Castle Art Supplies 120 Coloring Pencils Zipper-Case Set | Premium Quality Soft Core Colored Leads for Adult Artists, Professionals and Colourists | In Neat, Strong Carry-Anywhere Zipper Pouch

Let me just say that I am a repeat customer of Castle Art’s colored pencils. I originally bought a much smaller collection of their pencils when it was on a super clearance sale, and I was SO pleasantly surprised by the performance. I will say, I’m not someone who has a ton of experience with colored pencils; I’ve used the ones everyone has (crayola, crazy art, etc) and Prismacolor, but besides that I’ve never tried any other “professional” colored pencils. I’ve got to be honest, I personally prefer these to the Prismacolor pencils. I just feel like you get better value for your money with these. The coloring itself is super smooth (one of the main things that attracted me to the color) and I have an easy time blending colors. My only negative is that not all of the pencils arrive super sharpened. It’s like, 1 out of every 20 or so are a bit duller sharpened than the others, but as long as you have a sharpener you’ll be fine! I also find that they are decently bold, but not as bold as Prismacolor CAN be. This doesn’t affect me too much since I’m not trying to have super bold pallets, but if you are someone who wants that, you might want to do a bit more research before committing to these. Overall, a great set of pencils especially for the price! If you are a more casual artist or wanting to start to experiment with more “professional” supplies, these are a great alternative to pricy colored pencil collections. I think these would make a great gift to an artist in your life, and the color variety is pretty good, so they’ll be able to hold you over for a while. Definitely worth checking out if you have been eyeing them for a while.

UPDATE 17 APRIL 2023...since posting I received communication from Carlos at Castle Art Supplies! Even though Castle Art Supplies is not responsible for the packaging used at the Amazon warehouse or how the carriers handled the shipment, they have offered me a set of 120 pencils in the tin box! What FANTASTIC customer service! I would like to thank Castle Art Supplies, Carlos especially, for taking my disappointment in shipping breakage as their opportunity to make me happy. I truly enjoy the results of my coloring pages using the Castle Art Supplies Soft Touch colored pencils. They have dedicated customer for sure! I received my order last November and saved them for myself for Christmas, which is why my review comes later than normal for me. When I received my Castle Art Soft Touch wax pencils, I was a bit concerned about the packaging. The case holding the pencils was inside an unprotected, thin sheath of plastic. I know how things are tossed around during shipping, having witnessed it first hand on many occasions. My concern has been proven correct. Without proper packaging, I have had many difficulties with the leads being broken. For me, it is extremely frustrating to have to repeatedly sharpen new pencils because the cores are in pieces. Greens are the worst offenders, at times being more crumbs than core! It's not the way I sharpen my pencils as I have been coloring for years and know how to sharpen pencils correctly. This is a problem that I am sure others will have experienced. Now for the wonderful things! Absolutely beautiful layering of pigment, blends nicely. Fantastic for the smoother and slightly glossed paper of high end books such as Klara Markova and Hannah Karlzon. I am able to put a dozen or more layers of my combos on the paper to create pages I am very happy to share with friends and family. The Castle Art pencils also work pretty well with cheaper papers, as long as light layers are used! Press too firmly and the tooth of the paper gives out too soon. My suggestion...request protective packing before ordering. I would have been giving more stars, had the cores not been damaged. For a budget priced pencil, a good depth of color can be achieved.

Near-Prismacolor quality in my opinion, though this set lacks some of the lighter tones needed for fair skin complexions (I've been using a combination of alcohol inks for skin base tones and these pencils for subsurface scattering). These pencils, despite being soft, do hold up fairly well to burnishing, so you can get some pretty very deep and saturated coloration with some work. Doing a light color fill in an area, layering on any other tones you want, and then doing multiple passes between the two with increasingly more pressure up to the final burnishing works quite well to blend them, similar to Prismacolor pencils. Suggestions for owners: -Highly recommend the usual approach of wearing an artist's glove and/or resting your drawing hand on another sheet of paper as you render to prevent from smearing pigment around. These won't smudge like charcoal or graphite, but they will lift and smear on prolonged hand contact. -Some other reviewers have mentioned that the pencil tips break easily - I wouldn't say "easily", but these are soft core after all and will crumble a bit if you put much force on them. If you live in a warmer climate and lack air conditioning, you seriously may want to store them in the refrigerator before use - the wax medium will soften when it gets hot and that can lead to crumbling. That is true for all soft-core pencils, though, not just from this brand. -Try to avoid using automatic pencil sharpeners that don't have depth stops. Automatic pencil sharpeners are a great way to obliterate a large section of the pencil just because you need a sharp point for a small section. A hobby knife and some 300gt sandpaper also help form the tip how you need without a ton of waste. -I did end up purchasing additional singles at a local hobby store to make up gaps in the included color selection; it's a lot of pencils, but most of that arrangement is in the RGB space and not so much the lighter pigments. Overall - very happy with these, and for the few colors you may be missing, you can buy singles at most hobby stores for a few dollars. Seems really nice as a set to get your artist-grade pencil collection started.

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They are wonderful colouring pencils . They are made in China like most of colouring pencils our days. What is not a bad thing to hold the price reasonable. This set has not the chemical stench like my first castle art supplies 120 set purchased nov.2018 which needed a week airing ! This new set scent is wood ! The soft case is very well made , not one split pencil and no breakage !!!! Of course you have to invest in a decent sharpener. Mine is a Helix desktop crank handle , a really useful buy . The colours are bright and beautiful. The palette is all’s and more what you ever need on variety. They are highly pigmented and not to soft or to hard . They can hold a fine point for detailed work . I owe also the full set of goldfaber(48) of faber-castell and some polychromos . I don’t understand the hype around them. They are just not for me , the polys I mean . Castle art are in my opinion much like goldfaber . But with a much larger colour range . Like with most colouring pencils the very light colours need a bit more work than the rest . I use them for Adult colouring books and they are just perfect. I was lucky, I got the 120 set middle of March As a special offer for £29.99. But I would pay the regular price for them . They blend and layer beautifully. There is nothing not likeable in this set , for less than £0.38 per pencil including a superb case with place for a few accessories like rubber and sharpener I can only advise to buy it before it is again sold out ! Like so many times the past months .

got it during a sales. love that it comes with a case! lovely colours and easy to blend.

I've included as many photos as possible because I am so impressed by this brand. I am not an artist but I enjoy coloring. This set is so well packaged for shipment, it was in three boxes. First, I purchased the 120 color pencil set, the case itself is really sturdy, I won't need anything more durable however, I do wish there was a carrying handle on the side of the case. When you open the case, you'll find a tutorial booklet, a color and product guide, a tester sheet, a help card, a booklet on care, color theory and techniques - this is wonderful for the beginner (like myself). Some reviews mentioned cracked or broken tips, I only had one that was cracked in half, once I removed the broken piece, I was able to use that half without it breaking further. If you're going to use the tester sheet, check each pencil to ensure it matches the number on the sheet, once I made it through the yellows and pinks, I assumed they were all in order, but some of my blues were not and I ended up coloring the wrong blocks on the sheet before I caught the mistake. When applying the pencils to paper, the color goes down like butter, it is so smooth and so beautiful to use, I never thought about colored pencils in that way before but these are top quality, just absolutely wow! Not one of them broke/splintered during coloring and I did use more pressure but the tips remained intact. The blending is just superb and the pigmentation is stunning. I haven't had to sharpen any pencils yet, so I can't write on this area to know how the tips will hold up, but Castle has provided sharpening techniques in their booklet (wish a sharpener was included). I love these pencils and the quality Castle Arts has put into these products. 💯 recommend.

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