Artecho Watercolor Paint Set 100 Colors Review – Worth It?

Quick Verdict

The Artecho Watercolor Paint Set 100 Colors is a bold promise wrapped in a compact tin. For the price, you genuinely get an impressive color range — especially the metallic and specialty shades — plus enough accessories to start painting immediately. The portability is real; I took this kit on a weekend trip and did not feel like I was compromising on palette size. That said, the tin case feels flimsy, the metallic pans need coaxing to show their shimmer, and serious artists will chafe at the lack of individual mixing wells. If you are after an all-in-one starter kit or a travel companion with maximum hue variety, check the current price on Amazon — it earns a solid recommendation at its price point. Score: 4.2 out of 5.

What Is the Artecho Watercolor Paint Set 100 Colors?

The moment I opened the Artecho watercolor paint set 100 colors arrived, I was struck by how neatly everything fit inside the compact tin. The listing breaks the palette down into 51 regular colors, 4 fluorescent, 35 metallic, and 10 macaron and candy shades — 100 pans total, sitting in a shallow grid inside a rectangular metal case that measures roughly 9 by 6 inches. Also in the box: a water brush pen, one nylon brush, a sketching pencil, a pencil sharpener, a color chart, two sheets of watercolor paper, a natural sponge, and a velvet carry bag. The whole setup weighs under two pounds, which immediately signals its intent — this is a kit built to travel.

I will be honest: I expected this to feel like a toy. Most budget watercolor sets under $40 lean heavily into quantity as a marketing hook while delivering muddy, chalky pigment. After my first evening with the Artecho set, the regular colors actually held up. The pigmentation is stronger than I anticipated, and blending two adjacent pans produced clean secondary hues on the included paper. The fluorescent and metallic pans are where things get more nuanced — they are fun, but they demand a different technique, which I will get into below.

Key Features

• 100 unique watercolor pans: 51 regular, 4 fluorescent, 35 metallic, 10 macaron and candy shades
• Comes with 2 watercolor paper sheets, 1 water brush pen, 1 nylon brush, sketching pencil, and sharpener
• Portable metal tin case with velvet carry bag for travel
• Strongly pigmented, acid-free, non-toxic formula conforming to ASTM D-4236 standards
• Built-in color chart for quick shade reference
• Natural sponge included for texture effects and cleanup
• Suitable for card making, illustration, calligraphy, and plein air painting

Hands-On Review

I used the Artecho watercolor paint set 100 colors across three separate painting sessions — two at my desk at home and one afternoon at a café. Setting up at home, I found the tin opens flat enough to rest my wrist on while mixing, though the shallow pan depth means you have to work in small increments. The grid layout is the main ergonomic quirk: unlike a traditional wet palette with large wells, you are picking up pigment from relatively small circles. For fine detail work this is fine; for broad washes you end up reloading your brush more often than you might like.

The fluorescent and metallic pans surprised me — not entirely in a good way. I tried a wash with one of the fluorescent oranges expecting it to glow the way fluorescent watercolors do from a tube, and it came out looking more pastel than punchy. What I eventually figured out is that these specialty shades work best applied more thickly, almost like an ink wash, rather than diluted down. Used that way, the metallics especially catch light in a way regular watercolors simply cannot. The gold, silver, and copper pans are genuinely pretty as final details on greeting cards.

By my third session, I had started leaving the water brush behind and using a regular round brush from my own collection. The included water brush is a nice idea — fill it with water and you have a self-contained wet brush for travel — but the seal on mine started weeping a little moisture after being stored in the velvet bag overnight. Nothing catastrophic, but worth noting if you plan to keep this in a packed bag. The included watercolor paper is serviceable for practice sketches and swatches; I would not frame anything painted on it, but it is more than adequate for initial color tests.

The real test for me was the weekend trip. I packed the tin in its velvet bag, tossed in a small water container and two of my own brushes, and had a fully functional watercolor setup in my carry-on. I completed two small landscape studies over the trip. That portability — without sacrificing palette size — is where this kit earns its keep. You are not compromising on the number of colors; you are compromising on the depth of control you have over each one. For casual painting and travel, that trade-off makes sense. In a studio setting with unlimited space, you would likely want separate tubes and a proper palette.

Who Should Buy It?

• Travel artists and beginners who want a wide color range without the hassle of building a kit from scratch will find the Artecho watercolor paint set 100 colors delivers solid value out of the box.
• Card makers and crafters will appreciate the metallic and specialty shades for adding finishing touches to handmade projects — these are genuinely more fun than standard watercolor pigment for decorative work.
• Students or workshop participants who need a lightweight, all-in-one supply kit that fits in a backpack and does not require multiple separate purchases to get started.
• Art teachers running group sessions can use the 100-color range to teach color theory at scale without managing dozens of individual tubes.
• Skip this set if you are an experienced watercolor artist who prefers professional-grade pan sizes, wet palettes with large mixing wells, and full pigment control — the Artecho kit is designed for accessibility and portability, not for advanced studio work.

Alternatives Worth Considering

• Van Gogh Watercolour Travel Box — If you want higher pigment quality in a travel format but can accept fewer colors (24), the Van Gogh travel box uses artist-grade pigment that outperforms most budget sets on blending smoothness and lightfastness.
• Sakura Koi Watercolors Field Box — A well-established travel watercolor set with 24 colors, known for its sturdy metal case and reliable pigment. It costs more per color but the build quality and paint performance are consistently praised by working artists.
• Darice 100-Piece Watercolor Set — A direct competitor on price and color count. The Darice set offers similar quantity but lacks the accessory bundle and velvet bag that make the Artecho kit more immediately usable for beginners.

FAQ

Final Verdict

The Artecho watercolor paint set 100 colors makes a convincing argument for itself as a do-everything starter or travel kit. The sheer range of hues — especially the metallics and specialty shades — is genuinely unusual at this price, and the fact that everything fits in a velvet-lined tin makes it practical in a way that bulkier sets simply are not. My gripes are real but manageable: the tin case feels cheap, the water brush is unreliable for heavy travel use, and the metallic colors require a deliberate technique change to look their best. None of those are dealbreakers for the intended audience. If you want maximum bang for your buck and a palette you can actually take places, this set is worth picking up on Amazon.