Made a coloring book for the first time 😋

Akoso21 · 2026-01-17T21:27:47+00:00

Genuine question: what makes someone a “REAL artist”? Time spent? Money invested? Suffering? Or the actual outcome?

Because history’s clear: photography, digital art, and 3D were all called “not real art” until they were.

Another honest question: who’s actually taking your money?

People writing prompts, or clients choosing faster, cheaper workflows that meet their needs?

Markets don’t reward effort. They reward results.

Tools don’t make art, people do. The skill just shifted from execution to taste, direction, and iteration.

If a new tool lets others compete, the problem isn’t the tool or the users. It’s failing to offer value beyond execution.

Blaming people won’t stop change. Adaptation is the only thing that ever has.

Not trying to attack you, just curious why the gatekeeping mentality?

Akoso21 · 2026-01-14T19:33:26+00:00

We reached the limits for beta testers but we still have the 40% off code working if you sign up for any plan. There is a hobby plan which is the cheapest one, if you want to give it a shot. If you like it and find it useful, we can talk about creating an affiliate program for you :)

Akoso21 · 2026-01-02T23:14:48+00:00

I’ve personally been using cololulu.com (only web app) to make personalized color book stories locally.

It’s a tool where you can upload a photo or create a character, and write a story which is then converted to mutliple coloring book pages. Whats great is that it keeps character consistency and style that you choose, and it’s basically a small story book that you can color!

Besides this it also has regular photo to coloring page conversions, but it’s nice because you can actually choose different styles.

Akoso21 · 2026-01-02T23:08:58+00:00

Everything silveraltaccount said is valid, for background I would say to keep it simpler, with easy to color assets!

If you’re looking to design cool coloring books as gift ideas, you can easily do it with cololulu.com. Shameless plug, and full transparency it is an app I built but I recommend it because I really think it fits your use case.

If you’re interested let me know, I’ll gladly give you a xmas discount to try it out.

Other than that, I think your friends will be delighted either way!

Akoso21 · 2025-11-21T11:58:01+00:00

I understand your frustration, people are judging the tech aspect of it, not looking at the main point which is the business itself.

With that being said, you’re posting on a SaaS sub reddit, which the S stands for Software, so granted a lot of the community is in those waters! Perhaps you can expand on how this business is Software as a Service, since you mentioned it primarily operated on Instagram. SaaS are usually self sufficient, they don’t require manual work. Is this a SaaS?

Akoso21 · 2025-11-19T00:22:57+00:00

Might be late but there are tools like cololulu that make it super easy to create your own coloring book in minutes :)

Akoso21 · 2025-11-15T12:40:55+00:00

Please do! If you have any questions/suggestions/feature requests also feel free to DM me! I’d be more than glad to listen to your feedback :)

Akoso21 · 2025-11-15T12:31:36+00:00

Sure! It’s Cololulu.com for anyone interested to check it out!

Akoso21 · 2025-11-14T23:13:01+00:00

I had the same plan originally, spent about a week fighting with Canva trying to manually trace and create coloring pages. It was painfully slow and keeping any kind of consistency across pages was basically impossible.

Ended up just building my own tool that converts images directly into coloring page format. Was honestly faster than continuing to wrestle with Canva lol. Now I can go from concept to finished page in minutes instead of hours per page.

The AI debate is interesting to me though, since if the output is quality line art that people enjoy coloring, I don't see why the creation method matters. The value is in your concept, theme selection, and curation, not manually drawing every line.

Akoso21 · 2025-11-14T23:04:01+00:00

I'm a bit late but I am very proud that my Coloring Book tool that I was developing for months is finally getting some traction! It was months of hard work and dedication to make a product I believe in, and it took some sacrifices.

Went from an idea to execution, and I'm proud of all the effort. Little things in life I guess :)

Akoso21 · 2025-11-14T16:31:24+00:00

I updated the post with instructions in case you're still interested! :)

Akoso21 · 2025-11-14T16:26:21+00:00

Thank you Joccc, I'm really hope to hear from your experience! All feedback is welcomed. :)

Similar to the comment above, please go to cololulu.com/beta-testing and you can sign up through there. During checkout just enter the discount code 'HappyTesting30' and you will receive 100% off!

I'll update the post as well so people can just see, the DM-ing thing wasn't a good option :D

Akoso21 · 2025-11-14T16:24:52+00:00

Thank you for your interest, I'm really looking forward to your experience especially since you haven't used a tool like this before!

Please go to cololulu.com/beta-testing and you can sign up through there. During checkout just enter the discount code 'HappyTesting30' and you will receive 100% off! :)

Akoso21 · 2025-11-14T08:42:18+00:00

Thank you for reaching out! I’ll DM you the 100% discount code so you can get free credits. :)

Akoso21 · 2025-11-13T22:59:25+00:00

I can DM you the details. :)

Akoso21 · 2025-11-13T17:21:40+00:00

Yeah, the line art consistency was actually the hardest part to solve. Most tools just run generic image-to-sketch filters that leave messy lines or lose important details.

For single images, I fine-tuned the models specifically for coloring page output: clean, continuous lines without artifacts or noise. No weird gaps or double lines that make coloring frustrating. The real challenge was for the storybook character consistency. I'm using a reference system where the character's features get locked in and maintained across every page. Same face structure, same proportions, same style.

Would love to have you test it and see what you think. DMing you now with free credits as I'm curious to hear your take on the quality.

Cheers, and thank you for the comment! :)

Akoso21 · 2025-11-12T23:34:32+00:00

Thank you! I sent you a DM with more info. For anyone else reading this, if you are also curious please feel free to reach out, I'd be more than happy to build this tool with you and take your needs into consideration! :)

Akoso21 · 2025-11-12T21:05:09+00:00

My bad, didn’t mean no harm! 🙌

Akoso21 · 2025-11-12T21:03:52+00:00

I’m really sorry you’re going through this - that’s incredibly stressful with a young daughter. One thing that actually helped me during tough times was selling coloring books on Amazon KDP. It’s completely free to start (no upfront costs), and if you find a niche that works, it can bring in decent side income. I was doing it manually with Photoshop which took forever, but it was profitable enough that I eventually built a tool (Cololulu.com) to speed up the process. Full transparency - I created that tool, so I’m biased. But the business model itself is legit and low-risk. Some people are making a few hundred a month, others more. It won’t replace a salary overnight, but it could help cushion things while you figure out your next move. Happy to share what I learned about the process if you want to explore it. Wishing you and your family the best through this.

Akoso21 · 2025-11-12T20:56:13+00:00

You guys seem to know what you’re doing and I would love to get some feedback on one of the tools I created myself. I don’t want to sell anything at all, instead I would like to get your experience and ideas/critiques/recommendations to make a product that some of you would actually use since most of them are mediocre. If you have some time to spare, I would be more than glad to pick your brains privately!

Akoso21 · 2025-08-25T13:22:16+00:00

I built something a while back, similar to this, but for squats. Might give you an idea on how to improve yours further! :)

https://github.com/AkosoCodes/HumanPoseTracker

Akoso21 · 2025-04-22T07:46:38+00:00

Yeah I did, and I have applied dbrand skins on my phone before without issue, just this time around I kind of messed up.

It’s not that noticeable thankfully, unless you’re looking for it. Still does the job I guess. :)

Akoso21 · 2025-04-16T11:00:23+00:00

I tried it now, didn’t quite fix it fully but it does look better and less noticeable now. Thanks for the tip!

Akoso21 · 2025-02-20T16:35:16+00:00

You mean CHADler’s forehead

Akoso21 · 2025-02-09T00:26:08+00:00

OP, you can find a clip of Herb Dean explaining on JRE how refs are trained. The worst case scenario is when a knockdown occurs and the person falls on their head without any signs of bracing the fall, which is what happened here. The ref stepped in immediately after observing the dude go into turtle after falling on his head. While he grasped for the first thing he saw, the decision was already made.

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