My favorite type of coloring book is the most complex one. I think the first thing that drew me to Joanna Basford’s books was the treasure hunt inked on every page. It has so many great details hiding all over the pages. But since our queen caused a coloring sensation, many other illustrators have started creating intricate and intricate coloring books for adults for her to color in. A curated list of my favorites is below.
Senior complex painters
Joseph Katembang
Legendary Color and Discover: Wild Winter: An Artist’s Coloring Book of Snowy Animals and Hidden Objects
His books contain gorgeous, intricate drawings with hidden pictures for you to find. It’s a nice thick paper that holds up well to pens and markers as well as heavy colored pencil work and is printed on one side.
Click to order Amazon US, UK, Canada, Spain, Mexico or France.
Find out more of his intricate coloring books here.
Melpomeni Chatzipanagiotou
Melpomeni Chatzipanagiotou is a pen and ink artist from Greece. She holds a BA (Hons) Graphic Design, and throughout her degree she became fascinated with illustrations and how you can communicate a feeling, word or idea through drawing. After graduating, she delved into the fine arts and continued her work as an illustrator.
The main theme in her work is the natural habitat and its living inhabitants, often with an otherworldly touch.
She also has her amazing original art for sale on her Etsy shop here.
Circle of Life Coloring – A Coloring Journey
Click to order Amazon US, UK, Canada, Europe or Mexico – Warehouse Deposit
Enchanted Earth coloring book
Pre-sale for this book, which will be launched in April 2023
Click to order Amazon US, UK, Canada, Europe or Mexico – Warehouse Deposit
Dad Dakar
Dacre’s dad is Freelance illustrator working in a studio in Paphos, Cyprus. They specialize in creating one-of-a-kind, hand-rendered artworks for a wide variety of clients.
Coloring book for adults in vertical worlds
A Facebook group member shared her vertical greenhouse coloring from this book and it was amazing. This is not a new book but it is new to me. Reviews say the details are more intricate than Joanna’s, Daria’s, or Millie Marotta’s, so make sure you have some gel pens or fine line markers ready to go with this one by Abi Dacre.
Click to order Amazon US, UK, Canada, Europe or Mexico – Warehouse Deposit
Kirby Rosanes
No list of complex colors can top the amazing illustrator Kirby Rosanes. Kerby Rosanes is probably the first illustrator that comes to mind when you think of intricate coloring. Sometimes you really have to focus to know where one section stops and another begins.
Worlds within worlds
Kerby Rosane’s latest book has some amazing photos in it and you can see what our animators have to offer in our Facebook groups. Come join the fun!
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Methomorphine: An Intense Staining and Research Challenge by Kirby Rosanes
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Fantomor,000 – Another highly challenging coloring book and search for coloring.
This book is like all of his books, lots of cool pictures within pictures, there are a lot of skulls in this book and the designs are all one sided. At the back of the book is the key to the quest challenge part. You can see my quick flip-flop here on Instagram.
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Methomorphine: An Intense Staining and Research Challenge by Kirby Rosanes
Click to order on Amazon: US, UK and Canada
animation
A stunning adult coloring book featuring highly detailed animal portraits by artist Kirby Rosanes. Best known for his popular blog Sketchy Stories, Kerby works with intricately detailed black and white font to create tiny creatures, characters, patterns and elements to form compositions of mind-boggling complexity. Bring your creativity to complete the amazing graphics and find hidden treasures and creatures scattered all over its pages
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Imagimorphine coloring book for Kirby Rosanes
Fans of adult coloring books are invited to enter the weird and wonderful world of Kerby Rosanes, the illustrator behind the Sketchy Stories blog and animation international phenomenon f The New York Times best seller. in imagimorphine Animals and objects morph and explode in amazing detail. Bring each intricate picture to life with color and find hidden objects throughout the book.
printed on high quality paper, imagimorphine is a quirky coloring and search book for adult coloring book lovers like no other.
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Bennett Cline
Bennett Klein has reached the pinnacle of the latest in impressive illustrators with both meticulous illustrations and unique, intricately detailed grayscale drawings. His latest book is Dragon.
Coloring my sketchbook – dragons
All of Bennett Cline’s books are listed here.
The most intricate coloring books seem to be from artists and illustrators outside of the United States.
Fantasy coloring book for adults by Nicholas F Chandrawinata
This wonderfully detailed coloring book just became available in the US and UK market, just have a look at some of the pages on Instagram here. This second edition features 60 unique hand-drawn illustrations printed on both sides of the perforated pages. It is also spiral wrapped on thick 100 lb card stock. The second edition is reported to be much better than the first, the designs are not so small and the paper is of better quality.
Click to order on Amazon US and UK
Coloring books by Tim Jeeves
Tim Jeeves has to make intricately detailed coloring books on the market right now. I have the first one and the interesting difference with this book than most is that it opens at the top, so you don’t have to worry about where to put your hand or whether you are right or left handed.
Jeeves began experimenting with animal art during his spare time. With his sketchbook filled with intricate illustrations of creatures great and small, he knew he had found a powerful art form.
Once he has decided on a topic, a process of over thirty hours unfolds. Jeeves first investigates the animal’s habits, habitat, conservation status, and physical appearance. Using pen, ink and colored pencils, he channels his findings and artistic passion into sketching out an animal figure on Bristol board. “Then,” says the artist, “I cover the subject with a designed pattern of my own creativity. It is almost like creating a mosaic of lines, shapes, or colors. Not so much realism but more of an impressionistic approach that creates a realistic vision.” It’s the alchemy of science and creative licensing.
Intricate Ink – Detailed Animal Coloring Book
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Complex Ink – Animals in Detail Volume 2 Coloring Book
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Complex Ink: Animals in Detail Volume 3
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New Gulliver’s Travels
illustrated by James Gulliver Hancock (you can’t help but notice the middle name!) has written several books on how to draw books and this one seems really fun to explore. This was always one of my favorite stories as a kid.
Click to order Amazon US
Rhapsody in the Jungle II
Kanoku Egadu is a great book that was recently colored by Chris Ching. Kanoko Egadu on Insta.
Japanese coloring books have a very distinctive style with lots of painfully tiny details just to apply color to.
Today’s Korean coloring book finally contains adorable scenes of jungle animals for you to enjoy here.
Daria Song
Daria Song was my first foray into intricate coloring and her books are absolutely magical. Luscious thick paper printed with photos on both sides of the sheet tells a story.
Time Garden Magic Journey Coloring Book
Throughout Daria’s books, you can travel with her into her childhood imagination and then step out into the pages created and illustrated by her talented hands. This first book, “The Time Garden,” features a little red-headed girl who escapes from comic hour and explores the big beautiful world outside. My best advice is not to stick to the traditional color palette and let your creativity run wild as you fill in these cool illustrations with color.
Order online from Amazon US, UK and Canada
The Time Room: A Magical Story and Coloring Book
Korean artist Daria Song’s sequel to The Time Garden takes readers on a visual journey into a magical nocturnal world seen through the eyes of this little gingerbread girl.
This second book in Korean artist Daria Song’s bestselling coloring series shows the journey of a fairy who enters the human world when the cuckoo clock strikes midnight. For the little fairy, everything seems enormous and magical, from the curtains to the chandelier to the mysterious rowing boat that takes her even further on an unconventional adventure. Filled with the imaginative and meticulously detailed illustrations Song readers have come to love, The Time Chamber presents a view of our world made fresh and ready to be colored.
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Night’s Journey: A Magical Adventure and Coloring Book by Daria Song
Her third book takes you on a magical journey full of gifts and adventures
Country romance – the third tale – fantasy coloring book
Illustrated by Eri in a unique way using toothpicks to draw illustrations. Inside there are pages upon pages of provincial masterpieces to bring to life by coloring: magical forests full of fairies, delightful town squares teeming with people, whimsical village scenes, enchanting castles with turrets―and so much more, sure to delight people of all ages. Romantic Country – The Second Tale Romantic Countryside – The First Tale
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Detailed Dogs: An Intricate Dog Coloring Book
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Day of the Dead – Sugar Skulls 2: Anti-stress coloring book
Sugar Skulls United States, United Kingdom or Canada
You can always make a complicated coloring book less complicated by seeing small areas as one and coloring them together. For small areas in some of these books, I recommend using markers and/or gel pens. They also add a mixed media feel to your pages which I enjoy from an artist’s point of view.
If you’re new to coloring or just want to dive in a little deeper, be sure to read our expanded supply recommendations along with our tips and tricks articles.
* How to start with adult coloring best colored pencils Best gel pens * The best markers that don’t bleed through the paper * Background supplies * Coloring lessons * 13 tips and tricks for colorists
