Colorist's Special Effects 2: Step-by-step coloring guides. Improve your skills!

Just when you think you have learned how to color almost everything, Helen gives you more than you could have hoped for. This is truly a wonderful guide to help you learn techniques to make your Coloring top notch. There is so much to appreciate in both guides. You will find a couple of techniques that refer back to the 1st guide, but if your budget doesn't allow for you to purchase both you will still love this guide. I particularly love the different Skin Tones, along with how to color fabric. I love Clocks and there is a Vintage Clock in the Metal & Steampunk section. A nice selection of leaves that tend to be in a lot of Adult Coloring Books, beautiful Peacock Feathers, and feathers in general. My favorite is the beautiful Hummingbird as well as the Ladybug. If you like Skull and Crossbones, Cauldrons, Glass Bottles, Cogs, Marbles then you get it with this guide. Unicorn Horn, Onion Domes, Tera Cotta Pots, Apples, Strawberries, Ice Cream as well. This is just a small sampling. The list goes on and on. I learned from the 1st Guide to use tracing paper and go over the actual steps until I felt comfortable enough to actually use the Color Pages provided in the Guide. This guide has a Color Swatch for Prismacolor & Polychromos along with inspiration for color combinations. You definitely don't have to have the above mentioned. I use a mixture of Prismacolor, Crayola and other brands. The swatch is very nice and will help you get close to the colors if you want to use the particular suggested colors. This will make a wonderful gift for anyone that enjoys Coloring. I will be gifting this to some special people on my Holiday List. Great job Ms. Elliston. It has definitely been worth the wait. I am attaching 2 category pictures (there are many more) and will add pictures as I finish a technique. What a wonderful way to spend the cold days ahead. You can't go wrong with this guide. Ms. Elliston has an active Social Media Page and several of us have followed her journey in the creation of this book. She is a super lady and worked very hard to bring this Guide to Life. I Did Not receive this Guide at a discount. This is my true and honest opinion. I do believe in giving credit where it is due.

This series of books is amazing! The steps are easy to follow and they are helping me improve my coloring. The general information Helen Elliston provides for shading and highlighting applies to any type of art, so this series of books is a great reference tool for any artist or colorist.

This is the second volume in this series. I didn’t think the artist could top the first volume, but she has. This one has the techniques for coloring so many of the things we commonly see in adult coloring books. Learning from these pages will bring my coloring pages to a whole new level. The one thing I really love is that the artist gives us the Prismacolor pencil numbers with each step. She also has a graphic with Polychromos Vs Prismacolor colors. I really enjoy using her first guide so this is a must have companion. I’ve included a pic of some elements inside the book and will add pics of my efforts as I try the techniques. I can’t wait to dive into this one!

I was so enamoured with "Colorist 1" (ISBN: 978-1546646594), and encouraged by the reviews for this second book, that I immediately ordered Colorist's Special Effects Book 2. Upon receipt, I am sad to say that I cannot agree with previous reviewers who felt this second volume surpassed the authors first offering. In fact, I'm rather disappointed, particularly given the even higher price point. Yes, there are indeed many new object lessons, however the quality of the artwork is what I can't get past. The overall appearance lacks the professional quality of book one. While I have not counted them, the number of objects seems fewer, but larger. It is the very largeness which I find so unattractive. It's as if the objects were digitally enlarged (vs. simply drawn larger), leaving them grainier and less saturated with colour. (See my example - photo of page featuring pink "Shiny Wrapped Sweet/Candy). In fact, many of the objects appear to have been coloured with crayons on children's coloring book quality paper rather than with professional/artist's-level coloured pencils. The overall effect is noticeabley amateurish. Additionally, at this price point one would expect a much higher paper quality. This is just another "published on demand" title using what seems to be heavy weight copy paper. I have purchased other non-artsy books from same publisher on Amazon, and upon comparison, find the exact same paper in use for all titles. So while I'm sure I will still derive much enjoyment from my purchase, I'm just a tad disappointed with this sequel. A good, educational offering, with detailed technique instruction nonetheless. Thanks for reading, -CC, Amazon Prime Member-Reviewer

I happened to look at my acct messages, saw an item was delivered yesterday. I knew it was delivered because I accidentally found it at the far end of my sidewalk last night. This was in plain view of anyone walking by the house. Dumb luck won this time, and nothing was stolen. What really irritates me, tho, is the delivery drivers comment. It read: delivered, handed directly to resident. Oh, REALLY?! At least it wasn't in the wet shrubs this time. BTW, the book is great, I'm an old dog that's learning some new tricks.

I have the first book and it is a game changer. I had to have the second and definitely recommend it! Yes some, but not ALL, images are larger (in regards to another person’s review). I do not have Polychromos and this book provides a side-by-side reference to polys and Prismas, showing the colors that are similar if not exact and their names. I recommend this, and the first book, in Ms. Elliston’s series of Colorist’s Special Effects for all colorists. Beginners to advanced!

Lots of tutorials. Contains a special comparison chart for polychromos and prismacolors that is extremely useful.

A wonderful tutorial on coloring sure to become one of my " Go to" guides in coloring! I love the detail and that you are told the materials used. And if you don't have the Prisma Color pencils thats ok too! you can always use the comparable shades of your choice! There are plenty of color along pages that will be helpful in improving your artistic skills! !

Vraiment bon. J'avais le #1 que j'aime beaucoup donc j'ai acheté le #2. Pour les personnes qui font du coloriage, c'est génial les trucs qui nous sont donnés. J'adore, vraiment bien expliqué, possibilité de pratiquer les explications qui sont données. C'est certains que je vais acheter les tomes 3 et 4 afin d'avoir la collection complète. Les coloristes, ce sont des livres vraiment utiles afin de parfaire nos coloriages. Le seul défaut...ils sont en anglais mais les images sont tellement explicatives que ça se comprend bien.

I love these books and do find them very useful. This one must have had a printing error as my index page was in in middle of the book and anything on the left side of the book was alittle backwards. Doesn't hinder me doing anything in the book in any way just found it funny 😄

Excelentes ejemplos y tutoriales paso a paso para lograr diferentes texturas con lápices de colores

Very helpful to improve my colouring

Das Buch beinhaltet alles wonach ich jeh gesucht habe, die Autorin beschreibt wirklich Schritt für Schritt den Aufbau der Motive. Auch wenn das Buch in englisch geschrieben ist kann man die Schritt nachvollziehen wenn man seine Kenntnisse vom damals erlernten Schulenglisch rauskamt 😀. Ich habe bereits den ersten Teil und würde wenn noch mehr Bücher von dieser Reihe erscheinen würden auch diese kaufen! Die Autorin gibt hier in diesem Buch sogar die Farbnummern von den Prismacoler bzw. welche Polychromos an welche in den einzelnen Schritten verwendet werden. Einfach klasse !