Faber-Castell Polychromos Colored Pencils and Pitt Graphite Matte Gift Set, 23 Piece Artist Quality Sketching and Colored Pencils Set with Accessories

Great, but a bit expensive.

My oldest is really creative, always drawing pictures from her imagination and free handing things she sees that she wants to draw. I knew these would be perfect for her and she loves them! High quality, great colors, and perfect for her to have a special set that is her own.

Faber-Castell is the gold standard in all things pencil, and this set is a top of the line collection of most of the colors you could imagine needing: 40 colored pencils, 8 matte black pencils in various hardnesses ranging from HB to 14B, an eraser and a pencil sharpener. Each pencil is coated in a comfortable, shiny coating, has an elegant ferrule on the top that matches the pencil's color, and is engraved with the color ID number and name.I watched a documentary on the Faber-Castell factory recently, and I was really surprised by how detailed their manufacturing process is - they really do put a ton of extra care and attention into making these over your average pencil manufacturer, and you can feel that effort in every pencil stroke. It's a real treat creating with these, and if you have either an aspiring or experienced artist in your life who works in the medium, I'm confident this would be an appreciated gift. (Or, if you're the artist, it's a "treat yourself" investment you won't regret.)If I had one bit of criticism it's that the box isn't particularly premium compared to the pencils - it's just two formed plastic carrier trays. At this price point, I would have liked to see a tin, or at least a slightly higher grade tray that could be stored in a drawer or tin. Not a deal breaker, though.

The Faber-Castell Polychromos pencils are top of the line artist grade oil based colored pencils. I am very familiar with the Polychromos colored pencils which I have used for a while in adult coloring books. I recently started drawing animal portraits so I was excited to try this gift set that includes Faber-Castell graphite pencils for drawing. I drew the otter in the photos I uploaded following a Bonny Snowden tutorial using almost exclusively the Faber-Castell Polychromos pencils.The quality of workmanship is excellent with the Polychromos pencils. Each pencil is labeled in gold foil with a unique color and number which makes swatching easy. The pencils sharpen perfectly and maintain a fine point for excellent detail work. They are especially excellent at creating hair and fur textures. The pencils are semi-transparent for rich layering of colors to achieve realistic results.This kit includes a nice selection of the polychromos colored pencils with good representative colors from each color family. It also includes 6 graphite pencils for sketching, an eraser, and a manual pencil sharpener.This is a great starter kit of professional grade tools which would make a fantastic gift for a budding artist. The polychromos pencils are open stock so you can continue to purchase additional colors as needed to expand the set.

This is a nice pencil set with a beautiful variety of colors. It also includes some graphite pencils, a pencil sharpener, an eraser (for the graphite pencils) and a little instruction booklet. They all come in a sturdy, strong box for storage.The colors are vibrant and beautiful, and I love that each pencil has the color name printed on the side. It's so nice to have a color name as a reference. It contains a nice variety of colors for the size of the set.The instruction booklet explains how you can use different amounts of pressure and hold the pencils at different angles to get different results. And while that is definitely true and following the instructions really does help to get the look you are desiring, I just feel that it's harder to achieve the results I'm after with these pencils compared to another well-known brand of high-end colored pencils. These don't feel quite as smooth or as pigmented to me. The colors are not as rich. While they are still beautiful in their own right, it feels like I have to work harder with these to get the same result that I can get more easily with the other brand of pencil.However, they still do a really nice job and I can see myself using them for certain projects. If you love to color or you have an artistic or crafty person in your life, these would make a great and thoughtful gift.

Pitt Matte Graphite*I draw mainly with graphite and I do have an issue with not getting my darks really dark. I’ve tried other pencils that provide dark darks, but they all don’t have the graphite smoothness that I like when drawing.*These drag a bit, but lay down a nice black.*Providing the entire set is nice, but they could have maybe skipped a few and then replace the pencils with more colored pencils.Faber-Castell Polychromos*The colored pencils lay down well. I’m trying them on a rough watercolor paper on top of a light watercolor wash. The coverage is good and using Q-TIps and Cotillons blending is very nice.*They are waterproof as laying on additional watercolor washes don’t make the pencils run.*While there are a good number of colored pencils, I actually find the palette a bit limiting.Other*Packaging is nice and solid (even though it’s cardboard). Separation of pencils is very well done.*It also comes with a sharpener and eraser. I don’t use either. Again, maybe leave those out and replace them with a few more colored pencils.