Derwent Graphic Drawing Pencils, Medium, Metal Tin, 12 Count (34214)

Im new to purchasing art pencils, so I went overboard and bought these as well as the Castle set, and Rembrandts. I think I have to say I find the Castles a bit less scratchy, but theyre similar. These are fine. They all work well. I now have enough pencils to draw 5 hours a day for the next 3 years!

These are my favorite, thus far, of the different brands Ive tried. They give a wide range of shade values, sharpen very well, hold point without breaking (within reason) and just overall good quality.

I bought a 12 pack of them that only comes with one tin of 12… they sent me 6 tins full of 12 pencils, to say the least, this made my day and I definitely plan to buy them again once I run out.

I use to only draw with a number 2 pencil so I’m adjusting o these pencils. Less work and less smudging.

I have tried nearly every brand of premium graphite drawing pencil: Caran dAche, Staedtler, Faber-Castell, Koh i Noor, Tombow, Generals, Cretacolor, Conte and Derwent. I like them all, and it would be difficult to say one brand is best because theyre all good; just different users will subjectively prefer one for their personal style over others. Having said that, the Derwent pencils just feel right in my hand and seem to fit my style the best. The leads are smooth, and the hardness grades are spaced well. They feel most similar to the Faber-Castell 9000 pencils, just a touch softer (grade for grade of course), and come in a larger range of hardness values (20 vs 16). I also like the Faber-Castells, but still I slightly prefer Derwent. Overall, Derwent are my favorite brand of drawing pencil, and Ill definitely be ordering more as I use these up.

These are great and cover the whole range of grays. I had heard these are the best. They seem great so far.

As an artist, I have only used Derwent pencils. They are the best and this set gives you everything you need. If you are ever in England you should go to the factory, very interesting. You cant miss with this set.

I would still give these a favorable review since the pencils are overall higher quality than what Ive come to expect at this price range. Not shabby at all. Im in the middle of a drawing right now and I seem to be getting some bad luck (compared to other reviewers) as far as hitting some inconsistency spots in the pencils, but a quick little turn of the pencil to find a better spot has never bothered me much. Based on what other people have written in their reviews I thought these were going to be some kind of magic pencils that have uniform smoothness everywhere all the time, but that just has never been the case with any pencil Ive ever used. Maybe a little exaggeration going on, maybe Im unlucky, I dont know. Also my set had an extra HB pencil (3) and no B pencil. Not a huge deal, since the minute intensity differences you can achieve with the pencils is almost overkill anyways. For anyone else who was curious about how many of which pencils are in the set and couldnt find it on this page like me, its supposed to be (from soft to hard): 9b 8b 7b 6b 5b 4b x2 3b 2b x2 hb x2 b f h 2h x2 3h 4h 5h 6h 7h 8h 9h But again I ended up with Hb x3 and no B.

I do a lot of pencil drawing and usually keep it simple; most of my work is done with a #2 or HB pencil, and final dark shading is done with 2B and 6B. However, as I continue to improve my drawing ability, I decided that it would be helpful to have a few more pencil options for shading work. This Derwent set is perfect. At first, I figured I would just use a couple of the pencils and buy the entire set merely for the convenience. However, in my most recent piece, I found myself using about 2/3 of the different hardness values during my shading process. I usually just lay down some graphite and use a Q-Tip to spread it around each area, with the downside being the lack of precision afforded by this method. With the harder pencils, though, I could merely use the pencil to shade thoroughly, allowing me to get into tight corners without making things too dark. This is probably just basic drawing practice, but for me it was a new approach and one made possible by this set. The Derwent pencils are very high quality and this set includes all hardness values from 9H to 9B; there are a few duplicates as well for the total count of 24 (19 different hardness values). If you need a range of pencils for any kind of pencil art, look no further than this excellent set. I have attached a photo of my most recent piece (a 1969 Camaro), drawn using these pencils, in the product images above. I hope this gives a good idea of the potential of this set.

I have used these pencils before and I like them. My only gripe is that retail store sell them for more than Amazon does by almost $10-$20 more depending on the pencil count. This is the first tin I have gotten that has a damaged pencil in see photo it doesn’t look like it ruined the core of the pencil thankfully. For some of the reviews that mention only getting them in a tin without a lid and just the bottom shrink wrapped(the only difference is the lid not being there it’s still only the bottom shrink wrapped even if you get a lid not sure why they do that.) I would blame Derwent for that more than Amazon as even retail stores like hobby lobby get tins like that.