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

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

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 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.

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.

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 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.

Love the pencils. Such a great quality. Only problem, I have to put a rubber band to keep the box closed. I believe that I close it right and then poof all my pencils are spread around. Very frustrating.Good thing they are good quality and dont break easily. I have a box of Royal Langnickel colored pencils with a similar box and never had that problem. Bad luck?

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.