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!

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.

The pencils are fine. My review is mainly about the packaging. I assumed that with a pencil set in a tin box, that it would have a lid, but my set came with the bottom only and it was shrink wrapped so the pencils stayed in place in the thin cheap plastic tray in the bottom. But there was no lid with my set so I was mildly disappointed. If the shrink wrap would have torn in the shipment, then the pencils would have been tossed about in the box and in the past I have had some items fall out of the box through the minimally taped ends. Many delivery people will handle the boxes by either puncturing the sides for a finger hold or grabbing the ends of the lids to move the boxes so the lid ends are bent and elevated. Sometimes the paper tape holding the lid closed will fail and the lids are partially open. so I have lost items that way. Not sure how this pencil set was packaged that way, at Derwent factory or at Amazon, but it bugs me to get items shipped with unexpected surprises like that. So thats my 2 cents. Pencils are fine. People have mentioned grittiness, and yes I have felt that sometimes the pencil will have a gritty drag and wont produce a clean line until the grit particle wears away after a couple of strokes. But they are otherwise good enough pencils. I cant say they blow away some lower priced pencils I have. The Castle pencils seem to have a really nice feel and were a very good value in comparison. Staedler pencils are equally priced and I do not notice any gritty feel.

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.

A great selection of sketching and drawing art pencils at a great price!. Derwent makes quality art products and these graphic pencils are no exception! Well worth their price if you really want a wide selection of art pencils to use in your art! These are a great art pencil set and great set of art pencils to give as a gift to anyone who is interested in creating art of their own! Highly Recommend!

Giving these a four star review for now, but time will tell if they deserve it. Im pretty disappointed--I dont see that these perform any better than my sons Castle Art cheap artist pencil set. In fact, so far I like it less. The pencils are hard and scratchy (not just the harder numbered pencils, but all of them) and none of them seem to erase well, even using a Prismacolor. I fully admit that Im only an amateur artist, but I just dont enjoy these so far. Theyre not bad, but they were pricey for not bad pencils. I was happier with a good old yellow No. 2! But to be fair, Ill try to do a head-to-head comparison of these pencils, my sons Castle Art set, and a No. 2, and see what the results are, and then report back. Maybe Ill be surprised.

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 am almost certain I received the new pencils as it states on the back that it is a new formula and they say Britain instead of England on the pencil. Overall the pencils are wonderful. In some other reviews, there were issues with impurities and scratchiness in the pencils. I have found scratchiness with two of the 24, but sharpening them seemed to eliminate the problem. However, I did take a star off for that issue. I love Derwent products overall, but want to write a fair review. I am new to drawing, but the price on this set of 24 was so low that I knew I would never see it that low again and went ahead and made the purchase. I have a set of Tombows, which has more impurities than these and the leads also break way too easily. However, I have a set of the Fine Touch Hobby Lobby pencils that I purchased for just a few bucks, set of 12. I havent had time to fully compare them, but the Fine Touch are super smooth and lay down really easy. I will update after Ive had more time with this set; but so far, Loving it!

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.

As someone with drawing for a hobby, I really like to check out different products from time to time to see how hold up compared to what I am currently using. This time though I needed new pencils because my others were getting quite short so I got these. These were disappointing, I may be picky when it comes to pencils but these were not up to par. The casing for the pencils is a big weak point, they constantly splintered no matter the sharpener I used. This caused lots of breaking of the pencil lead below the tip as the casing couldnt support much pressure from drawing. The casing also wasnt very smooth can you could tell just by sharpening the pencils. It felt like the wood grain on the pencil wasnt tight so that causing the weakness in the casing. This weakness in the casing applied for all the pencils not just one or two. The pencil lead was sub par as well, especially the 9h-2b range where the clay in the lead wasnt refined enough. The unrefined clay caused many scratches into the paper when drawing or writing and made many of the hard h pencils unusable. Though the problems with these pencils dont end there. Their higher gradient B pencils also had problems, such as, the lead being too weak to sharpen and constantly breaking. This also had the side effect of them not being able to hold a sharp tip without breaking easily. Overall, theyre not the worst I have used, but they are certainly bottom tier when it comes to the artist grade pencils I have used. Lyra Rembrandt pencils are much more refined in their h pencils they are very smooth, while remaining quite light in gradient. Tombow mono pencils are also very smooth and have amazing tip retention in their B pencils. They also get noticeably darker than the derwents. The Mars Lumographs are also an amazing well rounded set of pencils as well. Each of those sets I would easily pick over the derwents, and its not even close. Now I know that I could have gotten a bad batch of pencils, which is the only reason why these are at 2 stars instead of 1. I wish I could say better things about these pencils.