Testing Cheap Acrylic Paints From B&M | are they the worst acrylic paints?

In this video I'm testing out cheap acrylic paints from B&M. I recently bought these cheap acrylic paints as part of my back to school art supply haul from B&M and I thought I'd test them out and give you my verdict.

The cheap acrylic paints set that I bought is this Brunel Franklin 18 36ml set from B&M for £5.99. There are a large variety of colours within the set and they're all individually sealed. The first cause for concern was when I came to prep my palette, the paint was so watery and ran out, unlike a normal acrylic that would hold it's form. The cheap acrylic paints had a weird sticky texture, which was very odd.

When I swatched each of the colours I found the covarage to be quite translucent, and it kept pulling the paint off of the paper. I was concerned that I wouldn't be able to create an entire painting with this cheap acrylic paint set.

I prepped my canvas - which I also bought from B&M and cost £4.99 for a set of 3. I used a paint I already owned to prep the canvas with, as I wanted a vibrant orange for the under painting. The B&M canvas worked really well and is definately worth the price tag.

For the large painting, I'm creating a monsetra plant, as I love plants and find this style of paiting really inspiring. It's a style I would really like to develop further. I start by sketching out my composition, I use the green paints for this and paint a rough sketch out. Once the sketch is complete I can make a start on testig out these cheap acrylic paints from B&M. I find they take a lot of layering to achieve a full covarage of paint. They do not have a whole lot of body to them, so it makes building any textures almost impossible. The paints are very flat, so you can create a blended finish, providing it doesn't lift your previous layer of paint off.

To create my background I mixed up a light pink and ended up using an entire 36ml paint tube for this.

I would suggest that these cheap acrylic paints are really only suitable for sketchbook pieces. There are plently of other student grade acrylic paints that are on the market, I'd recommend the Daler Rowney System 3 paints over the B&M ones.

US Links:
Daler-Rowney System 3 Acrylic 150 ml Tube - Flesh Tint https://amzn.to/3gQgIjB

UK Links:
DR System 3 Introduction Set, ADASY3IS https://amzn.to/2V0zcGn

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