Review on 18-Piece Set Of Chameleon Metallic And Glitter Watercolor Paints, Including 12 Metallic Glitter And 6 Chameleon Colors. Ideal For Artists, Hobbyists, And Travel Painting Enthusiasts. by Kimberly Allen

PACKAGING: I purchased the Standard 48 Color Set. Artistro has completely nailed it with this matching, pink-themed packaging. Inside the velvety, embroidered drawstring pouch, is a sturdy floral tin with a hinged lid that will keep your 48 half pans safe and clean. The packaging is beautifully eye-catching and I’m thrilled to have it as part of my collection.WHAT’S INSIDE: Artistro designed this set with artists in mind and they included practically everything you need to start painting as soon as you open the box. They’ve included a triangular 2B PENCIL which fits very comfortably in the hand. There is also a great little SOFT ERASER that I just love. It erases very cleanly with no smudging and does not tear the paper. There is also a small SPONGE to dab your brush, which is a great addition to the set. The next thing we’ll look at are the two brushes that Artistro has included. The first is a small ROUND BRUSH that you can use for detail or small areas. The brush works great with no stray bristles. The second is a REFILLABLE ROUND WATER BRUSH. This brush nib was alittle larger. I absolutely loved this brush. There is a push button on this brush to control the amount of water you want to release, which was an amazing feature. And finally, you get 48 HALF PANS, INCLUDING 4 METALLICS AND 4 NEONS. The pans are removable which I found to be an extremely helpful feature when only using certain colors to paint. Everything above has its own perfect cut-out spot in a tray that sits snugly right in the tin. Artistro also included a see-through SWATCH CHART that you can easily use tocolor match when using a reference. There is a BLANK SWATCH CHART that you can paint yourself. Each block has three sections so you can test each color’s saturation. They also included ten 5”x 8” sheets of 140lb/300g WATERCOLOR PAPER. The paper held up very well and did not buckle or warp. I’d love to get my hands on a whole block of this paper.THE PAINTS: Artistro did an amazing job putting these pan paints together. I haven’t had much luck with watercolor paints in the past; they were always chalky or gritty. So I just stopped using them. I wanted to give them one last try, and that’s when I was drawn in by Artistro’s tin packaging (I didn’t know the velvety pouch came with it, that was a big plus). I started by filling in the swatch card and noticed right away that these paints were in another league. The colors are vibrant and smooth. I wanted to do a whole piece of work using my normal techniques before forming an opinion. So I chose the colors I wanted, sprayed them, sketched my base, and got to work (work shown in this review). The colors are so creamy and lay very smoothly. I didn’t run into any grittiness at all. I used wet-on-wet and wet-on-drytechniques; and I didn’t struggle with the paint at all. I made mistakes, but they were entirely operator error. The colors are smooth and easily manipulated on the paper. (Color manipulation shown in video.) They are quite vibrant, highly pigmented, and they blended very easily. The pans stayed wet for awhile and didn’t need to be constantly sprayed to re-wet. I used the refillable brush for most of the piece. And I must say again, that brush is just amazing. I’ve never used a brush with the push button before, and that feature alone is why I’ll only use that brush from now on. That’s another thing I’d love for Artistro to sell separately. Artistro chose an excellent range of colors. There is a perfect balance of warm and cool colors. Theyeven included white, which I’ve noticed a lot of sets do not. And if the color you want isn’t included, the colors mix and blend so easily that you could mix the color you want with no problems. They also included 4 metallic colors and 4 neon colors. I was quite impressed by these. The metallic colors laid down solid and they have a great metal sheen whether you shine a light on them or not. The neon colors also surprised me. They also laid down quite solid, and they stayed super bright. I think they would be fun usefor a black light painting.FINAL THOUGHTS: This set has it all. Bravo Artistro! From the gorgeous packaging design, to the very well planned out contents, to the high performance of the paints themselves; this set deserves an extremely high rating. I’m an artist on a budget, as most of us are, and usually have to settle for lower quality. But these paints are very high quality at a nice affordable price. I recommend that anyone interested in watercolor should give these a try. The beautiful packaging would make them a very nice gift as well. I’ve already purchased a set for a friend and plan to purchase a second set to for myself. Thank you Artistro! Can’t wait to see what you come out with next!**Artistro acrylic paint markers were used for the snow and santa's face.**