The gouache pigment was originally invented by adding white powder to the watercolor pigment to make the color opaque. Because watercolor paint is transparent, it is difficult to modify it once the painting is wrong. The gouache pigment can be easily modified because of its opacity. Later, raw materials such as gum arabic were added to gouache pigment to further improve its performance. Arabic gum can make the surface of gouache paint have a layer of gloss after drying, but in special occasions where flat coating is required (such as painting effect pictures and coloring for animation), the gum will form irregular spots on the color surface, or make the color uneven, so there is a special degumming pigment.

In theory, as long as there are three primary colors of red, blue and yellow, all other colors can be mixed, but the purity of the color is always not high enough, so modern art pigment manufacturers produce high-purity pigments for various hue and brightness colors to meet various needs. From the most basic 12 colors to the usual 24 colors and even 48 colors to more than 60 colors. Special metallic colors are not included.