Winsor & NewtonArtists Water 5ML tube 48C set (japan import)

I’ve been wanting a professional palette and this one is really nice. The price is good considering the cost of 48 tubes and the colors are bright and work really well. I’ve put them in pans and into a metal palette and just started playing with them last night, They re-wet very nicely (after drying for 3 days in my studio) and I’m sure I’ll be using them quite often. So many projects use the colors in this palette, I’m glad i have them all now!The tubes in the box were scattered all over, none in their correct place, but they labels were all in English and none of the tubes were missing or open/punctured, so it wasn’t too bad. And not entirely unexpected considering they came from afar.

The labels and box indicate that they're genuine Winsor & Newton. There's every color here that a painter might need in 100 years, the consistency is perfect, not at all too thick or dried out, the tubes are of a typically common and generous size, in swatching them, they were all fluid and brilliant and easy to control.

What you see here is what you actually get. If you are like me and have seen Youtube reviews, etc., you know what you might expect from W&N. I own a 48 pc Cotman set, and decided to go big with the professional watercolors - I was not disappointed. This set - apparently only available to the Japanese market - consists of a selection of 48 professional tubes. As far as I know, I didn't find any product on the W&N website that matched this set, so I am guessing this is something that was custom put together for the JP market. However, they are basically the professional tubes in one box. The paints themselves are what you would expect from this renowned brand. The color selection is broad, and most of the paints I believe are single pigments. They lay down exquisitely, though if you are looking for highly saturated paints, look somewhere else, as these are more natural colors... with that said, I gave the "for beginners" item 2 stars because if you're a beginner, you might be more impressed by other sets (like Mijello or Holbein). The box is just a simple cardboard box with a brochure in Japanese, but again, this is not about the box, but about the actual collection of 48 tubes in one set. I absolutely loved it.

This set is a great way to try out a comprehensive palette of W & N's Professional line. This is already one of my favorite brands of watercolor for quality, value, and pigment choices, so I knew what to expect where that was concerned.However... I blew up the photo to see which colors were included in the set before buying it, bougt the set based on that photo (since no list of included colors is given), and they are not the same as the set I received. Close, but not the same. If you are hoping to get all those Cadmium colors shown in the photo, you'll be disappointed, as I was. In the photo you can see Cad Yellow Pale, Cad Yellow, and Cad Orange. What you get is the "Cad-Free" versions of those, with their undisclosed proprietary mystery pigments. The Cad Red Deep you see in the photo has been eliminated, and replaced with Scarlet Lake. The Lemon Yellow-Nickel Titanate is gone, and there is NO lemon-yellow at all. Davy's Gray has been added in.W & N makes 2 versions of Cerulean, BTW, and the one included in this set is made with PB35, if that matters to you.So, a very nice set and great value, with the little 5ml tubes averaging out at $4.42 each, substantially less than you'd pay if you wanted all these colors anyway. They are just not the colors I expected based on the advertising in the listing. I do feel that if you are going to use a photo to sell a product, it should be of that product!

What's to say. I love em. They work well. The colors selections are great. They blend together nicely and my only problem is that I don't have all of the colors they make.

Was a bit skeptical about it being a "Japanese import" as it seems strange but they are what they say they are. The color card that comes with them is in Japanese but the tubes have English color names on them. For 48 colors even if the 5ml tubes can be got for 5 to 6 bucks a piece it's a good price here and less than what buying each tube individually would be. I put a picture showing a close up of one the tubes and they do say "Winsor and Newton Professional Water Colour".

The first time I ordered this, it appeared to be an opened box with 15 of 48 colors were Cotman grade (student grade), not the professional grade. I returned them and Amazon sent me a replacement box that was unopened - all were professional grade tubes. Beautiful, vibrant colors. I had tried other water color brands and were not happy with them; I was disappointed I spent money on paints that were not worth the money. I had the 24 set of W&N pro watercolor pans and loved it too. But this set of tubes is just wonderful because 1) paint out of the tube gives you more water control and 2) such a great collection of colors.

What a wonderful assortment of gorgeous Winsor & Newton watercolor paints. A bit spendy but I'm really enjoying the mix of colors and the quality of the paint. They blend well and are smooth on my paper. I love them!