Tolkien's World by Octopus Publishing + Giveaway!

Number of Pages: 96 
Size: 25 x 25cm
Paper colour: White
Paper surface: Smooth 
Paper thickness: Good 
Linework: Fine/Medium​ 
Perforated: No 
One sided: No
Binding: Glue 
Drawings go into the spine: Partly​
Waterbased pen bleed: None

, As a massive Lord of the Rings fan, Tolkien's World is a book I've been looking forward to ever since I discovered it on Amazon back in May, and I finally have my advance copy here for review! It's a brilliant quality book that features illustrations based on 3 Tolkien works: The Silmarillion, The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings.

There are a mixture of double page spreads and single page drawings, all contained within a narrow black border. At the bottom of each page there is a caption to label the illustration along with which book it is from, just in case you don't know it. This also helps with choosing your colour palette as you can always reference one of the films if you're struggling to decide what colour Samwise's waistcoat is, or the stones of Aragorn's sword. Some of the illustrations are of scenes and characters from the books which were not mentioned in the films, so if you haven't read the books you may not recognise a number of the sketches. That said, classic favourites like Gandalf, Bilbo, Saruman and Shelob all make an appearance amongst the lesser known pages.

As you can see the illustrations concentrate on delicate linework and intricacy, a perfect match for the detailed universe that Tolkien created. Flipping through this book is almost like a glance into Peter Jackson's movie storyboards, such is the artistic quality of the sketches. Some of the scenery drawings are very complex but for the most part, particularly on the character pages, they are fairly basic making the book suitable for all levels and interest. It is double-sided but the paper is thick enough to use waterbased markers and gel pens, although with the amount of tooth in the paper I would recommend pencils.

My only qualm is that I'd like to have seen more of the popular scenes from LOTR, like the gathering of the Fellowship or Frodo on Sam on Mount Doom. I was at least expecting an illustration of Gollum falling into the fire as he grasped for the ring, but it wasn't there. The characters are more cartoonish than lifelike, which surprised me. Still, die hard fans will enjoy seeing the lands of Middle Earth brought to life on the page to accompany the novels.

Here's my finished page, coloured with Polychromos and Prismacolor pencils.

This book was given to me in exchange for an honest review. You can preorder it on Amazon here:

Tolkien's World: A Colouring Book

And now for the giveaway! Enter via the Rafflecopter below and a winner will be chosen on 14th Novemmber 2015. UK only entrants on this one please, as I have the book in hand and can't afford to post overseas at this time. Watch out for worldwide giveaways coming soon!

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