coloring books for adults

[brynn]

Hi Friends,
I'm not sure if this is a challenge or contest....maybe just a unique project.  I'm also not sure exactly if it would be a group project, or maybe I'm the only one who finds it interesting.  (more likely just me )  But I think it could be fun as a group project.

Anyway, I've seen a couple of "news" stories recently about a trend among adults, mostly women I guess, probably mostly in the US, who get together in social groups and color in coloring books for adults.  (By "adult" I don't mean the pron kind, but just grown women -- like housewives.  The designs to be colored are mostly abstract or geometric, rather than what you'd see in children's coloring books (Cinderella, Winnie the Poooh, etc.) 

It sounds sort of like therapy to me....art therapy, I guess.  They say it's relaxing, if nothing else.  Here's a search where you can find more info:  https://duckduckgo.com/?q=coloring+books+for+adults&t=ffsb

I'm not sure if I would want to spend time on the coloring part, personally.  (Why bother when I have Inkscape )  But it seems to me like Inkscape would be absolutely ideal for creating designs for these coloring books!

I haven't done any research yet, but from the search results, it looks like there might be some web-based groups where such coloring books can be found, bought, sold, and/or promoted.  I don't expect it would be an income-generating project for me, but it could be, if someone wanted to pursue it.

Anyway, if anyone out there is interested, or wants to share resources or designs you've made, let's chat 

[brynn]

I just had an interesting thought.  Speaking of "income generating".....  What if I or we could create coloring books and sell them -- donate the profits to Inkscape development??

Anyway, just a thought    Not that this would be any huge profit, but it's a thought....

[Lazur]

Hi Brynn, sounds interesting.

You say that there is a market where people actually buy works drawn on a computer? Maybe the spec site I'm lurking at most of the time isn't the right one after all...
Do you have a stock ime site on mind? Or something like society6?

[brynn]

I don't know, Lazur.  If there's a market, it's probably not much of one.  But I've seen such coloring books for sale in craft catalogs.  So some people do pay for them.  Check out the search link in the op.

"stock ime"  If "ime" means "input method editor" which sounds something like Windows' Character Map, no, I'm not talking about that.  (Although it's an interesting thought!)  Society6, not quite that either, although that's closer.  What's a spec site?  I searched, no luck.  Oh, you mean like printing computer graphics and selling it like art?  No, not quite that.

I've been working on several drawings, to show what I'm talking about.  That will be the next step, so people who have no idea what I'm talking about, at least have a clue.  By myself, without making any major changes, the most I could do is offer them for download from IC.  And of course I'll research where people buy these things already, to find out how much it would take to get involved (in that community).

Installilng some kind of store or shopping catalog software, is another option.  I'm sure there must be at least one open source online store software.  But just for selling this 1 item, it seems a little extreme.  Just getting involved in PayPal sounds like a nightmare, to me. 

However, someone mentioned having "Inkscape gear" for sale, either on the Inkscape website, or somewhere else (caps, mugs, t-shirts, etc.).  And if that ever happens, that would be a great place to offer the coloring books.  Another nice Inkscape product would be calendars!

Anyway, I'll have a few drawings finished soon.

[Lazur]

Spec stands for speculative work. You may get paid yet it can only provide an income if you live in Indonesia.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=23&v=essNmNOrQto

Off-Topic: show

Here is where I got my experience. Can't say more than 1% of the time and effort got paid.

[brynn]

Ooh, I see.  No, this is nothing like that!  At least not that I've ever heard of.

[brynn]

Ok, so I've made several pages of geometric designs, and put in a new category in the gallery.  I'm not very good with the freehand type of design, but I'll probably try it anyway 

The repeated patterns are very quick to make, but I enjoy making the unique designs better.  We'll see how it goes with the freehand kind 

Ooohh...I just thought of the "bug" with the spiro splines -- talk about random.....but possibly some less geometric and more random designs can be made that way.  I might just have to try it today 

[Lazur]

Ok so now I'm drawing this image.

Thought it might work with white fill and black strokes only too.


k14III.png
(1984.32 kB . 2400x1350)
(viewed 86 times)

[brynn]

Oh wow!

That would make a great page for coloring.  Although even at its full size, some of those areas are hard to see.

How are you drawing that?  Is it all freehand?  Or are you using some kind of coding magic?  It reminds me a little bit of a drawing technique that I've heard of called "zen tangle".  Certainly not exactly the same thing, but somewhat.

Oh my, if it's freehand, it certainly must have been a lot of work!

[Lazur]

Used the Bézier tool. Drawn with linear segments -there are about 26167 paths in the picture. Took a few days. Now trying to colour it.

Before that have to come up with a decent way keeping the svg workable on of the file size.
Originally it was drawn with maxed out decimal precision settings and with the default style attributing it ended up around 22 MB.

Saving it as optimized svg and removing the styling manually it dropped to 2 MB.
Hope it can be finished (it's a 10k wallpaper).