150 color paper box-set Holbein colored pencil (japan import)

Product Information

My studio floor is laminate wood and the pencils bounce several times when dropped but I’ve never experienced a core shattering inside the pencil casing in multiple spots. This is quite common with Prismacolors. The Holbein Artist Colored pencils are a very interesting colored pencil set in that they combine multiple ingredients including wax, fats, and oils to their pigments for their cores. The result is a unique experience that has to be tried to be appreciated. This set contains the following colours: Pink, Salmon Pink, Cream, Naples Yellow, Lettuce Green, Cobalt Green, Ice Green, Sky Blue, Lavender Blue, Rose Pink, Wisteria, Mauve. The other tradeoff, when considered as an artist-grade pencil, is the relatively low lightfastness rating. Prismacolors are very affordable, so they may actually overperform on the lightfastness charts relative to cost, but if you are using these in final drawings just be aware: 59 out of 150 (39%) are rated the best Lightfast I, 26 colors (17%) are Lightfast II, and 65 colors (43%) are rated below museum grade at Lightfast III through V. For individual colors, this chart from Prismacolor details the Lightfastness rating. The delivery was really pleasantly fast, I would like to have known that the price does not include Japan VAT, and I have also paid custom charges in UK.

As I said, I love my pencils soft and buttery but that’s my personal preference. Soft pencils fit my style of coloring well. But I don’t recommend soft pencils for everyone and I don’t recommend them for every project.Some of the colors were a bit softer than others, and those softer colors usually had the most intense pigmentation. Others were a bit harder and that resulted in a lighter application. The pencil is weighted well and feels good in the hand, with a glossy lacquered barrel making comfort and functionality paramount to the pencil. Holbein Artist Colored Pencil Sets All I have is hearsay and scuttlebutt from other artists and the chatty owner of my local hole-in-the-wall art store. A super-sharp tip will break under pressure, but overall I found that these pencils kept a good point and would provide a lot of coverage before needing to be sharpened. There were no issues with lead breakage during sharpening. In comparing to the similar Caran D’Ache Luminance, (which developed lots of crumbs under heavy pressure,)the Lightfast had a cleaner lay down. But it still was not as smooth as a soft wax-based pencil such as the Derwent Coloursoft or Prismacolor Premier.

Because so many Holbeins are opaque, you do need to worry about creating accidental clouding or masking while layering over existing layers of color. Not a hard, crumbly, brittle pencil, but something oil based and stiffer. The firmer the pencil, the more control you’ll get from it. Holbein Pencils feel luxurious and weighty in your hand. They’re a large diameter pencil with an oversized core. Comparable in diameter and weight to Polychromos.

It seemed to work ok with most of the colours – even the copper one. Some of the lighter colours like cobalt green and apricot didn’t seem to mix as well, but they all did soften or blur to some degree. In general, pencils with a higher oil to wax ratio are hard pencils. Pencils with more wax tend to be softer pencils. Wax, oil, hard, soft— it’s all about what you like. There are no villains here. I highly recommend Holbein for floral artists. Their greens and pinks are by far the most complete and the natural yellow greens are very organic looking. These are extremely expensive pencils. There isn’t any other way to put it. However, the high price comes in part due to the unique and exotic cores that you really can’t find with many other pencil brands. Also, other premium brands that cost quite a bit offer smaller sets for those who want to try them out without paying a huge asking price but Holbein doesn’t offer this.