For me this was one of the most troublesome issues of me reviews, artists were so adamant in knowing if a core was wax or oil. The great thing about both oil and wax based colouring pencils is the lustre, intense colours and satin like finish they provide.

On discovering this I quickly became aware of the fact that I was not delivering accurate information in my reviews. But, there were a few cases where people received damaged pencils that kept on breaking when sharpened. They’re a great choice for beginners and students because you can still make quality art without spending a lot. My favourite feature of this pencil set is that it has a colour chart on the inside of the tin for quick and easy identification.Check out our article on common mistakes when using colored pencil to make sure you’re getting the best use out of whichever colored pencils you choose! As for the colour selection in this 48 set, I do find that there are too many similar reds and yellows. My only issue with the Art-n-Fly colored pencils is that, I would love to see more sets available, not necessarily a whopping 120 set, although there is no doubt that would be nice, a 72 set or even a 60 set would be enough and perhaps a 24 and 36 set available. The best value artist grade coloured pencils have to be the Bruynzeel Design Colour pencils, these are great quality, highly pigmented wax pencils. Prismacolor on the other hand is almost impossible to get and those few places that do sell them charge more for a set of 24 than for the 36 set of Lyra.

Both are artist grade materials and some brands will use both binding agents to manufacture their pencils.

With a huge color choice of up to a 120 set available, just about any color approach imaginable can be achieved with these. They behave in exactly the same way as premium oil-based pencils so you can use blender pencils, burnishers, baby oil and other products to give you a more professional look but all of the images below have been completed with just the Marco pencils, without any other products. I eventually changed the name of the channel because I wanted to branch out and review markers, pastels, watercolors etc and naming the channel Coloured Pencil Reviews was a little bit too restricting, hence the change.

Luuk Minkman is a seasoned artist renowned for creating photorealistic art with colored pencils and markers. These color pencils are environmentally friendly since it is not made from rainforest wood, which protects not only your artwork but also our natural forest. For the most part, and I know not all colored pencil artists think like this, but a lot of us do or at the very least used to, but most of us when we think wax based colored pencils we think soft cores and oil based pencils we imagine a harder based core. The tips of oil pencils are much more resistant to breaking than wax pencils, so techniques like burnishing where the artist applies pressure to create thick layers of pencil can be achieved without breakage. With an impressive LFI or LFII rating, the majority of these pencils live up to Derwent's claim of being 100% lightfast under museum conditions.Superior Coloured Pencils: Our high-quality drawing pencils feature a rich pigment for vibrant, long-lasting artworks. Like other Faber-Castell lines, these come at a premium but for those wanting some of the best you can’t go wrong with these.

Before we get into the nitty gritty of this article, please let me say that I am in no way telling artists how they should or should not categories their supplies, how we all categorise our art supplies is a completely personal affaire as is the way we use them. Each pencil gives a huge range of hues from the palest hint of colour to a bright, bold, dense pigment depending on layering and pressure. If you follow the link you can see my speed drawing of Buzz Lightyear, fully demonstrating the performance of the colored pencils and markers together.

We worked on these until we got them right- our best-selling, buttery-smooth colored pencils in even more shades!