Choosing the best colored pencils depends on the age and skills of the artist. Many young children prefer felt-tip pens or paint over pencils because they produce richer color and don't need to be sharpened. Drawing with pencils is more difficult, but the skills to work with them will come in handy in the future. Therefore, it is important to choose pencils with which it will be convenient and pleasant to draw, they must have the following properties:
- safety;
- ease of use (to lie well in the hand);
- brightness;
- strength;
- availability.
The money spent on buying cheap pencils often turns out to be thrown to the wind: they are not so pleasant to draw with, the stylus can be brittle and break immediately upon sharpening. Such pencils leave a pale color on paper, it takes effort to draw clear lines, which are then easily erased, and the palette leaves much to be desired. A high-quality product will be easily sharpened without breaking, economically spent and give bright, saturated colors, finished works will not be erased from paper and fade over time, pleasing the eye for a long time.
Pencils can be used for drawing from the age of one. Crayola "Mini Kids" is ideal for this purpose. From the age of three, you can start using Stabilo Trio and Kores "Kolores" children's pencils. Older school children and amateur adults will be interested in Faber-Castell and Koh-I-Noor pencils. Professionals have higher quality requirements, and their choice may already be on expensive well-known brands such as Derwent or LYRA.
Not all colored pencils are of really good quality. Some of them are too thick and uncomfortable, others paint fadedly, and still others require constant sharpening.Why is it so important to choose really good colored pencils for a child? In fact, everything is very simple. The counters of modern shops selling stationery are simply overflowing with all kinds of sets of colored pencils of various manufacturers, brands, varieties and shades. It is simply impossible not to get confused and confused in all this diversity. Do not rush to buy, carefully study the entire range presented and choose the best and highest quality colored pencils.
For kids, just learning the basics of fine art, pencils with a body are most suitable. They will help the child quickly learn how to correctly place the fingers while drawing, and not clench the pencil in a fist, as most kids who have not yet reached the age of three do. In addition, triangular colored pencils do not roll off the table during the drawing process and allow the young artist to focus exclusively on creativity, without distracting him from constant tilting and searching for colored pencils under the table.
If there are no triangular colored pencils in the store, you can buy drawing tools with six pronounced edges. But it is better to refuse to buy colored pencils with a round section. They are only suitable for children with an already formed correct grip of the pencil.
When choosing colored pencils, pay attention to their thickness. It is more convenient for children under three years old to draw with pencils with a thickened wooden body, the diameter of which is about a centimeter. Such a tool will sit firmly in the fingers of the child and will not break if pressed too hard.
Give preference to soft colored pencils. Firstly, it is much easier to draw with them than with solid ones. Secondly, soft colored pencils reproduce brighter ones. And, thirdly, the crumbs will not have to press hard on the pencil in order to draw what they have planned.
The best manufacturers of colored pencils
Poor-quality wood and harmful dyes in the composition of the cores of colored pencils can be the result of frequent breakdowns, faded drawings, damage to drawing paper, and most importantly, a child's bad mood.When choosing colored pencils, do not try to buy the cheapest set. It is better to give preference to products from trusted manufacturers who have proven themselves in the modern stationery market and have received many positive reviews from satisfied customers.
The best manufacturers of colored pencils are: KOH-I-NOOR, JOVI, Crayola, SILWERHOF, as well as the Siberian Pencil Factory, which produces colored pencils of the Russian Pencil and Siberian Cedar series.
Pencil is a very simple drawing material with which artists start their creative journey. Even any kid makes his first lines with a pencil before moving on to more complex material. But not such a pencil and primitive, if you study in more detail. He is able to help the artist create sketches, various illustrations, drawings and paintings. Pencils have their own types and it is important for any artist to be able to choose the right material for their work so that the illustration has a presentable appearance. So let's figure it out how to choose a pencil for drawing?
The principle of the pencil
When a person presses down on a pencil, the rod slides over the paper, and the graphite particles break down into small particles and linger in the paper fiber. Thus, a line is obtained. In the process of drawing, the graphite rod is erased, so it is sharpened. The most familiar way is a special sharpener, you can also use a regular blade. It is important to understand that this method requires special care and preparation in order to avoid cuts. But thanks to the blade, you can make the desired thickness and shape of graphite.
Types of a simple pencil
The basic definition of a pencil is a graphite rod framed in a wood or plastic frame. A simple graphite pencil comes in various types. They differ in their degree of hardness.
Human eyes can distinguish a large number of shades of gray, and to be precise - 150 tones. Despite this, the artist must have at least three types of simple pencil in his arsenal - hard, medium soft and soft. With their help, you can create a three-dimensional drawing. Different degrees of rigidity will be able to convey the contrast, you just need to skillfully handle them.
You can determine the degree of softness of graphite using the symbols (letters and numbers) that are printed on the frame of the pencil. The scale of hardness and softness are different. We will consider three types of notation:
Russia
- T- solid.
- M- soft.
- TM- medium softness.
Europe
- H- solid.
- B- soft.
- HB- medium softness.
- F- middle tone, which is determined between H and HB.
- #1 (B)- soft.
- #2 (HB)- medium softness.
- #2½ (F) Medium between hard and medium soft.
- #3 (H)- solid.
- #4 (2H)- very hard.
It is impossible not to take into account such a moment as the manufacturer. Sometimes, even the same softness of pencils from different manufacturers will differ significantly from each other due to their quality.
A palette of shades of a simple pencil
It is worth noting that the softness of pencils can vary significantly. In other words, softness and hardness are further divided into tonality. The H designation is considered the hardest, while B is the softest. It's not surprising if there are whole sets in the store from 9H (hardest) to 9B (softest).
The most common and popular is the HB pencil. It has moderate softness and hardness, making it easy to sketch. With it, you can enhance dark places, thanks to its light softness.
To enhance the contrast of the picture, it is worth purchasing 2B. Artists rarely use very hard pencils, but this is a matter of taste. This type of pencil is more suitable for drawing schemes or building perspectives for landscapes, because it is almost invisible in the image. It is impossible not to take into account that the high hardness of the pencil allows you to make a smooth transition on the hair or add a barely noticeable tone without fear of darkening.
At the beginning of work, it is worth using a hard pencil, especially if you are not sure about the result of the illustration. A soft pencil is designed to work out the shadows and highlight the desired lines.
Hatching and shading
Regardless of the softness, one must always remember that the pencil must be sharpened sharply. Strokes and lines are best obtained with a hard pencil due to the fact that the lead does not dull quickly, but remains in its pointed shape for a long time. Shading is preferred for a soft pencil, but it is better to draw with the side of the stylus so that the material is applied evenly.
Features of working with a pencil
Do not forget that the pencil lead is a rather fragile thing. Every time a pencil falls to the floor or is hit, its core is damaged or even broken. As a result, it will be inconvenient to draw, because the stylus will crumble or fall out of its wooden frame.
Outcome. The information worth knowing is quite voluminous for a novice artist. But it is very useful, because it will help in creating future masterpieces. Over time, knowledge will automatically suggest which simple pencil is needed in a given situation. Most importantly, don't be afraid to experiment.
In the workshops of past centuries, where ingenious works of art were created, there were no luxurious excesses among the materials for drawing. Simple black coal could create a real masterpiece. For inspiration, only nature in the form of a person or an ordinary piece of furniture was needed. But progress, of course, does not stand still, and it has had a tremendous impact on the artistic field. First of all, professional drawing pencils have undergone changes. There are so many of them on the shelves of stores that they just run up their eyes when choosing. Therefore, we will try to consider in detail what types of pencils are and for what purposes they are intended.
Black on white
This is the first material that was widely used among the great artists of the past centuries. It is well suited for tinting certain areas of the canvas, and it is also very convenient for them to draw the silhouettes of a person.
Today it is widely used. With this means for drawing, artists convey their feelings to the canvas, thereby not particularly focusing on the colorfulness of the work.
Such coal is made mainly from or willow. Relatively recently, a lead pencil appeared on the market. In wide circles, it is called graphite.
Such a tool is suitable for a thorough study of the image on the canvas. It is better to sharpen it or with sandpaper.
Graphite charcoal and Conte pencil
A black drawing pencil is the basis for writing a masterpiece. After all, a sketch made with such a tool is a "framework" for future creation.
The graphite charcoal and the Conte pencil are very important tools for the artistic process, as each brings its own unique mark and hue to the paper.
When working with a drawing, it is still worth using different materials, for example, combining wax with graphite or pressed charcoal. The expansion of this arsenal will allow expressing various aspects of the work with all sorts of techniques. Carnadash Conté or graphite charcoal is good for sketching landscapes, street parks, still lifes, cinemas, and so on.
Discover the variety of black shades, and then your drawing will change significantly.
colorful abundance
In order for the creation to sparkle with new "emotions", you will need to draw. Professional and high-quality, they will help to carry out the most daring experiments on the canvas.
In most cases, these pencils are sold in sets, but if necessary, they can be purchased separately. They have many shades, but in hardness they are significantly inferior to graphite ones. But still, the softness of the stylus in such an instrument can be very different.
Very often the concepts of "chalk", "pastel" and "chalk" are confused. The first material from this list is made mainly from natural components: iron oxide, gypsum or coal. The second tool consists of pasty mixtures based on gum or resin. The pastel leaves behind a vague trace, which is slightly reminiscent of chalk, but has a wider gamut. After finishing work, put such material in a box, as it is soft and breaks very easily.
Wax miracle
Professional drawing pencils of this type are suitable for performing work of a different nature and in different techniques. They include natural or synthetic wax with colored pigments. Wax pencils practically do not blur, thereby simplifying the drawing process.
When working with such material, it is worth considering that it has a very soft base, traces still remain. Therefore, before using, pay attention to its sharpness. If the tip is blunt, then dip the tool in hot water and give it the desired shape, or use a regular kitchen knife to cut vegetables.
Suitable for those people who strive to make a bright, but at the same time calm picture, where clarity flows into smooth outlines.
Question about white
Any professional drawing kit is complete without a white pencil. Many novice artists are wondering why he is at all. After all, you will not see it on an ordinary light canvas or paper.
But still, a white pencil has special functions in this matter:
1. With this tool, you can make drawings on colored paper, highlight silhouettes over charcoal or sepia.
2. If the creation turned out to be catchy, then with the help of this product you can muffle the main color, reducing the brightness by several tones.
3. Also, using a white pencil, you can blur the prevailing shade, while obtaining a new pattern.
Basically, materials of this type are used for graphic images and are drawn on dark paper.
watery patterns
Professional good not only in terms of the fact that they are easy to "manage", but also that the need to use paints of this type disappears.
The brightness of the colors of such an instrument is impressive, nothing can compare with them.
The number of shades in the palette is very large, they can be mixed, but you should not get carried away, as the expected result will not work if you overdo it.
When choosing pencils of this type, it is also worth considering that they are not erased by an eraser, and if such an intervention is made, the result will be dirt. Here you will be helped by brushes and special paper, which is designed for watercolor.
Faber-Castell
Professional drawing pencils are not always of good quality, here you need to know what to choose. Materials from the German firm Faber-Castell are a priority for most artists who have been making art for many years.
This campaign specializes specifically in stationery, but the main advantage is still pencils. They took care of the preferences of each client and therefore created several types of such materials.
The first group was called "Red". This series is intended for children from 3 to 12 years old. These pencils are inferior in quality, they are very hard and dull, but just right for training.
The second group - "Blue" - are materials for those who draw as a hobby, but they are also great for professionals. In this category, both colored pencils and watercolors are available.
The third, final group is "Green". The products of this plan are designed for real professionals.
Here all the nuances are taken into account, there are materials of different types that allow you to emphasize the peculiarity of the work. They are also resistant to light, which is undoubtedly the main advantage.
color advantage
Well, having considered all professional drawing pencils, we can say with confidence that it all depends on your personality and desire to create something unusual. The priority for today remains the color segment in the work, but no one has canceled the black-and-white variations.
Discover your secret desires and emotions and feel free to go shopping for professional pencils. After all, nothing soothes as the process of working on a drawing created by one's own hands.
Colour pencils. Probably, in childhood everyone had them, but then we had no reason to think about which ones to choose. The pencils were those that the adults managed to get for us. But now we ourselves have matured, the old pencils have disappeared somewhere, and suddenly we are drawn to draw (after all, there are so many seductive coloring pages for adults in bookstores, well, how can you not peck here). Or maybe they have their own children, and they need their own, new, best colored pencils. So which ones to choose? After all, there are many different brands on the market at a wide variety of prices - from tens of rubles to tens of thousands of rubles per box! What is the difference? Which ones are better? Which ones are worse?
When some time ago I felt the urge to draw myself, the abundance of brands of pencils on the market plunged me into a real stupor. The first I bought mysterious for me at that time watercolor Lyra Osiris pencils. The pencils turned out to be very cool - bright and opaque. But there were regular, non-watercolor pencils out there somewhere… While scouring the internet periodically for the most informative reviews on the subject of my sudden interest, I stumbled upon Diana Jay’s “Giant Budget Pencil Comparison” on YouTube. Having chosen the multi-colored Giotto sticks recommended by the video, I calmed down for a while. But only for a while. Curiosity, once waking up, did not want to go back to sleep, forcing me to slowly buy more boxes of those and those and those pencils over there.
Why is Derwent spoken of with a breath? Who decided that Polychromos is the only right choice for an artist? What do people still find in Koh-I-Noor? What are they - inaccessible to the Russians Prismacolor? And also, is it worth supporting a domestic manufacturer, and are inexpensive “Chinese” so bad?
By the time my collection exceeded 20 boxes, I realized that information should be shared and began to prepare this review. Meanwhile, the collection grew even more, and more and more new brands took their places on the shelves. So now I have every reason to believe that you are now reading the biggest comparison of pencils on the Internet today, since there are exactly 50 types of them. (Yes, yes, “wow!”, I know).
Here they are - tested pencils. Arranged in ascending order of cost from left to right and from bottom to top (the most expensive in the bottom row, the cheapest in the top).
The place of Derwent Coloursoft missing in the photo, kept by their owner and not showing up for the photo session, is taken by Derwent Drawing. They did not participate in the tests, because, in my opinion, they do not belong to ordinary colored pencils.
Here they are by name, arranged in descending order of price in terms of 1 pencil.
1. Holbein
2. Caran d "Ache Luminance
3 Van Gogh
4. Polychromos Faber-Castell
5. Bruunzeel Design
6. Stabilo Original
7Mitsubishi Polycolor
8. Tombow Irojiten (Volume 3)
9. Tombow
10. Lyra Color Stripe
11. Derwent Coloursoft
12. Lyra Rembrandt
13. Blick Portrait Set
14. Bruno Visconti ColorPro
15. Karmina Cretacolor
16. Prismacolor Verithin
17. Polycolor Koh-I-Noor
18. Prismacolor Soft
19. Progresso Koh-I-Noor
20 Marco Raffine
21. "Supersticks kinderfest. Pastell Mix"
22. Bruunzeel Chameleon
23. Lyra Osiris Tri
24. Bruunzeel Machine
25.STABILO GREENcolors
26 Milan 231
27. Crayola
28. Kores Colores DUO
29. Micador
30.Colorino
31 Faber-Castell Eco
32. Phoenix
33. Artberry Erich Krause
34. Adel Blackline
35. Mapped
36. Noris Club
37. Sonnet
38. Giotto Stilnovo
39. Derwent Lakeland
40. Carioca
41. Tom and Jerry
42. NORMAN factory Krasin
43. Kalyaka-malyaka
44. Lejoys Recycled
45. Hatber
46. Siberian cedar
47. Centrum Plastic
48. Russian pencil
49. ArtSpace Cosmonauts
50. The Art of the Krasin Factory
I didn’t buy everything, some kind people gave me something to test, for which special thanks to them. However, one way or another, I held all of the listed pencils in my hands, sharpened, painted and tortured in every possible way in order to finally get an answer to the question - which colored pencils are the best?
I’ll make a reservation right away that the review will focus only on ordinary colored pencils - not watercolors. I hope we get to watercolors in another review. For ease of comparison, all the parameters that it occurred to me to compare are shown in a single table.
All testing was carried out on ordinary cheap office paper, so that all pencils were on an equal footing, and excuses traditional for one well-known brand like “our pencils are wonderful, it’s just that your paper is bad” do not work. What is good for forty-nine kinds of pencils should be good for the fiftieth. Dot. I have a test for a wide range of users who will never buy a sketchbook for fifteen hundred rubles.
Now let's talk about my amateur rating system. Professionals, of course, will argue with her, but even without me they know which pencils to prefer. And for ordinary people for whom these tests were done, my rating system, I hope, will be close.
Looking at the table below, you will see white and gray bars. In white, the results of the comparison are given for certain parameters, and in gray, points are awarded. Sometimes, where possible, points were scored directly in the white columns (for example, scores for brightness, water resistance, etc.). Sometimes the average score between several marks was calculated in the gray column in order to avoid excessive influence of not too significant parameters on the overall result. Some properties of pencils were not evaluated at all, since they are not of equal importance for all potential buyers (for example, the age of the “target audience”, the presence or absence of metallics in the palette, etc.). Signs that do not directly affect product quality were not evaluated (for example, the country of production, because, as we will see below, German quality is not always and not in everything superior to Chinese).
So let's get started. I advise you to open the table in a separate tab (just click on it).
The first columns are introductory and, as I said, not evaluated. The names of pencils, manufacturing companies, the birthplace of the brand and the country of manufacture - everything is clear here.
As for the age category of citizens for whom certain pencils are intended, a rather shaky area begins here. Conventionally, I divided the tested pencils into professional (artistic), children's and "hobby" ones - moreover, the latter differ from "children's" ones only in a higher price and in that they are not positioned by the manufacturer as "from 0 to 3".
Further in the table you will find a column where the binders (base, base) of the leads of each brand are indicated. In non-watercolor pencils, they are of two types: wax-like substances (wax) - mainly paraffins, rarely - with the addition of natural wax; or oil (oil). What exactly is meant by "oil" - whether linseed or all the same oil, they will definitely never tell us, especially considering that even digging up information about the base substance of certain pencils is not an easy task. This is not written on the boxes, on the official websites of manufacturers - too. Those who are interested are forced to collect bits and pieces of information bit by bit all over the Internet (most of all I recommend for these purposes the foreign online store Dickblick and all kinds of eBay with Amazons). In addition, I used the article "Oil around us", for which many thanks to the author.
What, exactly, is the difference? the inexperienced reader will ask. Wax or oil: so what?
If you draw for your own pleasure, there is not much difference. There are not very good oil pencils, and excellent wax ones, but expensive wax ones are more likely to give you an unpleasant effect of a whitish film covering the drawing and reducing its brightness (Bruunzeel Design, Van Gogh and Prismacolor Soft especially sin with this).
Also for the sake of interest, I indicated the degree of availability of pencils for the Russian buyer: 0 - inaccessible (which can only be bought at online auctions or from hands), 1 - inaccessible (sold in 1-3 online stores in the country, and even then not always) and 2 - available. Although quite recently I was sure that in the 21st century there are no goods inaccessible to the buyer at all - if there was money and desire, but attempts to buy Holbein, Marco, Tombow and some other brands in Moscow quickly convinced me of the opposite.
The criteria that influenced the final assessment were:
Price per pencil- was determined, as you understand, by dividing the cost of the purchased set by the number of pieces in the set. I must say right away that where the budget allowed, I tried to take boxes with the maximum number of pencils - alas, the rule “wholesale cheaper” practically does not work for this product. The most expensive of the purchased ones turned out to be Holbein, Van Gogh and Caran d "Ache Luminance; the cheapest ones were Krasin's Art Factory. I divided the entire space between them into six zones. Pencils more expensive than 100 rubles / piece received 0 points, costing 50-99 rub / piece - 1 point each, 30-49 rubles / piece - 2 points each, 20-29 rubles - 3 points each, 10-19 rubles / piece - 4 points each and everything that is cheaper than 10 rubles / piece - 5 each points.
Section shape- here I allowed myself to be biased and start from my own preferences, but I love round pencils, I am indifferent to triangular ones and do not recognize hexagonal ones at all. Therefore, I scored 2 points for round ones, 1 for triangular ones, and 0 for hexagonal ones. By the way, the manufacturers themselves, apparently, agree with my calculations, since most expensive pencils are round, and most cheap ones are hexagonal. If you have different views, you can adjust the final grade according to your own preferences.
Pencil thickness evaluated according to form. For round - by the diameter of the section, for triangular - by the height of the triangle in the section, for hexagonal - by the distance between opposite flat faces. And always on the principle of "the thicker the better." And there's nothing to giggle about. It’s more convenient to hold a well-fed cylinder in your fingers than a thin “toothpick” (although everything is individual here). However, as it turned out, there is a limit to everything. And this limit lies approximately in the region of 8.5-9 mm. That is, Derwent Coloursoft 8 mm thick is a horror how convenient, and Artberry Erich Krause at 9.4 mm is just horror. Because the hand is wildly tired and it is generally not clear what kind of sadist intended these logs for children. Therefore, Coloursoft receives the maximum 3 points in this category, and Artberry - 1. For bullying customers.
And in general, from 7.5 mm - 3 points, 7.2-7.4 mm - 2 points, 7.0-7.2 mm - 1 point, less than 7 mm - 0 points. It may seem that plus or minus a couple of millimeters does not solve anything, but in fact it is a noticeable difference.
Lead diameter also affects the drawing process. The thicker the stylus, the more convenient it is to paint over large areas with it. The thinner (and harder) the lead, the more likely it is to sharpen it sharply for better drawing detail. But if it is quite possible to sharpen a thick solid rod sharply for fine work, then painting over half an A4 page with a two-millimeter colored stick will, to put it mildly, not be too easy. Because - what? Correctly! The thicker, the better.
The most “fat” Progresso pencils, which consist entirely of varnished lead, received 6 points, Color Stripe pencils with lead open on one side - 5 points, pencils with 4-5 mm lead - 4 points, from 3.5 to 3.9 mm - 3 points, 3.1-3.4 mm - 2 points, 3 mm - 1 point, less than 3 mm - 0 points. There are two exceptions to this scale: the Stabilo Original with 2.5mm lead and the Prismacolor Verithin with 2mm lead both get 3 points because their leads are made thin on purpose to allow for sharp sharpening and fine detail rather than because the manufacturer saved on pigments. In general, the “classic of the genre” for professional pencils is 3.8 mm.
Package. Another important property of pencil sets is the material from which the box is made. Agree, a metal pencil case is much more convenient and durable (especially in children's hands) than a cardboard box. My personal rating of pencil boxes is as follows:
1) metal - 3 points;
2) thick cardboard with plastic inserts-pallets (like Prismacolor Soft) or thick cardboard, similar in properties to hardboard, with drawers (like Bruunzeel Design - not without convenience, but unreasonably bulky) - 2 points;
3) ordinary cardboard boxes with plastic liners-pallets, as well as plastic cartridge cases - 1 point. The bandolier from Milan, in which each pencil has its own cell, proved its complete failure: the pencil is pushed into the cell with difficulty, it is removed with effort, the box itself does not really lock in the open position - in general, complete nonsense. And it adds a good 200-300 rubles to the price!
4) ordinary thin cardboard and polyethylene - 0 points, such packaging is not for storage and not for ease of use, it is purely to sell the goods.
The richness of the palette. Palettes of cheap pencils are usually limited to 12-24-36 colors, rarely - 48. Palettes of expensive pencils are richer: from 72 to 240 shades (240 are limited Japanese Mitsubishi uni color). It is often possible to buy pencils individually and compose or supplement your own set, which is very convenient. Although, to be completely honest, a good artist will draw a masterpiece with twelve pencils, but a bad one and the world's largest set of Felissimo 500 pencils will not save
Naturally, the principle “the more the better” applies again in this category. The gradation of marks is as follows: more than 100 colors - 5 points, from 50 to 100 colors - 4 points, 48 colors - 3 points, 36 colors - 2 points, 24 colors - 1 point, less than 24 colors - 0 points. The undoubted leaders are Prismacolor Soft and Holbein with their 150 shades, the honorable second place is occupied by Faber-Castell's Polychromos with a palette of 120 colors.
For reference, the table shows an enlarged quantitative composition of the tested sets by color. Quite arbitrary, to be honest, because the more shades a set contains, the more difficult it is to classify one or another color as a certain gamut. Everything from ocher to plum is assigned to brown, to blue - incl. turquoise, to blue - the color of the sea wave; Separately, a group of peach, salmon and others like them was singled out as a corporal one). Neons, metallics and magics with multi-colored slates are also placed in separate columns. All this diversity was not evaluated in any way, since the palette is a matter of purely personal preferences and production needs. In all cases, the number of shades is equal to the number of pencils, except for two: Colorino and Kores Colores DUO. These are double-edged "bicolors", each side of which has its own color.
Here are the coloring pages of all sets, you can check them out. I made them in two versions - photos (clickable up to FullHD) and scans (given as icons, if there is interest - you can expand it, they will open in a separate window).
In the photo, the color rendition may limp a little (the paper had to be “bleached” with Photoshop, despite the fact that the pictures were taken in bright sunlight). Scans are bad because the scanner does not “read” the lightest shades well and is not particularly friendly with metallics and neons, so you have to make allowances for this. But the overall picture is more or less plausible.
Drawings (all clickable, open in separate windows)
No. 1 (photo) 
№1 (scan) 
No. 2 (photo) 
№2 (scan) 
No. 3 (photo) 
№3 (scan) 
No. 4 (photo) 
№4 (scan) 
Next in the program - lead hardness. In domestic pencil building, the letters T (Hardness) and M (Softness) are used to designate it, in the western one, respectively, H (Hardness) and B (Blackness).
The hardness turned out to be interesting, because at first I tried to evaluate it according to my own feelings and for some time I was sure that there is nothing softer than Polychromos, because they fit so well and softly on paper. But the honor of the researcher demanded more objective data, and, having interrogated Yandex, I found out how the hardness of pencils was measured according to Soviet GOST (more precisely, OTU RST RSFSR 391-86). And it was measured using a set of reference metal plates of a certain hardness from specially selected alloys of lead, tin, copper and antimony. The technology is as follows: a sharpened pencil with maximum pressure is drawn over the plates in ascending order of their hardness. On plates that are softer than a pencil, an in-depth mark remains. The first plate, on which no trace remains, is considered to be equal in hardness to the test pencil.
As you understand, I didn’t have records, but then the Internet came to the rescue again. Did you know what is the main working part of many industrial hardness testers? And I didn't know. But it turns out - simple pencils Koh-I-Noor! Those. The hardness of Koh-i-Nur's leads in the industry is taken as a standard. Well, how could I not take advantage of this, given the presence of monoliths from this company in my bins! Thick leads took on the role of test plates with hardness HB, 2B, 4B, 6B and 8B, plus in some cases I took ordinary wooden pencils H and 2H. If a sharpened colored pencil was not able to scratch through the “reference” lead, its hardness was equal to this lead. Any doubts were interpreted in favor of greater firmness.
And then an amazing thing happened: Polychromos suddenly turned out to be not soft, but hard! I was sad, deciding that all my measurements were not worth a damn (I was sure that there was no harder than 5V! And when this hypothetical “5V” easily scratched the HB lead, I naturally did not believe my eyes) . The same thing happened with the soft-writing Colorino and Kores… But then I pulled myself together and checked a few more pencils, the hardness of which was known to me (Soviet colored ones, marked “2M-4M” and a couple of simple ones were used)… the method worked. The Soviet "Art" regularly scratched 4B and just as regularly rubbed off about 2B (which is why I assigned them a hardness of 3B in the table).
This is how I got Zen and realized that the physical hardness of a colored pencil, unlike a simple one, does not affect how easily and brightly it colors paper. I carefully entered all the measurement results into the table, although, as you understand, I do not pretend to absolute accuracy of measurements.
Brightness.
The brightness of the pigment applied in one layer was evaluated. It was estimated, as you know, by eye. For juicy saturated colors, pencils received 5 points, for a pale appearance - up to zero. With rare exceptions, there is a direct relationship between price and brightness. The higher the price, the brighter the lead draws. Anything that costs less than 17 rubles per pencil will not please you with the quality of the drawing. Separately, I will mention the Lejoys Recycled brand, made from recycled materials and the only one awarded with an honorary “0” rating. During the production process, the manufacturer obviously forgot that the main goal of the pencil factory is not the beautiful disposal of old cardboard, but that the produced pencils can leave marks on paper that are visible to the naked eye. Then I’ll tell you separately about the wonderful qualities of this product.
The smoothness of the application of the coloring layer.
You can safely consider this indicator far-fetched, but it seems important to me. Let me explain what I mean, and perhaps you will agree with me. Good pencils with solid hatching with strong pressure lay down without gaps, without pellets, without scratching the paper - i.e. an even layer, as if it were paint, not a pencil. Bad pencils scratch paper, crumple, their strokes do not want to merge into a single layer, they look different-colored due to poorly mixed pigment in the stylus, and so on, so on, so on. The quality of the layer was evaluated on a five-point scale, and only for special achievements two "Chinese" (hello Lejoys Recycled) and one "Russian" were awarded an honestly earned zero.
Number of layers
Not only artists, but just lovers of drawing know that a pencil can and should be applied in several layers. The number of such layers depends both on the quality of the pencil itself and on the quality of the paper.
In the test, I tried to paint the maximum number of layers that a pencil can give, but I did not include this number in the calculation of points, since the eighth, barely noticeable layer, hardly squeezed out of the average quality of the lead, is of little interest to anyone - due to the fact that it does not improve but rather spoils the drawing. Instead, I took the average between the number of layers produced by pencils without any loss of quality at all and the maximum number of layers, after which the stylus begins to noticeably slip, crumple and scratch the previous layers, worsening the overall picture. The paints were made on ordinary cheap office paper. You may notice that Derwent has been painted twice. For the first time, for yellow-red-black painting, I used someone else's pencils, ground down to the very piece of wood, and they exfoliated, to put it mildly, in no way. Later, I bought a few “derwents” of natural shades for my personal use and, for the sake of interest, I made a dye with them. The result was surprisingly different. If in the first painting there were one or two good layers and it was counted, then the second one could already boast of as many as four decent layers. And not understanding what was the matter, I decided to use the second result. Although this result is far from Polychromos, which gave out as many as 8 full-fledged layers.
Here is the physical evidence, you can be sure. The sheets were scanned due to the fact that I did not manage to take a decent photograph of them.
The layers on which the pigment began to clump, gathering into spools, are marked with the letter "k".
Below, under the layers, there are 3 more squares - red, blue and black. Color blending was tested on reds, erasing with an eraser was tested on blues, and black saturation was determined using blacks.
Black brightness and white brightness- in my opinion, these are two important parameters for a high-quality drawing. The brightness of these colors, as it turned out, is not directly dependent on the brightness of the rest of the palette, and therefore they were tested separately. Black - on previous colorings, white - on black pastel paper.
Test of white pencils of different brands. Part 1 
Test of white pencils of different brands. Part 2 
Cream was used instead of white Derwent Coloursoft for technical reasons
The scores are on the traditional five-point scale, with only Artberry Erich Krause receiving a 6 for its exceptional blackness.
In sets where there is no white or black pencil, there is a zero in the corresponding column, which spoils the overall score quite badly. As for me, this is quite fair (with the exception, perhaps, of specialized Tombow Irojiten, which, in principle, have black, just not in my part of the set).
As for the lack of white, it seems to me not too right to deprive the user of this pencil, since not everyone has the opportunity to get a separate blender pencil for mixing colors. White in this regard is convenient.
The work of a white pencil as a blender and at the same time as a highlighter can be assessed by paying attention to the lower right halves of the red squares in the layer test. There, a layer of white is applied on top of a layer of red. In the kits without white, shading was done with a blender from Derwent.
I had an item on my plate "Eraser Eraser", but all stamps are erased about equally badly (you can check on the blue squares in the coloring, in which I erased the diagonal line with a Milan-236 rubber eraser, similar in shape to the classic red-blue koh-i-noor). Therefore, I excluded this item for lack of information. The rules are general: the “fatter” and brighter the lead, the worse it is erased. The "drier" and dimmer, the better it erases. But still, it cannot be compared with graphite pencils.
Color mixing tested in two ways. First, on the red squares already mentioned in the previous paragraph (more precisely, on their upper left halves). A layer of yellow was superimposed on a layer of red pencil, and the more the result resembled a uniform dark orange, in which individual strokes were indistinguishable, the higher the score. Secondly, you can look at the drawings below. There, yellow, blue and red shades were mixed successively, and the upper halves of the filled rectangles were additionally shaded with a white pencil (if available in the set) or a Derwent blender.
In the beginning, when painting expensive stamps, I applied strokes less often, but then, as usual, I slid into a solid fill of color. So if it suddenly seems to you that Holbein is not bright enough compared to cheaper pencils, it is not.
No. 1 (photo) 
№1 (scan) 
No. 2 (photo) 
№2 (scan) 
And now it's time to make some changes to the original text of this article, because since its publication I have managed to test another important property of pencils - their lightfastness, i.e., resistance to fading. Professional art pencils have this quality without fail, and often information about lightfastness is indicated by the manufacturer right on the box. (often according to the CPSA Colored Pencil Society of America standard, where light fastness is determined by asterisks:
* Reasonably Lightfast (disappears in direct sunlight)
** High light fastness (colors may change slightly in direct sunlight)
*** Maximum light fastness (no color change)).
But Soviet people are not like that to trust some kind of box, right?
I had to double-check this indicator personally, for which, in the cold summer of 2017, I hung out on the balcony paints of three primary colors from each set (yellow, red, blue; the exception was Derwent Coloursoft). Half of each color was left as a control sample, for which I covered it with black opaque paper. The second half diligently burned out in the cool Moscow sun for 2.5 months - from June to August 2017.
Considering that the summer turned out to be very cloudy, we can assume that in total the painting spent no more than 150-170 hours in the bright sun, after which they came to this state and, according to the state, received well-deserved points from 1 to 6 according to the repeatedly proven by eye method.
In the photo you can see that more expensive pencils, on average, burned out less than cheaper ones, but only three brands retained 100% of their original appearance: Caran d "Ache Luminance, Derwent Coloursoft and Prismacolor Soft, for which they received 6 award points.
The same drawings, but scanned:
Light fastness test scan I 
Light fastness test scan II 
Water resistance.
Since none of the tested pencils are positioned as watercolors, the user has the right to expect that they will not “float” from moisture (the exception is Stabilo Original, which have a brush mark on the box, i.e. the buyer is warned that the pencils , which are not watercolor, can still be slightly blurred with water).
On the yellow-blue-red stains, I tried to blur the blue circles with a wet brush (the result is much better seen in the photo than on the scan). Where I succeeded, I reduced the points in proportion to the degree of blur.
Marking.
Once you have tasted the pleasure of drawing with pencils whose colors are named right on the body, you can hardly be satisfied with the use of nameless colored sticks. Therefore, for the presence of a readable English text (alphabetic) marking, I added 2 points to the pencils, because it is really convenient. For the Japanese language - I didn’t add it, because I’m not sure that at least a quarter of a percent of those reading this article know Japanese. 1 point for digital marking. I didn’t add points for digital unreadable (there was one like that - for example, on Giotto and STABILO GREENcolors, the numbers are simply squeezed out on a tree, not painted, and therefore almost invisible).
sharpening was tested as follows: first, a pencil was sharpened with an ordinary average Maped sharpener worth a little over a hundred rubles, if the pencil broke, the brand received -2 points and the status “lead breaks”, if not, the second one was sharpened. Two pencils in a row successfully sharpened with a cheap sharpener brought the brand +1 point and the status “sharpened by any sharpener”. Agree, this is important. It is not always possible to carry a super-aggregate with quick-cut knives with you;) If only the second pencil broke during sharpening, I set the status “sharpened with a good sharpener” and 0 points. There was a case that it was not the stylus that broke, but the body (at Derwent Lakeland): the wood crumbled, but the stylus remained intact. Assigned -1 point, because drawing a rod sticking out of sawdust is not very convenient. Pencils sold unsharpened received an additional -1. Anyone who has tried to sharpen an entire box in one sitting will understand why.
And now a few personal impressions: I was literally blown away by pencils of the Siberian Cedar brand. Not only did they shamelessly break in an ordinary sharpener, but in addition, when trying to sharpen just one pencil in a mechanical “meat grinder” sharpener, its screw knife clogged tightly with soft sawdust in a few turns, so I had to disassemble the mechanism and pick them out with a toothpick for a long time. Five minutes of assembly, disassembly and cleaning of the unit for one pencil is a good result if you do not know how to kill time. I don’t know what kind of cedar is used at the Tomsk factory, in terms of properties it is more like chipboard.
The second anti-record holder is Centrum. These plastic pencils are generally not adapted to sharpening. Everything breaks in them - both the stylus and the case. Moreover, it doesn’t matter what you sharpen - with a fancy branded device or a cheap sharpener. To make a pencil sharp, you will have to grind it down to half anyway. And it is unlikely to be useful for the blades.
Case defects and stylus defects.
Under them were allocated two more columns in the comparative plate. Everything that has nothing to do with sharpening is collected here.
The hull was minus for:
cracks (Centrum Plastic and Lejoys Recycled),
rotten tree with splinters (Derwent Lakeland and Siberian cedar),
exorbitant curvature, when a pencil lying on the table forms a “bridge”, the middle of which is almost half a centimeter behind the surface of the table (Faber-Castell Eco).
I also minus points for double-sided pencils (Kores Colores DUO and Colorino): after all, “push-pull” is not very convenient in everyday life - it is more difficult to search for colors.
And separate honorary additional minus two points were awarded to Lejoys Recycled (now it will be rude, but it's true) exuding miasma of organic garbage filled with unknown chemicals. It's real, holding them in your hands and breathing at the same time is impossible. Draw your own conclusions. My conclusion: you can’t make candy from recycled materials.
Leads, in turn, were minus for:
grains of sand scratching paper;
pigment impregnation, due to which a light pencil can unexpectedly give out a dark line;
crumbling when pressed or sharpened;
dusting (this is when I drew a line - I blew off the resulting colored dust, shaded the area - I blew it again, at least take a building hair dryer with you. Adel differ in this property);
excessively pronounced differences between rods of different colors in hardness or "dryness";
a strong displacement of the lead relative to the central axis of the pencil (Soviet products sinned with this);
the absence of half of the lead (such an exotic pencil was found in the Faber-Castell Eco box).
And what did we end up with?
On average, quite an expected picture: the more expensive, the better, but, as you can see, there are some nuances. Of course, I do not pretend to absolute truth, and everything that you have seen is my personal opinion.
Personally, I liked the most:
Polychromos Faber-Castell (the most "native", "warm, lamp"),
Caran d "Ache Luminance (simply the best pencils in the world, recognized by artists, what to say!),
Polycolor Koh-I-Noor (brightness and richness of colors),
Fenix (cheap and high quality),
Crayola (combination "price-quality" and a pleasant rounded shape),
Micador (I won’t explain what exactly they bribe, but they are good)
NORMAN factory Krasin (almost a penny is a chic product!)
