PANDAFLY Professional Colored Charcoal Pencils Drawing Set, Skin Tone Colored Pencils, Pastel Chalk Pencils for Sketching, Shading, Coloring, Layering & Blending, 24 Colors

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.

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.

These pencils are great for sketching in various colors to bring your drawings to life. They are smooth on the paper.

Please be warned: DON'T sharpen these with an electric sharpener. In fact, don't sharpen any charcoal or soft pastel pencils with an electric. It can kill your sharpener. Yep, speaking from experience. The pencils themselves perform decently. As you can see in the first pic, they have good color payoff for the price. They are also water soluble, which I only recently learned that charcoal is water soluble, which was part of what sparked my interest in buying charcoal pencils. I also like that they smudge fairly well. The most difficult thing about these pencils is how hard they are to sharpen. I think getting a fine point will be impossible (maybe this is true for most charcoal/soft pastel pencils due to their crumbly nature). You'll see in the pics I got crummy points on even the "best" sharpened pencil, the red one. The worst was, obviously, the green one. A tip on sharpening: I tried four different sharpeners on these, the electric first, then three handheld ones. Oddly, a Revlon makeup pencil sharpener with two different sized holes worked the best. I think these makeup sharpeners are easy to find on Amazon or a drugstore for around $2. I'm researching sharpeners dedicated to charcoal given my new interest in this medium. I did try a standard double hole metal sharpener that proved useless with these pencils. The small hole was too small and the large too large. I do appreciate that the pencil names were printed at the very end of the pencil so they'll remain visible until the pencils are used up. However, I would've preferred the names be spelled out. Names like "WH" and "BK" are easy enough to figure out, but "BN" and "PUS" are too tricky for me. So, the jury's out on this one. Will post an update if I find they're not for me or if they're surprisingly good in action. Explanation of photos: 1. swatch/blend/water solubility test on cold press watercolor paper 2. blending test with two colors each - cold press watercolor paper 3. poor sharpening test on green pencil 4. sharpening test on red pencil (best I could achieve with sharpeners I own) 5. swatch/smudge on Strathmore black mixed media paper 6. swatch/smudge on Strathmore toned mixed media paper

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.

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.

I start to sharpen them with a pencil sharpener, continue with a craft knife, it is easy to sharpen them this way. It is very pleasant to work with the pencils, easy to blend them.

Ideal for the project they were purchased for

Son lápices altamente pigmentados, más blandos que un lápiz de color tradicional y más duros que un lápiz pastel, aún que se asemejan a estos últimos. Se mezclan y difuminan muy bien, es muy placentero dibujar con ellos, los recomiendo ampliamente. El paquete llegó a tiempo y en buenas condiciones

人物デッサン用に購入しました。凄くいいです。木炭、パステルに比べて初手からある程度細かい仕事ができるので、短時間でまとまった仕上がりになります。 私はこの画材でそこまで精密な線を描こうとは思っていないので、100円ショップの鉛筆削りで普通に削って問題なく描いています。大きい画面で、画材の面を使って広範囲にザッと着色したい場合は、カッターか小刀でもう少し芯を露出させる必要がありそうです。 期待していたのは描線よりも混色とぼかし込みのやりやすさで、これは期待通りかそれ以上でしたね…。描いて塗り、指でこすりこむ、の繰り返しでサクサク描き進めることが出来ます。目元など細かめの部分は綿棒を使ってこすり込んでいます。カラー展開は、人物画に特化した商品タイトル通りジョーンブリヤン～茶系が色々揃っています。私はここまで色数使わず混色で描いちゃうので余りそうかな…。陰影をしっかり付ける人なら、このくらい数があった方がいいのかも。欲を言えば、原色の黄色と青がなにがしか欲しかったですが…。 今後は水や油でぼかせるか、他の画材との親和性など、色々試しながら愛用していきたいです。

These charcoal pencils come in a big range of 24 colours, are easy to sharpen and don't break off like the cheaper ones. Very happy with them