I bought these used from amazon warehouse and while the paints seems fine, there was a yellow residue all over the tubes and I think one of the tubes had mold in them. I am a little upset about that as I feel that they should have checked on the product before sending it to a customer. The paint quality of the tubes in this set are decent but nothing amazing or all that. I feel that if you really want to try grumbacher academy watercolors, check out jerrysartarama or your local art store and find the individual tubes as they have some great artist grade pigments for student grade quality- such as the thio violet (actually a perylene violet pigment), perylene maroon, chromium green oxide, green earth hue (viridian used in this), and magnesium green. The individual tubes on sale at jerrys are priced very reasonably for around 2 dollars. I would NOT buy any other color in their line. The paints were okay and once they dried, the mixed well. Not artist grade but passable. If looking for tube watercolors that are worth your time, check out lukas 1862 watercolors that are 10 dollars on sale at jerrys for a whole 24 mL. The price is a bit more but it lasts so much longer- in fact, you could pour that tube paint into a half pan and fill up at least 6 or 7 half pans depending on the size of the tube and whether or not the paint shrinks in the pan. Plus 24 mL is a LOT of paint and more than the typical 5 mL tube paint sold by companies. Lukas does a good job on their paints and I like the quality of it a lot! Some pigments that they have which are very nice are cobalt violet, cobalt green, verona green earth, english red deep. They even have a viridian, though I think M Graham is better if you want to dry it in a pan. If looking for a decent set of watercolors at the beginning level (student grade), I would check out Miya 36 or pretty excellent 36 set (both are half pans). If you want half pans but actual student grade, Van gogh is very nice, if a little opaque. There artist grade line rembrandt is very transparent and affordable if you pick only a couple colors (individually on sale at Jacksons). If looking for full pans and more of artist grade quality, white nights are amazing and priced very nicely at 2.22 on Jacksonsart for an individual pan. Since it is a full pan, it has more paint and you can buy only the lightest ones after doing some research online. I would NOT buy the white nights 24 or 36 pan set as they have some pigments that are a bit redundant, or not lightfast that are mixable on your own. There is also Sonnet (same brand but the student grade version). They used to have sonnet packaged in the meeden watercolor palettes but I don’t see them anymore and the new sonnet watercolors are in a yellow packaging and seem a bit expensive for a student grade paint with fillers in them. I would not buy the yellow palette as they are charging way too much, and would rather pay a bit more for the white nights. And lastly, for full pans, there is a Ukranian company called Rosa Gallery that sells watercolors that are a similar quality to White Nights. The colors are very vibrant (same as White Nights) but flow WAY MORE! In fact, I thought that the effect was very similar to Qor in the end. They have a 28 full pan set on Omniaproart website (Rosa gallery) that is around 41 dollars. You can also find them on amazon. Even if you do not want a full set from either White Nights or Rosa Gallery, I would still check out some of their more rare pigments. White Nights has perylene maroon, cobalt chrome turquoise, cobalt turquoise, caput mortuum, cobalt azure blue (a nice cerulean), indian yellow, indian gold, etc. Another company that sells full pans at an affordable price is Jacksons' house brand- called jackson's artist grade watercolors. I advise only one thing about that brand: Do NOT buy their half pans as the full pans are only a little bit more (around 4 dollars) and have a lot more paint. And also, don't buy their tubes, despite how affordable they look, as I've heard that there were a lot of binder concerns and paint separating and bursting out of the tube. Sounds like a pain to deal with, so I went with their full pans. EDIT: I returned these, but the little bit I had poured out ALL developed mold on it. Gross and the first time this has ever happened to me.
