MeiLiang 52 Watercolor Paint Set, Travel Watercolors Set with Drawing Pencil, Paint Brushes, 5 Watercolor Paper, Sponge & Black Drawing Pens, Water Colors Paint for Adults, Art Supplies, Blue Case

I picked up this MeiLiang 52 Watercolor Paint Set on Prime Day after seeing Lindsay Weirich (thefrugalcrafter) swatch them out on Youtube. The set comes with a pencil, a fineline pen and a brush; the brush is a round brush with a short handle, and it says it's a #5, but I'd say it's between a #6 and #7, and I really like it. It's soft but not too soft, and it has a nice point but you can cover a lot of paper if you use the side.The set comes in a deeper box that I'll probably replace with a more standard watercolor box. There's a swatch sheet and a color chart that includes pigment info. Each half pan is individually wrapped, and the color number is there along with the color and pigment info in microprint. The swatch sheet doesn't include the pigment name but does include the lightfastness and opacity for each color. For some reason, there's glitter built into the swatch paper, but it doesn't seem to affect anything.The colors are nicely pigmented; you'll get a lot more color from them than from many other student grade paints. They move well, and many disperse beautifully when used wet-in-wet. I got some great mixes with them, and they're a joy to paint with. The transparent colors are quite lovely, but even the less transparent colors are nice and with enough water, you can make any of them transparent.I own the original MeiLiang paint set, which I bought around 2016, not long after I switched from oils to watercolors. At the time, I really liked them but discovered they used oxgall, and since I'm a vegetarian, I wasn't comfortable with them. But these new MeiLiang paints don't use oxgall - I asked the folks at LightWish, who are the distributor, and they confirmed it. Btw, I've always found LightWish to be responsive to questions and willing to discuss concerns.I have 3 concerns, and they're really not issues. First is I find this box harder to put the paints back into after taking them out to unwrap. And second, the cadmiums and cobalts aren't the real thing - they're hues. Since I don't use heavy metals in my painting, I was quite happy about this. Last, some colors have odd names - like the PY42 is called "Natural Yellow" instead of it's actual name, Yellow Ochre. There's a brown that's actually Benzimidazolone Brown, which I've always liked, whatever you call it.To me, this is a very good and very solid set of student grade paints that are often as good as artist grade paints. They're very well pigmented, move well wet-on-dry and wet-in-wet, mix well, the set includes pigment names and info (check the glossy color chart that comes with the set). I might take 1 point off for the box, but I think the paints and the value here are good enough to make up for it. And yes, some colors have made-up names, but that doesn't matter since the set includes the pigment info. Oh, and to my surprise, I really like the brush the set comes with.

Great colors

And the colors are a good starting range. Mix well and stay smooth.

So vibrant and beautiful! I’m a noob when it comes to watercolor ,I’m not sure of the pigment longevity with long uv exposure but looks like a great watercolor pallet.

Didn't like the plastic the pans were in, but these paints are great for artist grade. I love the metal tin!

Cheap prices and great set to own .

This is my second purchase as a gift. These are extremely nice little paints. Yes, the pans are small, but the color variety is great and the pigments are quite intense. The bush is very nice as well and it comes with a good drawing pencil. Packaged perfectly I would highly recommend them for your sketchbook or greeting cards or to paint in your coloring books. Super price for what you are getting.

Can be vibrant and opaque! The brush that came with it is absolutely amazing! I will definitely be buying again! Love the liner and pencil as well. I got rid of the inside frame that holds the colors and put magnets on the bottom. Makes it easier to remove a color.