ARTISTROProfessional Metallic Watercolor Paint Set for Adults - 6 Pigment-Rich Metallic Colors, XL Pans, ASTM-I Lightfastness, High Tinting Strength Watercolor Set for Professionals made by professionals

I bought the 12 color non-metallic version to get a feel for these before I bought the bigger sets. They are a pretty convincing dupe for the name brand Japanese version. I could easily pull out a pan from my existing name brand set and replace with one of these and never know the difference.I didn't find the coverage chart particularly useful in terms of opaque, semi opaque or transparent, because they are all pretty pigmented. Only two of the colors are listed as having limited lightfastness, the two purple colors. I don't know if that means they may fade or become less vibrant with a lot of sun exposure. All of the remaining colors are scored as normal to extra strong. Keeping in mind, if a watercolor painting is stored without being overly exposed to sunlight, they can go decades with no changes. As a child in the 70s, I had the cheapest watercolor palettes available and those paintings look the same now as they did back then. So normal lightfastness should be fine for most uses, unless you're absolutely worried that your artwork will need to last centuries under museum conditions. But if you did find yourself confronted with that issue, the conservators would probably know what to do. If you want to be sure lightfastness is not an issue, you could replace the purple shades with higher professional grade paint.For about $10, you get a set of very nice Japanese-esque watercolors. I actually would not be shocked if I found out these were produced in the same factory as the name brand ones. Some of the pans may not be filled quite as high as the Japanese version.I rarely find a seller of watercolor paint will put the right set of colors together. There does not appear to be any logic to this selection. There is no pink, though you might be able to mix a variation using the carmine and white. Pink is an important color if you paint florals or colorful skies. There is not really a good leaf green or grass green in here, as the one green is too bright. It's actually called leaf green in the set, but it's more apple green. That would also impact people who paint landscapes. The blue is not a sky blue, it's more of a bluebell blue. Not quite ultramarine blue in my opinion. If you used this blue for skies, it might be a bit dark or moody. The carmine color isn't red enough to pass as a standard red, since it's got a little magenta in it. The orange and yellow are very correct, and very strong. I guess that would be good if you're painting say citrus or a pumpkin. Magnesium brown would probably be good for desert rocks. But it's not a chocolate brown. I don't know why there are two turquoise colors in here. One is closer to blue, the other is closer to teal green. The one called violet looks exactly how I think the purple for a certain famous musician would look. The one called purple looks, I guess, more like a mulberry color. I'm not sure why they wasted a pan on white. I've watercolored for decades and the only white I ever use is specialty bleed proof white.This set is great if you want to test out the colors before going for the bigger sets. Or if you're a minimalist and very handy with color mixing. Though keeping in mind, the more you mix colors, the more they can lose vibrancy. If you're not a professional watercolorist, then these will be more than good enough. If you're a professional watercolorist, then I would probably avoid the purple shades unless it's for a demo or nothing of great importance.This would be an amazing set if they brought the colors closer to what a floral painter or landscape/seascape painter might be able to use. And they improved the lightfastness of the purples. If they could just get those to move up to the normal range in lightfastness, that would be good. If for your needs these colors are acceptable, then I would highly recommend trying these out.

Gorgeous!! Very pigmented and seems higher quality than the price point. Comes with pretty packaging and two little sample cards (black, and white) with the names of the colors printed on the card and a space for you to paint on a sample. Loved it!

I love this paint set! So much more paint in each cube than in other similarly priced sets. High quality, vibrant colors!

I really like these paints. I’ve only started watercolor in the last year, but I’ve used Daniel Smith and W/N professional watercolors and Kuretake Japanese watercolors and like these as well as those (considering the Japanese do act a bit differently that western watercolors). They active as quickly, have a creamy consistency and blend and bleed nicely. This set of 48 has a nice variety of colors as well.

Beautiful colors. I'm happy with the quality. Good purchase.

I adore the colors and the beautiful flow of the colors in the pallet. It is bright and bold and beautiful!

Updated Review on 5.5.25 - After working out the prior issue with vendor, I tested these paints out. Here’s what I found:Pros:- Paints are clean, clear and visually appealing.- Paints wet easily and dispersed well on the paper.- Excellent color range of both warm and cool colors with several earth colors and three metallics for special effects.- Several of the colors, cerise, gray, & light olive green broke out into more than one color when painted out giving some interesting effects.- Lightfastness and opacity info included on swatch card.Cons:- No labeling on the actual paints. You have to do it yourself.- No info on the pigments used to make up each color.- Seven colors are marked as having limited lightfastness including two quinacridone colors which are usually quite stable in other paint brands. Other pigments appeared to have white (or a lot of filler) added to them which is not a problem as long as that’s what you want. This leads me to believe fugitive pigments and/or dyes were used to create the bright colors. Rose madder which is traditionally a VERY fugitive color is considered strong in this line—again, what is the pigment/s used to create this color?- Other pigment concerns: Lunar blue is not blue, French ultramarine is not French ultramarine (normally French ultramarine and ultramarine blue are very similar in color), the manganese blue is nothing like real manganese blue.- The layout of the colors within the palette and on the swatch card make no sense. Turquoise is next to orange with rose madder next to silver, gray and brown ochre…if you want to arrange the colors to your preference, be sure to label them first!The peony painting underneath the swatch cards in the photos was painted utilizing this palette. I have no plans to do anything more with it as it was intended as a test of these paints, but due to the lack of info on the pigments, I would not attempt to sell it.If you paint in a sketchbook and have no desire to display your work, this set is fun and the colors bright. If you’re looking to play around and experiment with watercolors, this set would work well. If you are looking to display your work or possibly sell your work, I would use extreme caution with this set. If they include dyes or less than stable pigments, you could see your artwork change drastically in a short time period._____________________________First Review:I was searching for metallic/pearlescent watercolors and Amazon brought me to this page where I started on a metallic set before clicking through the other options. I looked at the photo of this 48 color set and thought the colors were absolutely stunning and bought them right away. Unfortunately, when I received the set, they were NOTHING like the photo and I found that they weren’t even metallic despite what the photo looks like. Shame on me for not reading the fine print and shame on the vendor for using a photo that makes them look metallic AND with other metallic sets on the same ad page. These have been returned.

I bought and ordered these as they came up for sale with a great discount. I had been searching for a sensibly priced “semi-wet” pallet. If comparing value to cost, I don't believe I've used better. The paints are highly pigmented with little water or effort, and the colors blend well. I was pretty happy with this set for the minimal amount paid and will be trying more from this company.