Prima Marketing Watercolor Confections ART PHILOSOPHY Confections Watercolour Pans Odyssey 12pk

I purchased this set for 24.68 in January of 2018. I was drawn to the colors and liked the price point, the package arrived as expected and on time.The little black metal case is pretty cute and I find the sides, that have indents for pallet use are quite handy. The pans are plastic and held in place, in the tin, by a metal lip. Most of them fit very snuggly, but there is a little wiggle room on the ends. They come individually wrapped in plastic and paper. Once opened and placed I feel they are secure.The kit comes with a color card, which I found useful. I also did color swatches on a larger scale on a separate paper to test the colors with 2 coats. I will say that I found 2 shades, Jordan and Cusco to be a little difficult. They are far more chalky than the others in the kit. I was searching for a kit with more browns and it was a deciding factor in picking up this one and I do wish they preformed a little smoother. All of the shades are:Tokyo- Pinkish RedRome- Bloodish/Brick RedAmsterdam- Royal PurpleMaui- Passionate OrangeJordan- Chocolatey BrownCusco- Clay/Mud BrownDubai- Brownish RedJamaica- Kelly GreenInca- Yellow OchreBudapest- Velvety PurpleCalgary- Eggshell WhiteMost of the shades are very cooperative. Spreading well and deeply pigmented. The shades I mentioned before, Jordan and Cusco are the most difficult to manipulate and I did experience a little pigment clustering with Dubai as well. I was impressed with Calgary as a white, it is very pigmented and sits well on top other colors as well as being easy to mix to lighten shades. Each shade was easily build-able, from more sheer to thick. Each shade, again with the expectation of Jordan and Dubai dried down smooth with no visible pigment clusters or chalky lines. Using the trays on the inside of the metal case I was able to easily blend colors. As a whole the collection blew me away. Very stunning shades, all a little different that what you would normally get. I would highly recommend to beginners looking to add to their basic color collections. It's almost a little Wes Anderson if you ask me! I expect to get a lot of use from the pallet and am pleased with my purchase. It's great as a stand alone, the completed picture below was completed using only this palette. It also is great in use with other, more conventional palettes to add depth and definition. Would by again/recommend.

PREVIOUS REVIEW: I adore this brand!! While it is not artist grade quality, it is extremely fun to play with...especially because you don't have to feel guilty about wasting paint! I purchased the Odyssey, Essence, and Decadent pies and while I love all of them, I feel like Essence wasn't that nice compared to the others (there were some unique colors there like this mint like color called serenity but you might want to add some primary colors just to make things easier on yourself) but if you don't compare them to the others, you will love it! I LOVED DECADENT PIES..definitely worth the money (there are a lot of convenience skin tone mixes there...and online swatches don't do them justice, they are even prettier in person. Also, if you have never tried watercolors before, you probably want to get the Classics and Tropical sets in Prima as they have a more general color scheme; the other sets have more unique colors that are not that suitable for mixing.UPDATE: I would NOT repurchase this item! If you are a beginner, and bought this set to try out watercolors and just have fun, the quality is expected! But for professionals, this set is horrendous, especially for the price! They were beautiful when still wet, but as soon as they dried, they turned very chalky and had this weird texture! While I like the color scheme, I do not like their marketing this and the other prima sets as professional. The other cons are the the lack of light fast info, how opaque/chalky this set can be, lack of clean mixes (very muddy), etc. This set is definitely not lightfast as they faded very quickly after just a little amount of time and they are taking forever to use. I honestly never reach for them as they are not good for my confidence as an artist! Again, if I were a beginner or expert, I would NOT buy these, even on sale (and I am always up for buying stuff on sales). They are just terrible quality, and even children would be better off using something else. As an artist, I have had to use cheap supplies to get the job done, and have never minded, but this set has turned me off cheap watercolor as a whole.To be honest, this set is just NOT acceptable as the market on watercolor is growing everyday, with new, cheap sets gaining fame on Amazon and Youtube. And it is priced way too high for such a small set of watercolors with so many cons to it. Therefore, if I was on a budget and needed to get a good set of watercolor, (as a beginner) I would try Dugato watercolor (pigmented, vibrant, transparent, flow well, mix well), or Emooqi watercolor (48 set that are gorgeous, good color selection, mix okay with the primary colors, transparent, flow well) or Van gogh watercolor.If I was trying to expand my watercolor selection from beginner to mid-range/advanced, I would try the white nights (pretty affordable for the price, wide pans that have a lot of paint, good quality, transparent/semiopaque, granulates nicely) or a small set of Daniel Smith (which are amazing quality), Sennelier, or Rembrandt on sale.

Beautiful colors

I absolutely LOVE my Prima watercolor collections. I've ordered every single available set and used Odyssey yesterday for the first time. These paints are just gorgeous. All you have to do is touch a wet brush to the color you want and there it is, rich and beautiful and vivid. I think these paints give as good a result as my much more expensive Winsor and Newton tube paints. In fact, I like them better because it's so much easier to work with pan paints than tube paints. For one thing, you don't have to worry about them hardening on you and you don't have to constantly spritz them with water to soften them. The Prima paints are ready every time you are. I saw that one of the reviewer said you should prep the mixing area with a Mr. Clean Magic Eraser, but I've solved that possible "beading" problem by using a separate plastic plate as my mixing area no matter what paints I'm using. I prefer to keep my pans clean for the paints themselves. You can buy cheap plates or cheap palettes and use something separate that's easy to clean afterward and save yourself a lot of grief. Anyway, like others have said, I'm totally in love with these paints. So glad I bit the bullet and ordered them. They're wonderful. Happy painting, everyone!

This line of paint never disappoints, highly pigmented. Not to mention, great value for the money!! Highly recommend for beginners.

The colors are beautiful and just as described. All the art philosophy are amazing I’m slowly working on getting them all.