Square and round drills are the most common ones in diamond painting. Which one is the best? What’s the difference between them? Which one should I choose? Here’s some answers!
I will say that right away: there isn’t a better type of diamonds than others. All of them do have pros and cons but in the end, it’s about personal tastes more than anything else.
Rounds vs squares
Besides the shape, the major difference between them is the size: square diamonds are 2,5 mm and round diamonds are 2,8 mm. Okay, so what?
Because of size and shape, round diamonds are faster and easier to place on canvas than squares. They don’t have a side, so you just pick them up and place them. Square diamonds can be more tricky to place as you want them to be well aligned or it will show on the final result of your painting.
The small difference in size can seem very light but it will affect the look of your final picture. As squares are smaller than rounds, it means that there is more square diamonds in an inch square than round diamonds. That can be compared to a picture resolution. The more pixels per inch a picture has, the higher resolution it has and the better the details will look.
On a small diamond painting, the difference won’t be that significant. For example, let’s take a 6 x 6 inches painting (~15 x 15 cm). In an inch square, there will be approximately 81 round diamonds (9 x 9 diamonds) for 100 square diamonds (10 x 10 diamonds). On our 6 x 6 inches painting, that means we will have around 684 square diamonds more than round ones. Said otherwise, your picture will have around 684 pixels more in it, which allow your result to be more detailed.
In the picture below, I cut a small part of a square diamond painting and place it on a round painting to show the difference. The ruler seems off but it was well placed. It’s just the way I took the picture that gives the off effect. For 12 square diamonds, the measure is pretty accurate on 3 cm. But for the same distance, you can count about 11 round diamonds instead of 12.
The bigger your painting is, the more the difference will be as the number of square vs round diamonds will grow proportionaly.
Does that mean round diamonds are bad? No! But you’ll have to choose a bigger size round painting to get the same amount of details of a smaller square painting. This is useful to know when making a custom painting with your own picture.
Square diamonds give a fuller finish as the canvas cannot be seen between diamonds. For round ones, you will still be able to see some canvas parts when the painting is done.
Finally but not least, the round diamonds are more sparkly than the square ones.
For having tried both, I do prefer square ones. However, on a personal point of view, I must add that there is often less issues with round than square diamonds.
Diamonds aren’t always perfect: sometimes they can have tiny holes on them, not being cut well and having tabs on their sides or being mishaped. These are issues you can see for both types of diamonds. You discard them and go on with other diamonds, as you generally have more than enough to finish your project.
However, depending where you got your diamond painting kit, diamonds can be uneven in size which affect the final look of the painting. If they are too small, you’ll have wider spaces between rows of diamonds that will still show once the painting is done. It can also make the rows look unaligned when diamonds aren’t all the same size in a kit. On the opposite, if they are too big, diamonds will be too tight together and it will lead to a popping drill nightmare. Diamonds won’t stick well to the canvas and will pop out. Even though it’s an issue that can possibly happen to both diamond shapes, I do think it’s way more common for square drills.
Round diamonds
Pros
- Easier and faster to do
- More sparkly
- Less issues
Cons
- Diamonds don’t cover the whole canvas because of the shape
- Less diamonds per inch square
Square diamonds
Pros
- Canvas look more fullfilled because of the shape
- More diamonds per inch square so better rendering of details vs a round painting of the same size
Cons
- Slower and a little harder to do because of the shape
- Less sparkly than rounds
- More issues because of uneven diamond size
Like we saw, square and round diamonds both have pros and cons. I really think the best way to judge is to try them both by ourselves to see which one of them suit us the best!
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