 26, 2017
This book is a relatively unknown new coloring book and the first coloring book (as far as I can tell) by artist Christy Taylor. However, I was impressed by the level of detail that you can see in the sample coloring pages, shown above. All pages were hand-drawn, and they are just the right level of intricate — not too small of spaces, and lots going on on the page. I was also impressed by some of the sample colored pages on the back of the book, which you can see if you click the images above to head over to Amazon.
This book includes 17 original illustrations to color, printed on one side of lightweight (CreateSpace) paper. Support this indie artist and check out the coloring book on Amazon by clicking the images above or the add to cart button below!
10. Adult Coloring Book: Beautiful Mandalas: For Serenity & Stress-Relief
Release Date: November 20, 2017
I’ll admit it, I can’t resist a good collection of mandalas. This book features 35 mandalas to color. The paper is lightweight, so stick a few sheets behind the page you are coloring if you decide to use markers or another wet medium.
This book includes a PDF of the book for personal use, so you can print out the pages on your own paper, as many times as you’d like!
11. The Bob Ross Coloring Book
Release Date: September 12, 2017
Yes, the Bob Ross Coloring Book is blatantly cashing in on the popularity of Bob Ross online. The man is a legend. But I have to admit, those happy accidents sure make for a fun coloring book.
Since the images in the book are based on Bob Ross’ paintings, the level of detail varies from one image to the next. Some have a pretty good level of detail while some are super simple. However, this is a great book to break out the coloring techniques for — why not use those simple pages as an opportunity to try out watercolor pencils, or layering markers with colored pencils?
One of the best features of this book is that it includes thumbnail images of each and every painting included in the book. So, if you want to recreate Ross’ original painting? Well, you can do it!
This book includes over 75 line art versions of Bob Ross paintings. The images are interspersed with Bob Ross quotes. This book makes a great gift!
So there you have it — eleven brilliant new releases from fall 2017! Stay tuned — before you know it, we’ll be putting out a list for December!
What’s your favorite new release? Did I miss something incredible? Share in the comments below!
Save this list for later by pinning the image below to your coloring board on Pinterest!
