Charcoal pencils are as hard to sharpen as pastel pencils. Most people left negative reviews because of this. There is no pencil sharpener around that will get an entire set of 24 pencils initially sharpened. You can use a box knife, or you can buy a box of the Mobious and Rupert blades in the blue box. You can use them in any of the pencil sharpeners I used. Or buy the three pack of generals red sharpeners. You will dull every one. Don’t worry, they will still sharpen graphite pencils afterwards, or you can replace the blades. I found a beautiful pencil case roll on Amazon. It came filled with great art supplies including bicolor colored pencils that are of surprisingly high quality. But I I really wanted to dedicate this roll to my charcoal sketching so I took most of the supplies out of that roll and placed elsewhere. This roll is now predominantly for portrait sketching practice in a Strathmore toned tan 400 paper, but it also includes enough landscape colors that you can use it for nature sketching and urban sketching. I liked it so much that I bought the identical set by GETHPEN that is actually cheaper and put it on autoship. This is not a fine art product, but it is for sketchbooks. For fine art you will need to save up and get lightfast pastel pencils. I have a big set of Carbothello but that is such a big set, I wanted something smaller for on the go sketches and this is perfect. The colors are blendable just like pastel, work on toned or sanded paper, and can be blended with water. It’s a lot of fun for the money. NOTE this product includes only 24 pencils, not all that is shown in the picture. Read more
I picked these up for just over $12 to check them out. They dont come sharpened, so I used a derwent pastel/charcoal sharpener and only had one small breakage. 🤞I can’t say for sure how they will fare as they get further sharpened but I’m optimistic. Without super high expectations, I swatched them in a Royal Talens sketchbook (cream paper) which is the first picture. They feel really good and I was particularly surprised with the color quality. They aren’t too garish/primary which is typical of lower priced sets and they felt somewhat firmer than Stabilo Carbothello pastel pencils. They feel fairly comparable in texture the the Derwent tinted charcoal and Derwent Pastel. Carbothellos are particularly soft, and are pastels vs tinted charcoal, so that makes sense. I’m not sure why the Derwent Pastel pencils are firmer. Anyway, I also swatched out several colors that I had similar matches in the Stabilo and Derwent lines (second picture) and am really very impressed. You can see how many nice earthy colors are available in this little set. It would be nice if there were a bigger range, and maybe an extra blue, but I’m super impressed as it is. Read more
These pencils are great for sketching in various colors to bring your drawings to life. They are smooth on the paper. Read more
A bit pricey but nice charcoal type crayons you can blend easily especially for doing skin tones Read more
I was leery about purchasing these because so many people complained about them breaking during sharpening. Yes, they are a hard fragile lead, but if you are careful sharpening they work just fine. I love the colors and brightness. I've used them on multiple shades of paper from white to toned, to black and they put down nice pigment. For this price, they are definitely worth the occasional broken lead. They do put off dust, they are erasable with a good eraser and they blend well. For me they are great for practice or just to get a quick sketch down. Note, if you use fixative, the charcoal fixative works better than pastel fixatives and the colors still hold up well. I'll definitely be buying these again. Read more
A very good budget friendly set of pastel pencils. Color range could be more inclusive, but for the price they fit the bill. They blend smoothly and easily. Flesh tones are easily made and they sharpen very nicely in an electric sharpener! They are great for anyone wanting to try out pastel pencils. Read more
came quickly and love em! havent used yet but all look and feel great. Read more
The colours are great and the cores seem thick which means lots of pigment. The pencils do not arrive pre-sharpened. As I was sharpening the new pencils, the leads were breaking off into the sharpener in chunks. They were already broken inside the new pencil. This happened with several of the colours and wasted a lot of the product. Read more
