• They're announcing a new line called Premo! Accents with 19 translucent, metallic, glitter, and granite clays. This is where the big changes are.
  • I'm most excited about the granite colors (Blue Granite, White Granite, and Gray Granite). I'm guessing these are based on some of the more popular Granitex colors, which have recently only been available in multi-color sampler packs.
  • The metallic colors might be interesting — they're adding 18K Gold, Antique Gold, and Bronze. They're also changing the Copper — a color I happened to like (but I may like the new one just as well).
  • I'm sure there will be lots of folks who are excited about the glitter colors, but regular readers probably know by now that glitter's not my thing. So you'll have to go read about that yourselves. ;-)
  • The new colored translucents (Translucent Blue, Translucent Red, etc.) seem an odd choice to me, since it's extremely easy to tint your own translucents.
• What they didn't tell us before is that they're also discontinuing 11 Premo colors. Here's that list:
  • Red Pearl
  • Green Pearl
  • Cobalt Blue
  • Sea Green
  • Copper (but they're adding an "updated" copper)
  • Zinc Yellow
  • Frost (but they're adding a "White Translucent" that they say replaces Frost. I hope it's just as clear!)
  • Fluorescent Green
  • Fluorescent Yellow
  • Fluorescent Red
  • Glow-In-The-Dark (I'll miss this one!)
• There are 11 new and 11 discontinued Sculpey III colors. Since I'm not a Sculpey III user, I'll only highlight these 3 additions: Copper, Glow-In-The-Dark, and Deep Red Pearl.

My take? They're spinning this as an addition of exciting new colors, but it's more like a color re-organization. They've integrated some of the more useful (and presumably better-selling) colors from the Studio and Granitex lines into the Premo line. They're tweaking other colors slightly — i.e., replacing Red Pearl with Magneta Pearl, Green Pearl with Bright Green Pearl. And they're moving a few Premo colors — like the Glow-in-the-Dark — off to the Sculpey III line.

As for the discontinued colors, I personally think Zinc Yellow and Cobalt Blue are poor choices. You need blues and yellows for color-mixing, and I can't be the only one who will now have to re-do a bunch of my color recipes. At least they plan to put color recipes for most of the discontinued colors on their site...

And the colors that are actually new? I think that by adding a wider variety of metallics and glittery clays, they're trying to keep pace with Fimo Effects and Pardo.

There are a few things in here I'm excited about, but about as many that disappoint me. I'm sure I'll adjust, though. What about you? Are you losing any favorite colors? Excited about some of the new ones? I would love to hear your comments!