High-quality paper and nice pens make the drawing and coloring experience that much more enjoyable. Nice and smooth paper that does not buckle or bleed when colored and felt tip pens that just glide evenly and easily. It’s just another level!
Best Paper suitable for DIY Coloring Pages and Patterns
To create a coloring pattern with the Geomegic Method you need a grid page. We provide free downloadable grid pages that you can use to print out the grid page in the comfort of your own home. For that, you will need paper suitable for coloring, preferably thicker than regular printer paper. This is also true for printable coloring pages you can download on the internet.
Below we provide recommendations on what paper is most suitable for these types of projects.
- Look for thick paper or thin card stock of 80-120lb text, at 120-200 gsm (refer to Paper Weight Guide on the right) – view on Amazon
- Look for smooth non-gloss paper, non-textured paper. The textured paper could be interesting to try but it would quickly buff your coloring pens like sandpaper.
- For 4″ x 6″ inch index card look for blank cards or use the other side or regular ruled index card – view on Amazon
- Thicker paper/card stock won’t bleed or buckle when heavily colored and your masterpiece will look nice and can be framed and displayed.
- Refer to the Paper Weight Guide on the right to understand the paper weight and text vs. cover conversion. The recommended weight and type – 80-120lb text at 120-200 GSM– is suitable for most printers, see highlighted on the Paper Weight Guide. Anything thicker may be too thick for a home or office printer. Anything lighter is just regular printer paper.
- Alternatively, use regular quad graph paper or Bullet Journal for square grid patterns, and Isometric graph paper for triangle grid patterns, although the paper is usually quite thin, bleeds through, buckles, and loses shape when colored.
Black and Coloring Pens Recommendations
Here at Geomegic, we love coloring with bright solid colors, that are quick-drying and do not blend with each other. Since we create our patterns with a black pen first and then fill in the pattern details with coloring pens we do not want any pens that intended for blending because they would produce smudges. For a smudge-free experience use fast-drying, alcohol-based pens.
- Get a variety of colors to have many options and color combinations when coloring.
- Look for vibrant, long-lasting, no fade color brands like Sharpie, Tombow, Copic, Prismacolor
- Check if the markers have an odor or odorless if sensitive.
- Check if the markers bleed through the paper.
- Check if the colors blend
- For example, Sharpie pens have the most vibrant colors with a lot of variety and shades but they do bleed through paper and have a strong smell. However, they are quick-drying and do not blend.
- Coloring markers like Koi or Tombow Dual Brush also have very nice and bright colors with wide color shades selection and they do not bleed and are completely odorless. They do take a bit longer to dry and the colors are blending as these pens are water-based and are intended for the coloring pages where color blending is required
- View odorless, acid-free color markers on Amazon
Check out this very detailed article on alcohol-based vs water-based markers at Art-is-fun.com
Geomegic Starter Kit
Visit our kit.co page where we created the Geomegic Starter Kit with the tools we use, love, and recommend.
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