Prismacolor Premier Graphite Drawing Pencils With Erasers & Sharpeners, Adult Coloring, 18-Piece Set

I have used Prismacolor color pencils for over ten years now and their markers for 3 years. I am an avid believer in the brand, which is what led me to try their graphite pencils. Until I bought this set, I was using Derwent pencils. I am pleased to say, that Prismacolor has once again impressed me as one of the best brands out there. They are a bit more expensive than some others, but the quality is well worth it. I would have bought them sooner, but waited until my skills improved with the Derwent pencils, enough to make the jump to a better quality product more worth it. Buying This set was the best thing I could have done! It gives you everything you need to get started, if you are looking for a great quality set to start out with. You will have plenty to experiment with. It is also great for pro artists that want to delve into graphite on a more serious level and need all the goodies (erasers, sanding board, etc.). I am freelance, but have been an artist for over 14 years. Amazon's price is more than fair for this product. Unless there is a dramatic change in the quality of Prismacolor's products, I will be an advocate for them until the day I die. The woodless graphite pencils (2B, 4B, 6B, 8B) are very soft and lay down wonderful "jet black" strokes. These are the best for getting high contrast work done fast and easy! Extremely dark areas don't take forever to build up (with lighter/harder grades), if you have these! Out of the 7 turquoise pencils (8B,6B,2B,B,2H,4H,6H), I have used 2B, B, 2H and 4H. They have worked beautifully. I'm guessing I would say the same for the other grades. I haven't yet tried any of the 3 water-soluble gray graphite pencils(HB,4B,8B), but am just about to. I will update this review when I do. They way things are going, I don't expect I'll be disappointed. I found the "Magic Rub Eraser" (vinyl eraser, latex free) is perfect for graphite, but especially for erasing the lighter (harder) pencil grades. For the darker stuff, I switched to the good old kneaded rubber eraser. I'm always forming it into odd shapes to fit my highlighting needs and it sucks up dark graphite very well. I've also used this kind of eraser for pastel chalks and charcoal, so I knew what to expect. Prismacolor's version isn't any different than any other brand of kneaded eraser I've tried, but it is not anything less than expected. The sanding board was a big plus in buying this set, for me. It is great for sanding your pencils to any shape you desire, giving you more leeway to produce the kind of line you want (I use it for the woodless pencils). I especially like to shape them flat, so I can get a very fine line holding it horizontally, or a nice thick line holding it vertically (or anything in between)! I would also recommend only using the provided pencil sharpener, unless you know what you've got. If you have something of lesser quality and try it on these nice, soft pencils, you might be disappointed. I haven't tried any other sharpener, so don't take my word to the bank on that, but I would stick with what they give you unless you are a more experienced graphite user. This sharpener works perfectly well anyway. I would recommend this to both professional artists and artists that want to get into graphite for the first time!

Physically, this case is much larger than I'd expected, which is probably on me since it shows how many pencils are in it and I know the average size of a pencil. To be precise, it's 6 inches wide by 9.5 inches high. That puts it a tiny bit larger than most of my travel sketchbooks, but small enough to fit in any bag I've tried. Because this has woodless pencils, I would advocate for keeping some kind of cloth with the kit. Even touching the sides of them is messy. Also, this kit doesn't come with a blending stomp. The plastic tray that holds the pencils can lift out easily, and underneath is just enough room for a small cloth and a large stomp. It might hold a small water brush (useful as this has some water soluble pencils) but I don't have one small enough to test. I like that it's easy to get any of these pencils separately. I'm going to use up the 2B much faster than the 6H so I can just pick up a pack of those (Amazon usually carries packs of 12 for each of the weights) and only refill what I need. I might swap out the 6H altogether for a 4B, which this set doesn't include (or I could hide one of those under the plastic tray). The flexibility is cool here. The sharpener is excellent, which I didn't expect. This comes with an unsharpened 8B pencil. 8B is difficult under the best or circumstances, and I didn't think the tiny sharpener they threw in would be able to handle it. It did, no breaking on the first go. I'm not sure why this needed two erasers. Both are fine. Neither smudges. Both do an excellent job. It was probably a matter of figuring out what to do with a chunk of empty space. Overall, I love this. It's a great portable set for sketching on the go.

These are perfect. Purchase these as supplies for my son's art class! Works great!

I've been using Prismacolor pencils for 10+ years. I read the reviews and I was really surprised by how poor some of them where. There's no marking on the box I received for me to know if mine are US or Mexico produced. They have a four digit code and other's have suggested these are produced in Mexico. There is definitely a noticeable difference in the shades between each pencil. The contrast between B's and the H's obviously being the most visible. The contrast among each shade of the B's is the least visible, they are the most similar and hard to distinguish among. The contrast in shade between each shade of the H's is more visible that the contrast between each of the B's. I would like to see more contrast in the B's. I bought a Prismacolor Ebony pencil for darker shading. (See photos) I will say that I have a few older, warn out, and very used Prismacolor turquoise pencils and they do have a smoother clean finish. These new ones are slightly grainier. That being said, for me, had I not read the reviews I would not have noticed. I didn't have any problems sharpening my pencils. My lead wasn't off center and didn't contain bubble pockets of missing lead. The wood on my pencils don't chip when I sharpen them. I bought my daughter a cheaper set of pencils at the craft store called Artist's Loft. I can tell that the Prismacolor pencils are superior to this brand. The Prismacolor lead is smoother than these pencils and erases easier. I've not tried some of the other pencils listed in other's reviews. I will definitely check out the other brands to see how they compare. The Faber-Castell aren't significantly more expensive so if they are leaps and bounds better than Prismacolor I will update my review.

While Prismacolor isn’t known for its graphite pencils, this is a serviceable set in a nice tin that has almost everything you need, minus perhaps a tortillon or two. Not the greatest quality and the leads tend to be off center with the wood pencils, but the hardnesses seem accurate and the addition of the aquarelle pencils was a nice surprise. Overall a good set for on the go drawing and sketching.

These pencils are nice for creating initial sketches for artwork that you will render or paint further. Nice light lines, easily erased, and a nice sturdy case for storage. I like the paint color because I have a LOT of pencils and these are easy to spot and pull for use when they are in my pencil roll; most of my others are black, gray, and dark green and hard to find the ones I want at a glance. I use a long-point sharpener and these sharpen well without breaking. The only con is that I occasionally feel a hard spot in the lead when sketching that can dent the paper…just resharpen and that goes away. Prismacolor is a good brand with quality products you can trust.

Bought for my adult son who has been sketching/drawing for as long as I can remember. Prismacolor has always been his choice brand in colored pencils, but he had not tried these before. He loves the variety of the pencils in the set and loves that they come in a tin to store them in. I read other reviews before buying, and I was unsure whether I should get them or not after reading that so many people were having trouble with the pencils arriving broken or with the erasers melted, and with leads missing from pencils or being broken inside, making them impossible to sharpen. Since he has loved the Prismacolor brand for so long and I know that they've always been a trusted brand, I went ahead and got them. He has been using them regularly since he got them with no problems. I'm not an artist myself, so I don't really know all of the technical terms for the different lead numbers or anything, but he does love the variety and says that it's very easy to draw different darknesses, especially of shading. This turned out to be a great gift after all the concern about the leads and not being sure about them. I'm glad I took the chance, and I would definitely buy these again.

These are the best white pencils I could find. I love them. Nice snd bright. I use white pencil a lot on black paper