Castle Art Supplies120 Colouring Pencils Set | Quality Soft Core Coloured Pencils for Adult Artists, Professionals and Colourists | Protected and Organised in Presentation Tin Box

This is my second purchase of these pencils, as I bought the 120 set after trying one of the themed tins.The pencils are well packaged, arranged over three plastic trays inside the tin. The trays are sturdier than other budget pencils I own. The colours are listed inside the lid; they weren't in quite the same order in the trays so I rearranged them whilst swatching to make them easier to find. There is a great range of colours, with a name and number on each pencil which is very helpful. Initially the brown/earth colours seemed a bit lacking, but there are colours within the orange and yellow ranges which will work as earth colours.The pencils are soft but hold a point and sharpen well, meaning that they work well for both layering and detailed work. They're thicker pencils, the same size as the Polychromos (which I'll get to in a minute). This makes them comfortable to use, as well. Out of the 120 I found that one pencil had some impurities when I was swatching, showing traces of a different colour. Some of the colours - the cadmiums for example - are softer than others and easily comparable to Polychromos. But they're all soft and layer well. I did a comparison with the Polychromos, layering primaries over each other to produce secondaries, and there's very little between them. The Castle Arts pencils don't blend particularly well with solvent.Lots of reviews have compared these to Polychromos. I would love to own a full set of Polychromos, but that would be five times the price of these pencils. So I bought the Castle Arts pencils because they are an excellent stand-in and I plan to replace individual pencils with Polychromos - although if the Castle Arts were available open stock I would probably replace some of them like-for-like.This is an excellent set, impressive quality for the price, and I would recommend them for anyone who wants good quality coloured pencils. The customer service is also first class.

These pencils have been a complete revelation and I love using them. They layer and blend really well, putting down loads of colour on the paper with very little effort. The colours are vibrant and there is a great selection in the 120 tin.While using them I have found that they do not drop flakes of pigment onto the picture, even when you use a lot of pressure. They hardly wear down and those I have used a lot have sharpened back to a fine point with a good manual sharpener. They have held their points without breaking or chipping. None of them have broken during use or while sharpening and all arrived in perfect condition. Penny at Castle Art sent an email to check they had arrived and I really appreciate this.My only slight issues would be the plastic trays that hold them in the tin, as one has split slightly. The tin itself is sturdy and the pencils feel great in the hand and look much more expensive than they are. I have done a colour chart which sits in the lid, as a few of the colours are slighly different to the colour on the ends. This is not a problem for me as I always do this with new pencils.I wanted to use them on several pictures before I wrote a review and I can really say that I find them as good as Faber Polychromos and far better than Prismacolour, both if which are far more expensive. For the money they are really wonderful and I would definitely recommend them and buy them again. It would be fantastic if they were available in open stock but as they are not expensive this is less of an issue.

Good quality pencils, every colour you could want.

I Decided to try drawing as a hobby after enjoying art as a teenager over 20 years ago and wanting to relearn in my spare time to relax. I am finding these pencils overall to be really great as I am just getting back into the hobby and didn't want to spend too much but didn't want cheap ones that may put me off either. There is a good selection of colours although some are so close they almost seem like doubles which seems a shame where there could have been a slightly better selection overall. Also the colour order seems to be very confusing to me with the numbers not following the colours but you can re order them as you want in the tin. These 2 points are the only reason this tin doesnt get 5 stars from me. I am happy with how the the colours look on the paper and how they blend , they hold a sharp point well but are not crumbly, I think they offer great value especially for begginers or students who may wish to have a large selection before upgrading further along. Some people have mentioned that the tin comes with an insert to teach you how to draw the castle on the front I didn't get this but I did get a book with art tips on using the pencils and lessons on other things the first being an apple as in the picture above.

I always buy these colouring pencils great quality lovely to colour with

I was looking at the prisma colour pencils which where way too expensive so I came across these and did some research! Still quite expensive but I wanted some good quality pencils and these where in my price range. They are really good and blend really well. They sharpen well too without snapping . I'm so pleased with them

Lovely colours. I had better pencils earlier but for the price it’s more than perfect!

Fabulous set of pencils, great selection of colours.