Castle Art Supplies Colored Pencils Set | 120 Premium Soft Core Coloring Pencils for Adults | Organized in Presentation Tin Case

I absolutely ADORE these colored pencils. They are artist-grade, and the price can't be beaten for the quality that you get. Several things make me feel this way. The pencils are sturdy and sharpen really well. With a nice sharp pencil sharpener, you can get a great point without removing too much excess pencil, which means I know they will last for a while. Plus, I have not had a lead break, and I don't feel like it will ever be an issue. The colors are really saturated, and the pigments are vibrant and go down easily on paper. They are buildable, so you can use the same pressure and add layers of color until you get the deepness you desire, and they layer and blend flawlessly. Honestly, the ability to layer and mix is on par with some pencils I have used that cost three and four times as much as these. The color also goes down super smoothly, meaning you get great coverage and end up blending less, which I find a welcome change. These pencils also have a nice variety of premium artist's colors like cadmium, cobalt, and pthalo versions of many different colors. They provide you with a color test sheet so you can fill in all the boxes and see what all the colors are without having to continuously test them whenever you want to use them. Additionally, the colors are all listed on the lid of the tin, so you can reference them when you need to. The case is beautiful and would make a lovely gift for a budding or an experienced artist, and it makes them feel kind of special, almost as if getting to use them is a treat or a reward. On top of this, in case you get a killer guide on how to use the pencils to obtain certain looks and techniques, you can use that any artist or novice should be grateful for. There was great info in it; they provided a way to contact them if anything is amiss with the pencils you receive. The most unexpected thing was the lovely message the company sent me about a week after receiving the set. It was so thoughtful and such a lovely part of the purchase. Taking the time to wish for my enjoyment and to let me know I was appreciated for the purchase I made was the icing on the cake of the whole thing. Such a personal touch is something that I think people miss, and for the company to go out of the way to say they appreciated the purchase and to wish me the best took this purchase to the next level, and I was already thrilled with my choice. So, overall, this was a fantastic purchase; I would recommend buying these to anyone. Whether you are a novice or a really talented artist or if you fall somewhere in between like I do, I feel like these pencils would make anyone extremely happy. I am thrilled with my purchase and hope anyone else is too. I can't think of any pencils that would perform better for a better price, and they are worth every penny and then some. I want to add that I am just a really happy, satisfied customer and am not getting anything in return for this review except the hope that someone will find what I have to say helpful. I hope that others can find the same joy with these as I have. I can't wait to check out other Castle art supplies!!

This is a very nice budget-friendly set of colored pencils. They are wax-based and they blend nicely with my Prismacolor Premier Colored Pencils. There are 120 pencils in this set, & they come in 3 layers inside a sturdy, hinged metal box. There is a large sheet of paper to swatch the colors, which is something I do with every set I buy. Each pencil has a number on it as well as the name of the color; this is always helpful. The pencils work smoothly on paper, on my drawing paper as well as in adult coloring books and on Bible paper. They do seem to keep a sharp point longer than my Prismacolor pencils do, which is good. I have not yet had any problems with breakage either. The pencils are round & are a good size for me, without slipping out of my hands. Also inside the metal case is a small magazine with helpful drawing & coloring tips. Also, there is a small drawing tutorial booklet in the box, too. All in all, I think this is a good set of colored pencils, and it's not at all expensive (compared with some of my other sets). I find the budget-friendly sets often complement the colors in my more expensive sets.

2021 update: I've been torn on whether I should update this review for a long time. I used my set earlier this year, and noticed a few things, now that I know more about using colored pencils as an adult. I paid just under $40 for this set, when they numbered, but unnamed (I can only tell I used a small coupon on the order, not if these were also on sale or what the full retail price was). After using Prismacolor Premier pencils, Polychromos, square Brutfurner (120), Deli (72 in tin with art depicting an Asian hut), and MarkArt (120), coloring with these was a bit more work than I expected. I used them on one image that I finished, but it lacked the color depth of a similar page I had finished with the square Brutfurner square set. A few weeks later, I started a new image with these, only to stop coloring it. It was just more work than I wanted to put my ailing dominant hand through. These are decent pencils, especially if you're learning. However, these are usually in the $50-55 range now (retail $69.99). If shoppers watch legitimate U.S. art supply sites, the 72 count set of Prismacolor Premier can often be picked up on sales for around $40. More rare, but still possible, watching legitimate set supply site deals, the full 150 set can be found for as low as $86-95 U.S. I believe both Dick Blick and Jerry's Artarama sell Prismacolor Premier through Amazon, so it might pay to watch for those sellers here at Amazon. Prismacolor Premier pencils can also be tried out and replaced "open stock," (purchased one pencil at a time) sometimes as low as $1.35 per pencil (instead of buying the whole tin again). Prismacolor Premier pencils aren't my favorite brand, but sometimes they can be a better deal overall. I'm not saying I hate these, because I don't. I just have other "budget-friendly" pencils are less work to use for me (with a dodgy hand). I color fairly regularly with all my pencil sets, with a few exceptions. I generally finish a picture or two with a set, and move on to another (and I don't have a huge collection). Do some research and make a choice that will work for you. Original Review: I've been curious about this brand of pencils for awhile. I had some gift cash I've been debating what to do with for quite some time. After ruling out some other options, I decided I'd either upgrade my Prismacolor set (I have the 72-count set) or try these. The price on these won me over, because if I really liked these, I'd have enough money left over to pick up a Qian Shan case (here at Amazon) for them, if I wanted to pick one up. First off, the packaging on these is nice. The outer container is a tin. The inside trays are a decent weight plastic. Instead of just having shallow finger-notches, the trays have bands attatched. I found them to be slight easier to handle than my other pencils' trays because of that feature. The colors lay down on paper smoothly, a few more than some of the others (some of the blues, greens, and "turquoise" or " teal" blends are amazingly smooth). Not that any of them has an unpleasant gritty feeling across paper, because they certainly don't. The pencils aren't so soft that they don't keep a decent point for a while, if you keep a light to medium hand, though. The "dipped" end of the barrels are actually a pretty good match for pigment. I colored a couple of pictures with them before I did my full swatch chart. My swatch chart was just printed on a fairly commonplace home laser printer on plain 8.5" by 11" paper (not Bristol or anything fancy), and making it was still pleasant. I just made a table in LibreOffice, printed it, and colored in boxes with the pencils arranged numerically. The color swatch chart I made shows me that there aren't many "so close you can't tell the color apart unless you stand in full sunlight hues" here, even better than the dipped caps. Organization of color families across the set, looking at them numerically, is decent, if a little broken. There are a couple groups of purples, pinks, and so on. I'm really impressed with the purples in this set, but I'm biased, purple is my favorite color. I'm also quite impressed with the pink, as well, and even though I use a good deal of pink in pictures, that color family isn't necessarily a favorite. People that use a lot of the "true" red family may be bit underwhelmed, but this isn't uncommon (that's where varying pressure and layering can come in. There is a nice offering of shades amongst the blues, greens, oranges, and yellows. As far as practical usage for colorists. They layer nicely, especially if you keep a light-hand and build color layers slowly. Using a tortillon or paper stump is possible for blending, if the tooth of paper used can take layers. I've found the best colorless blender for these to be Caran d'Ache Full Bright Blender ($5.39 for a pair at Dick Blick Art Supply site), with Lyra Rembrandt Splender Colorless Blender coming in second ($1.81 a pair at Blick), and Prismacolor's ($2.32 for a pair at Blick) last. I haven't tried solvents, such as mineral spirits. As far as sharpening goes, I haven't had to do too much, these keep a nice point. I've found my Staedtler graphite sharpener works best. The diameter of these were too small for the Revlon Universal Points Sharpener (for eyeliner) that works best for my Prismacolors. The Staedtler self-contained stainless school-style sharpener just kind of eats these. Overall, I'm very pleased with this set. If the formulas could be refined so that all of them go on as wonderfully smooth as some mentioned above, these could be even more of a budget-friendly rival to Prismacolor. Especially if this company could manage to sale replacement colors "open stock" like Prismacolor (one pencil at a time) once refined. I did pick up a Qian Shan case for these, because I really like this set a lot. The packaging is nice, but I'm extra clumsy after injuring myself. I'm using coloring as a form of occupational therapy to rebuild strength in my hand. The canvas case just helps me keep these organized--and protected--in a easier to handle way. I'm keeping the tin to put other art supplies in. It's too nice to toss away.

I am blown away by the quality of the Castle Arts 120 Premium Soft Touch Colored Pencils. This set deserves six stars! My color pencil academy recommended them for anyone on a budget, and now I understand why. I already own high-end brands like Caran d’Ache, Faber-Castell, and Derwent, but when I saw these on sale during Amazon week—120 pencils for the price of about six Caran d’Ache—I figured I had nothing to lose. What a pleasant surprise! They arrived beautifully packaged: first in a white box, then shrink-wrapped, and finally enclosed in a sturdy tin that’s on par with, or even nicer than, my Faber-Castell case. Inside, I found thoughtful extras: • A color swatch chart you can fill in yourself • A product guide • A mini tutorial brochure • A Castle Club postcard • And best of all, a small, high-quality magazine titled “Colored Pencils – Taking Your Art to the Next Level” with tips on pencil grip, pressure techniques, lighting, and even a color wheel. The pencils themselves are smooth and easy to work with—not too soft, not too hard. The colors lay down beautifully and evenly. I especially appreciate that the names of all the colors are printed inside the lid for easy reference. There’s even a protective divider sheet with the Castle logo to keep your pencils secure. Honestly, for the price, this set is an unbeatable value. A comparable set of 120 Caran d’Ache pencils costs over $400! These deliver incredible quality without the luxury price tag. Highly recommend for beginners, hobbyists, and even experienced artists looking for a dependable budget-friendly option.

Overall, these are great pencils, budget friendly and easy to use. I am not an artist, but I would definitely not call them artist quality. However, I guess an artist could make a masterpiece with Crayolas. :) What I like about these pencils: They are very pigmented with vivid colors, the leads are soft and color goes on easily, they blend well together, did not have any leads break while sharpening them. What I did not like about them: Some of the pencils, mainly the greens, are very waxy and do not go on very smoothly, the color ratio is not balanced, the black is not a good black, is very cool and will make any warm colors change to a blue/green color. There are too many yellows and reds and not enough browns, also there is no tan pencil and no soft colors at all in this set outside of yellow and orange. I do realize Castle Arts has a pastel set, but I feel they intentionally omitted any good soft/highlight colors from this set to force you to buy that set to get them. That being said, I think these would make a great set for a hobby colorist, the colors really are rich as you can see in the 2 pages I colored to test them out. In the 2 test pages, the elfling was colored on terrible paper from a Colouring Heaven book and the keyhole page is from Johanna Brasford's Ivy and the Inky Butterfly which has amazing paper. I was able to get great color on both pages, but was able to add more layers on the better paper as expected. I like to color in light layers and was able to get 5-6 layers on before having to add a little more pressure. Except for with the greens, they needed moderate pressure and less layering as they are just so waxy and had a tendency to clump and leave uneven color on the page. I used a little OMS to smooth that out when it happened. Both pages have a chalk pastel background, that was not done in pencil. I did use a blender pencils and not the white from this set as I did not want to change the colors I had laid down. I did use the white in a few places and it did work to blend out the layers nicely, but only in areas like cream or yellow where it wouldn't change the hue. If you want a budget set of pencils to color in books and relax, these are great pencils, but you will want to get their pastel set to complement this set.

Great quality for the price. These are aren’t prismacolor quality, but they are better than most other inexpensive brands. The leads actually match the names and colored ends well enough to allow you to find colors. This comes with a DIY color chart that I used to organize mine into a case. They don’t smear unless you are using something meant to blend them, which is exactly what you want for this medium. These are great for adult coloring books and amateur art. I’ve tried several brands and these are the best quality to value ratio by far. 120 colors gives you pretty much every color you could want. No two colors are duplicates, though of course in a set this large some are close. Definitely fun, and I don’t feel like I need to ration them. They are hard enough for a nice sharp point, but have decent color lay down. Paper quality affects that quite a bit. Grainier paper needs more dedicated blending, smoother needs less.

There are a lot of things to talk about. Even though I am going to write about some cons I do believe that overall it is a 5 star product. The only con that I have with this product is the package design. First, I love the package design meaning the black tin box and the set of three trays that come inside. Everything is nice and neat and packs in really nice. Some cons are, it is a tin box which means that you will probably have dents in the box or will be getting dents in the box. My box came with a dent at the bottom but not bad enough to where the box itself has issues laying on a flat surface or have any issues taking the pencils in and out or opening and closing. Also, I love the little handles that come attached to each tray so that you can simply lift it in and out of the box. The con with this is I have had two straps already break, or I should say the metal piece that attaches inside the hole does not want to stay in place so taking the trays in and out are a little bit harder not being able to use the straps. The only other con is that the pencils are in their own holder inside the tray but they are jammed in there too tightly. So when you get a pencil out more than likely other pencils will come out as well. Now on with the pros. These are amazing pencils. If you are just looking for colored pencils then I suggest these. I have used Prismacolor most of my life and have art shows and do coloring on a regular basis. These colored pencils blend really well and since there are so many colors you really have the option to go a shade or two lighter or darker without even pushing hard. If you need to apply more pigment it does not take much and they are smooth. This set has a lot of purples and pinks in it, more than I have seen. There is a good variety of color to where I do not think you will be disappointed at all. The actual pencil itself is thick and strong making it less likely to break using it or sharpening it. I love the black color of the pencil with the appropriate color at the top, it makes the eyes more relaxed when looking for a color. Also all the colors have numbers instead of names making organization and memorization easier when searching for colors. I will be be using these pencils from now on. These are professional, bright, reasonably priced and just plain awesome to use.

This is such a nice set. The colors blend well together and there are lots of different colors to choose from. I’m very happy with this set.

I am satisfied with my pencils, I have so many ways of blending them which gives me more colour combinations than I can count. It's a good quality, I'm especially satisfied they hardly ever break, a pet peeve of mine with other pencils. These pencils are also great both for amateurs and professionals, and they make me feel so satisfied sitting down to use.

This item is worth the price. Great set of pencils set in a nice way, come with a little card listing all the colours in their order. As well as on the inside of tin. Great for blending sketches and adding hue saturation contrast etc. I love this and mitt was worth the money and is good as I am an artist who does 7 forms of art Plus if your an artist especially, I will recommended this to you. It is the best set of pencilss

日本の文具屋に売られている学童用の色鉛筆と色味の差はなく学童用より色数の多さがとても魅力 価格としても購入しやすく雑に広い範囲塗っていっても勿体なさがないのがいい プロ仕様というわけでは決してないが、ホビーユースとしては十分な発色をしています。 ケント紙などの細目の紙より画用紙などの中目～粗目の紙と相性がいいように感じます。 ケント紙でも問題なく使えますが、プロ用色鉛筆（プリズマカラーやファーバーカステル等）よりかは「薄いな。」「白いな。」と感じることはあるけどほぼ好みの範囲に収まってると個人的には感じます ペン軸は細くなく、持ちやすいです。軸の木はあまり品質は良くないのでカッターや鉛筆削りは選ばないといけないかもしれませんが、それは安い色鉛筆全部に共通していることなので特に割引材料ではないでしょう。 総合的にみると「かなり使える色鉛筆」というのが自分の評価です

Super crayons de couleurs Castel gras La grande boîte Gamme complète ou presque les couleurs sont belles faciles à superposer ou mélanger Ce n'est pas la première fois que je les achète Rapport qualité-prix très satisfaisant Je les conseille souvent à mes amies Arrivée très bien emballée entourée de plastic bulles et d'une boîte individuelle mise dans mon colis avec mes autres articles Franchement n'hésitez plus

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.