hi everyone in this video i just wanted to share with you the unboxing of
my new himi set that i got and share with you my thoughts on the himi gouache after pretty
much a whole year of using it since it's been about a year since i uploaded my first
impressions video on it and now i feel like i can look back on that video and address some of the
concerns i had about it or the questions that i had before using it. i'll also be painting a
spirited away scene at the end and throughout the video i'll just be sharing some tips on
how to use the himi gouache and just gouache in general so i hope you'll enjoy this video
my first tip is to get the colors out easily you can just turn the box upside down and you can find
all the color names at the bottom of the box. The names are in Chinese but you can also find the
English names printed very finely. A question that i see a lot is what is the difference between the
two whites in the set. So supposedly one of them is zinc white and the other is titanium white
however i have been using them interchangeably without noticing a difference in the two. Also if
you look at the color chart the name is actually white and not zinc white so i'm actually not sure
if it is supposed to be zinc white or not but anyways for me at least i just treat the two
whites to be the same and it isn't an issue for me in case you're wondering what happened to my old
set or why i decided to buy a new set is because i moved overseas to China and i didn't want to bring
my old set with me which would be heavy and messy to bring but don't worry i've left my old set with
a friend who has put them to good use so they haven't gone to waste. She's actually cleaned it
and revived them and brought them into an even better state than what i left them in and i'll
insert a picture to show you what they look like before and after. Also this brand is Chinese so
it's actually even more affordable to buy them here I bought my first set on Australian amazon
for forty dollars and this set that i got here actually only cost me about eight dollars so it's
five times cheaper here which is crazy because it's already so affordable. You may have heard of
taobao before which is like the Chinese equivalent of amazon. You can buy pretty much anything
on there and that's where i bought this second set from. The other cool thing is you can also
find them in individual jelly cups and as tempting as it was to want to buy more colors i only got an
additional white because i use up my whites very quickly and i'll explain why i didn't get any
other colors in a second. My second tip would be to swatch out all of your colors and i've probably
said and done this many times before since i've swatched many colors on my channel but it really
does help you when you can see the colors on paper and i would suggest that you swatch
a decent amount of the paint, don't just swatch a little square which is what i did when i got my
first ever gouache set and it wasn't very helpful because i felt like i didn't get to see the true colour
I would suggest you swatch a large square where you can really see the color at its full opacity
You can even swatch it over a black line that you paint in acrylic so that you can see the
opacity of the colors. So because this is my second himi set i haven't swatched out all the colors
since i'm already familiar with them, instead i wanted to show you what i think are the essential
colors and what i use most and the colors are a cool and warm in each of the primaries
and a prussian blue which i really like and use quite a bit and also burnt umber and there's also
white and black which i haven't swatched out. I think you can get easily overwhelmed with the
amount of colors that come in the set especially if you're a beginner artist so limiting yourself
to just these few colors and learning to color mix i think will help you feel a lot more confident
with this set of colors, that's the reason why i didn't get any additional jelly cups even though
it was very tempting and they were very affordable it's because i simply feel like i don't need them
since i can mix all the colors i need from this limited color set. That's not to say that i don't
use the other colors, i just use them when it's convenient and not because i don't know how to
mix them. My third tip is to keep your himi gouache in a usable condition simply just by misting it
with water every once in a while. After a painting session i will just mist it with lots of water and
put the lid straight back on it. I haven't had any issues with mold or any issues with it drying out
but even if it does dry out it can be reactivated i have seen a lot of people reactivating their
himi gouache including my friend who has revived my old set and made it look brand new again
I prefer for the gouache to look like it is drowning in water rather than see it start to dry out so
this is the condition i usually keep it in and before i get into the painting i want to quickly
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in the description will get a one month free trial of Skillshare. I'll quickly talk about my
process and my approach for this painting. This is from the movie spirited away and it's a painting
that i've wanted to do for a really long time but i've actually just felt really intimidated by it
whenever i looked at it i always just thought i didn't know where to start but after attempting
this painting i actually feel like i've gained a lot more confidence and learnt a lot about how
to approach something like this in the future. So after doing a light pencil sketch i went in with
some very thin diluted paint and my goal was just to block in all of the white of the paper. Starting
with a very light wash means you can easily cover any mistakes you make so i was less intimidated to
get started. Once i feel more confident with the placement of everything that's when i gradually
start to build up the opacity of the paint and then i'm focusing more on just local color and
also analyzing the values so i'm squinting lots at the reference photo i'm looking for where the
darks are. I find that i usually work from mid tones to darks and then the highlights which is
also when the painting starts to come together and that's when i'm nearing the finish line
my aim at this point is to try and not get lost in the details of one part of the painting but rather
to try and advance the painting all at once at the same pace so even though i wanted to keep working
on the details of this wall i made myself stop so that i could work on other parts of the painting
and start to bring it forward. Overall this painting went quite smoothly which is quite rare
for me. Even though it took me three and a half hours to paint it didn't feel that long because
i just really enjoyed the whole process. Here i'll throw in a fourth tip which is to use a palette
knife to scoop out your white paint to keep it clean and not to contaminate it with the other
colors on your brush. I don't mind so much if the other colors get contaminated especially the dark
ones because you can't tell at all when you start mixing with them. I mostly just keep the white
clean, even if the yellows get contaminated it doesn't matter too much as well. I actually wrote
a list of pros and cons about the himi gouache that i've summarized over the year that i have used it
and i wanted to just give my overall thoughts on it for anyone who is thinking of buying it
So some of the pros i've already mentioned it is very affordable and i think for its price to quality
ratio it is unbeatable, it is really so affordable especially if you can buy it in China. The individual
cups that they sell only came down to 25 cents which is just crazy, you can't beat that price
for the quality it offers i think anywhere. The second pro is that it is revivable and i think the
container is decently airtight since i can leave it for two weeks and the gouache wouldn't have
dried out and i can just mist it again and it'll be really fresh and ready to go. The third is that
it is convenient to use, you can just open it and have all the colors available for you to start
painting with. Also i like to bring it on plein air adventures with me because it is so convenient to
use and when i'm outdoor painting i don't have time to squeeze out gouache while i'm trying to
quickly lay down colors. This also means it's less wasteful because instead of squeezing out too much
paint from tube gouache, i only use what i need in this set. Also even though these paints don't
come with lightfastness ratings i did my own lightfastness test and the results were pretty decent
i'll leave a video linked where you can see the results of how lightfast these colors were
So that's about all i had for the pros list and then on the cons list i wrote that it comes with a lot
of colors which technically is a good thing but also i feel like it could be a trap for a lot of
beginners because they could feel very overwhelmed from the amount of colors and maybe they don't
learn to color mix as much because they just use the premixes colors and the other issue with that is
that pre-mixed colors usually are very vibrant and not very natural and if you don't know how
to desaturate or tone them down that could also lead to your colors being too saturated
from these pre-mixed colors. One major thing that i don't like as much about the himi gouache is that
i feel like its consistency is thicker than what i'm used to when i'm using my artist grade paint
and that was the very first thing that i noticed about it when i first got this set
i tend to use more water with it to try and thin it down so that it can spread further because it's
quite thick and also i've had people comment that they feel like they have to use more himi gouache
which i think i have to agree with, the paint doesn't go as far as my artist-grade gouache which
feels a lot more creamy and buttery and an area where i really noticed this and found it to be an
issue was when i was painting grass in my grass gouache studies video you'll see that i use the
himi gouache and i struggled quite a bit to find the right consistency so that the paint would flow
off the brush easily. The consistency of the himi gouache is something that i'm used to now and i
think i just naturally adjust for it and use a bit more water but if you ask me which one i prefer i
would definitely say i like my artist grade paints more. Also this set is very heavy so even though i
like to bring it out for plein air because it's convenient, it is heavy to carry around
and i want to find a more portable way to bring my paints out to do plein air so this himi gouache is
probably something i'll only use if i don't have time to set up a separate palette for plein air
it's convenient to just grab it and go but in future i'd like to have a more lightweight setup
for outdoor painting, and lastly as i mentioned before the colors can get contaminated easily
but you can just use a palette knife for the lighter colors and you can also clean out the
colors if you want from time to time but i find even if they do get contaminated, it's not
really an issue, so my overall thoughts on the himi gouache for someone who's thinking of buying it is
if you don't own any gouache and you want to get started with it and you're on a budget
then i recommend it because it's so affordable and it's fun and easy to use and the quality really is
quite great. If however you use artist grade paints and you're curious to try out the himi
gouache, i would say that i personally like my artist grade paints more and i don't feel a
need to have this himi gouache. The only reason i bought it again is because i want to use it
to make tutorials with since a lot of you guys have it and a lot of you request that i make
tutorials with it even though you can definitely follow along with my tutorials even if i don't
use the himi gouache. I think for beginners it gives you a lot more confidence if you see that
you're using the same supplies that i am so that's the main reason why i bought it again. If you like
your current gouache paints but you also like the idea of the format of the himi gouache where it
comes in the jelly cups you can always just buy an airtight container that comes with the individual
sections and just squeeze out your tube gouache into it and just treat it like the himi gouache
and mist it every now and then to prevent it from drying out, this is something that i want
to do with my tube gouache. I'd like to set it up in a format where it's in an open container that i
can just open up and use like the himi gouache, and lastly if you own and use the himi gouache and
you're wondering whether it's worth it to invest in some artist grade paints, i would say that
yes it is, i think there is a slight difference between the two in the feel of it and i do think
it's worth it to try out artists great paints if you've used your himi gouache for a while and
you want to see if there is a difference between the two. As i've said i personally prefer my artist
grade paints over the himi gouache but of course you have to factor in the difference in price
and the himi gouache definitely wins for its price to quality ratio but the artist grade does offer
something more i think for the extra price you do pay, so that's all from me and my thoughts on
the himi gouache after a year of using it. I hope you found it insightful and if you have any questions
leave them down below. Thank you for watching this video, i'll see you in my next one. Bye bye