Search for paint by numbers and you get three quite different products presented as though they were the same thing. Sorting out which one you actually want takes about a minute and saves a lot of disappointment.
The three things you might be buying
A free printable
A numbered outline you print at home. There is no paint, no canvas and no color matching. You supply everything, including working out what color number seven is supposed to be. Fine if you already have a stocked paint box and enjoy mixing. Not a shortcut to a finished picture, and the pages that present it as one are leaving out the hard parts. Our piece on how paint by numbers generators work goes through what the free route does and does not give you.
An app
Filling numbered regions on a screen with a fingertip. Genuinely absorbing, and a completely different activity: no paint, no drying time, no object at the end. If what you want is something to do on a train, an app is the right answer and a physical kit is the wrong one.
A physical kit
A printed canvas, matched paints and brushes. This is what most people mean, and it is the only one of the three that ends with something you can hang. The rest of this page is about buying one of these well.
What to check before you buy
Rolled or folded — this is the big one
If a kit ships folded, the canvas arrives with crease lines pressed across the picture, and they do not come out. Not with weight, not with time, and certainly not with an iron, which risks the print and the primer as well.
Where a kit ships from changes how likely that is. what to check on shipping covers what actually matters and what is marketing.
It is the most common complaint in the whole category and the easiest thing to avoid, because kits that ship rolled in a tube almost always say so. Ours do, and our customers mention it more often than anything else in reviews. Our piece on rolled canvases covers why it matters so much.
Is the canvas primed
Acrylic on raw cotton soaks straight in and dries dull and blotchy. Pre-primed canvas gives the paint something to sit on so the color stays where you put it and keeps its intensity. Any listing worth buying will say what the canvas is. What to look for in the canvas itself is the part most listings gloss over.
Framed or unframed, and be careful here
Framed means the canvas arrives already stretched on a wooden frame, ready to hang. Unframed means a flat canvas.
The thing worth knowing, and it is rarely said: an unframed paint by numbers canvas often has very little blank margin around the image, and stretching a canvas onto a frame afterwards needs several inches of spare material to wrap and staple. Several of our own customers have run into this. If you know you want it stretched later, buy the framed version rather than assuming you can do it yourself.
How big is the reference image
Every kit claims to include one. A postage-stamp picture on the back of the box is not the same as a large separate print you can prop up beside you, and on any design with fine detail the reference is the thing you will use most. Ours is 11x17 for that reason.
How are the paints packaged
Small pots that have been sitting in a warehouse with imperfect seals arrive half-dry, and thickened paint is the second most common complaint in the category. Vacuum-sealed pots hold their condition far better. It is worth looking for.
Can you get more of one color
The pale colors run out first, because they cover the largest areas and want two coats. Ask before you buy whether replacement paint exists for that specific design, because a generic tube of white will not match. We keep a matched extra paint set for every design we sell, which is a reasonable thing to expect anywhere.
Can you read the numbers
Numbers too small or too faint is the single most frequent criticism across every brand in this category, ours included. Two things reduce it: buy the largest version of the design, and look for kits that publish a close-up photograph of the actual printed canvas rather than only a picture of the finished painting.
Where did the artwork come from
Some designs are licensed original paintings, made by an artist and adapted for this format. Others are stock images run through a conversion tool. The second kind tends to divide badly, with clumps of tiny regions in the wrong places, because nobody looked at the result.
A related warning sign on marketplaces: the same photograph appearing under a dozen different brand names. That is one factory and a lot of resellers, and it means you have no idea what will turn up.
What we do
Ledgebay sells thirty-nine designs, all licensed original artwork, in 12x16 framed, 16x20 framed and 16x20 unframed. Pre-primed cotton canvas, rolled in a tube rather than folded, vacuum-sealed paints, brushes in a range of sizes and an 11x17 reference print. The framed sizes include a wooden easel. The full range is here.
And if none of the thirty-nine is the picture you actually want on your wall, Custom Paint by Numbers builds a canvas from a photograph you send, up to 18x24, framed or unframed.
