AI coloring books are everywhere right now. They are cheap, there are a lot of them, and if you are just looking for pages to color they might seem like a perfectly reasonable option.
I want to give you an honest answer to whether they are worth it. Not a sales pitch. Just what I actually think after spending years making art by hand.
How to spot an AI generated coloring book
Once you know what to look for, you cannot unsee it.
Start with the hands and feet. AI is notoriously bad at them. Extra fingers. Odd proportions. Toes that do not quite add up. Small details like ears, facial features, and anything that requires precise symmetry tend to fall apart on close inspection.
The other giveaway is volume. If an author has published dozens of coloring books in a very short period of time, that is worth pausing on. Creating real art takes time. It is a process. There is no shortcut that produces genuine hand-drawn work at that speed.
A real book made by a real artist has a consistent style that runs through every page. You can feel when someone spent time with it.
What actually goes into a hand-drawn coloring book
I carry a sketchbook with me everywhere I go.
It is a Hobonichi Techo and it goes with me to appointments, to kids sports events, to anywhere I might have ten minutes to sit and think. If an idea comes while I am standing in line I want to be able to grab it before it disappears.
That is where every Fuzzy Little Mangos book starts. A pencil sketch in a small notebook.
From there it goes into Procreate, where I refine the drawing, work out the details, and get it ready to become a coloring page. Then comes building the actual book, laying out the pages, creating the PDF, getting it print ready.
A 25 page book takes me at least 30 days from first sketch to finished product. And that is working six to seven hours a day on the artwork itself.
That is not a complaint. That is just what it takes to make something worth coloring in.
Why it matters who made the art
AI generated images are not created from nothing.
AI image tools are trained on existing artwork, often without the permission of the artists whose work was used to build the model. When someone uses those tools to generate a coloring book and sell it, they are benefiting from the work of real artists who never agreed to that.
I am not against AI as a tool across the board. I think it has its place. If you are an artist brainstorming concepts, it can be useful for exploring ideas before you ever pick up a pencil. That is a very different thing from using it to generate the finished art itself.
There are people who have gone to school for art. Who have spent years developing a style that is distinctly theirs. Who sit with a sketchbook in a waiting room because they cannot turn the creative part of their brain off. When AI generated coloring books flood the market at low prices, it makes it harder for those people to sustain what they do.
That matters. Even if it does not change what you decide to buy.
So are they worth buying
If you are purely looking for something cheap to fill an afternoon, an AI generated coloring book will technically do that.
But here is what you give up.
The lines will not feel considered. The characters will not have a personality that runs through the whole book. The hands might have six fingers. And somewhere underneath the page is the work of artists who never got credit for what their art contributed to it.
A hand-drawn book feels different to color in. The lines have intention behind them. The details were put there by someone who thought about where your eye would go and what would feel satisfying to fill in. That comes through when you are sitting with it at the kitchen table at the end of a long day.
You can feel the difference. Most people do, even if they cannot explain why.
Hand-drawn is worth it
Fuzzy Little Mangos books are made the slow way. Sketched by hand, refined in Procreate, built page by page. Every character, every line, every detail started in a small notebook I had in my bag.
If that sounds like the kind of book you want to color in, you can explore them here.
And if you want to follow along with how they get made, my newsletter Little Creative Breaks goes out every other week. It is a short read, a little behind the scenes, and you are always welcome to join.
You can sign up here.
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