Nicker has been favored by the animation industry since the days of black and white television in Japan, and 90% of Japanese animation companies use Nicker gouache to paint their backgrounds, and Miyazaki's Studio Ghibli is its biggest fan. Another 60% of Nicker's sales come from schools, and from an industry and personal point of view, it is a national brand that has grown up with Japanese animation.
Despite their impressive status, Nicker's two factories in Nerima-ku, Tokyo and Yokohama are not large, with only 17 core employees at the Nerima, the longest of whom has been with the company for more than 40 years. Under the supervision of veteran technicians, each color of Nicker undergoes more than 50 tests before it is released. Nicker gouache is known for its delicate effect close to watercolor, and after being finely ground by a roller mill, it is put into a 7-layer laminated tube for final rolling and filtration.
In the era of watercolor, Nicker was one of the few international brands specializing in the production of gouache, and only targeted the development of opaque pigments. Since 1950, it has been producing advertising paints (gouache alias) for commercial artists, producing more than 200 colors of various series of gouache, of which 65 colors of advertising gouache can reach 53 colors completely opaque, 12 colors are opaque after drying, and there is almost no color difference in dry painting, which is the crystallization of Nicker's technology for more than 60 years.
Advertising gouache is Nicker's flagship gouache, and its strong hiding power is not a problem, but it is more famous for its small and fresh color selection and strong controllability. Under the premise of adding more water, Nicker gouache will not spread out of the painting trace at all, but within the painting range, the pigment is evenly dispersed and natural, and you can draw a transition with no water marks at all, especially suitable for backgrounds with shades of gradient such as blue sky and green plants.
As a gouache paint that makes a big difference in animation backgrounds, Nicker advertising gouache is most widely distributed in blue and green, with 12 colors each. Among the 65 colors, there are 32 colors of a single color gouache, and the mixed gouache is mainly mixed by 2 or 3 kinds of pigments, which is not easy to get dirty in the actual color mixing operation. However, the quality of the color of the advertising gouache itself is not high, the durable gouache is only 35 colors, and it is not recommended for exhibition-type paintings, 40ml is sold for 360 yen without tax, which is about 22 yuan, which is only the price of cabbage in a crowd of high-quality gouache. There are also 11ml and 20ml specifications for advertising gouache to choose from, but only the basic 15 colors and 36 colors are available respectively, and large capacity is more recommended for commercial painting.
Designer gouache is an upgraded version of the pigment of advertising gouache, all 98 colors, the color gamut coverage is more comprehensive, not only the same color is pure, the proportion of lightfast pigments is 93/98, the painting can not fade for a long time, the quality is comparable to the European and American artist level. Since the advertising gouache has been able to meet most of the commercial needs, the demand for designer gouache is not large, in the 90s after the completion of a major update will not launch new colors, in China's purchasing market is difficult to find, 20ml excluding tax for 310-600 yen, about 20-40 yuan.
