Hello again. Hope everyone is having a happy holiday season. Today I will
present what I consider to be one of my most important reviews to date. I'll be
comparing two exceptional artist grade colored pencils. Those being the 60
set of Faber Castell Polychromos and the 72 set a Prismacolor Premier pencils
A quick bit of background, I have done lightfast comparisons for the 48 set of
Premiers and the 60 set of Polychromos. Although I felt the Polychromos
performed slightly better in the lightfast tests both pencils performed quite
well compared to budget or student grade pencils. So both of these sets are
acceptable for archival quality drawings. If you've seen some of my videos you may
have noticed the odd rant related to prismacolor quality and this has mainly
been directed at the Scholar student grade pencils. I have two sets of
Prismacolor Premiers and I've yet to have any issues with broken leads or
flaky wood on to the review the subject is Henry Cavill as the man of steel.
I thought it would be a fitting subject as I previously done a review of the
Scholar pencils versus Faber Castell Polychromos using the Man of Steel as a
subject. I recently worked with the 48 set of Premier pencils doing a drawing
of Gal Gadot as Wonder Woman. I was pretty happy with the 48 set, the 72 set
I liked even more. First you have all the colours you
really need. The black and white premiers really can't be beaten and I usually
combine these with any of my other pencils that I'm working with.
The 72 set also comes with gray's, lots of them, 20, 50, 70 percent warm gray 20, 50,
70 percent cool gray 20, 50, and 70 percent French gray. For skin tones you
have a light peach, peach, blush rose, to darken things up burnt ocher, light umber
Sienna Brown, for really dark there's dark brown, dark umber, and sepia. To adjust skin
tones you have ginger root, cream, sand, and beige. I'm so used to not having any
gray's that I also enjoy using lilac, parma violet, cloud blue, and jade green
as substitute gray's for the skin tones and these work really well depending on
the effect you're trying to get. Now there are larger sets of Prismacolors,
the 132 set and 150 set but I didn't feel I was lacking any colors with this set.
When it comes to blending I've yet to discover anything that blends easier
than Premier's. For layering you can usually layer darker colors over
lighter ones without any issue. They are so soft sometimes it is difficult not to
blend them when you try to layer. Some comments on the drawing. I've done most
of the face using light peach and peach. I've used cloud blue and lilac rather
than gray in places. Eyebrows are dark brown, sepia and black. Light umber for shading
around the eyes. I lighten areas of skin was cream, ginger root, and white.
For the blue of the suit I've used light aqua, peacock blue, Copenhagen blue, and
indigo blue. The blues are very intense but I have noticed that the dark indigo
in the Polychromos was set is darker than the indigo blue for the Premier's.
The Premier's go on quite smoothly but you have to sharpen them often. This can make
filling in large sections like the suit and the cape a bit of a chore. For the
cape I use carmine red, crimson red, and crimson lake. For the lightest sections
I've used canary yellow. I've used similar reds for the S symbol as I did
with the cape. For the yellow section I've used gold, silver and lemon yellow.
The premier pencils are reasonably forgiving, but you do have to plan a bit.
For instance, with the cape I might lay down the dark sections of red first.
Then go over these with what I might call the base red. I might even try to
fill in the tooth of the paper. I would then lighten out the edges of
the base red and finally I would go back with the darker red to highlight the
dark sections and the white to lighten up any areas that need it. For the skin
I'm usually more conservative. I will often use light peach for my first layer
and usually use this to map out where the dark areas are. I will then continue
to add dark layers until I get the shading I want. I would then test burnish
with the light peach or a darker color if needed. If it becomes too dark then I
might lighten with white. If things aren't dark enough I'll try to layer
with the darker skin tone. A couple of issues I have noticed with the premier's:
if you have layered things heavily and then you decide to add another layer, it
will sometimes blend with the other layers unevenly and look quite awful. The
colors tend to smear especially if you haven't burnished them well. Because the
pencils are soft you will get little bits falling off all over your paper. You
should use a brush to keep your paper clean because you really don't want
indigo blue flakes when you are burnishing your skin tones. Lastly it is
hard to get fine details because it is difficult to keep the pencil sharp. The
points just don't last. This is where I think the pencils are great for 90% of
the drawing but you really want to use a pencil with a harder lead for the details.
Verithin maybe? I'm almost done with the
Prismacolor Premier side and I think things went fairly well. No real
complaints. I've got bits of blue, red everywhere on my paper but that is my
own fault because I haven't used a brush. It is on order. A couple things to point
out: I'm using Fabriano hot press watercolor paper. It works great for
coloured pencil drawings and if I want to I can use my Inktense blocks or
pencils to quickly fill in the background I will probably have to come back to
this side to fix things up later but first I need to complete the rest of the
drawing. The Challenger is the 60 set of Faber Castell Polychromos pencils.
I've done several drawings with these, my most recent one was a drawing of Tom Petty.
I really enjoyed working with the pencils on that drawing and it was one of the
motivators to do a comparison review with the Premier's. A couple of things to
point out, the white isn't opaque as the Premier white but it is a very hard
pencil and great for burnishing. The black isn't as intense as a Premier
black but it holds a point which is great for detail. While I usually have a
spare Premier black and white for my drawings, I also have a spare Polychromos
black and white when necessary. Although for some reason I can't find my spare black.
The last thing I'll mention is that I'm using the light flesh pencil
which doesn't come with this set. Medium flesh is too intense, you will need to
buy a light flesh. Just buy the single if you choose to work with the 60 set of
Polychromos. I start by filling in a bit of the hair using Van Dyck Brown and the
walnut brown. The first thing I notice is how much smoother these pencils feel.
When you have a very sharp tip the pencils seemed to just glide over the
paper and still leave a good amount of pigment. With the Premiers, the tip
doesn't last and the soft waxy pencils seem to cling. Although the Premiers have
a good amount of pigment it sometimes feels like work. With the Polychromos, a
freshly sharpened pencil seems to go on smoothly and last a lot longer. Of course
as they do get dull they will start to leave more gaps in the tooth and won't
go on as smooth. For sharpening, they sharpen great, as long as you have a good
sharpener. I did break one lead while sharpening. I got a bit of a twitch and
snapped the end off a cream pencil. This reminds me I did
have issues with the indigo blue for the Premier's. After it broke twice I just
grabbed the indigo blue from my 48 set. The Tuscan red was the other Premier
pencil that broke on me but I opted to use crimson Lake as an alternative color.
Three breaks for the Premier half of the drawing isn't great but I can live with
that, as long as it doesn't feel like a drama. One break for Polychromos and it
was completely my fault so no complaints. The Polychromos layer amazingly well,
blending however requires a little more work. You will need to press harder to
blend and you really need to plan more about what colors you want to blend.
Flesh tones include of course the light flesh I've added as a single, medium
flesh, cream, raw umber, burnt ocher, burnt sienna, walnut and Van Dyck Brown. The set
comes with a warm and cold gray II a warm gray V and cold gray IV. These
work quite well for shading. I do find I spend more time on the face
while working with Polychromos. Part is due to the blending but also because you
can get more details in features like the eye. Unfortunately I have a tripod in
my way so it's often difficult to get in those details.
The eye is done using mostly green of which the set has a great
selection. Hair is Van Dyck Brown, black, walnut brown
for dark sections, highlights include cobalt green, white, cream, and light
yellow glaze. There are some medium tones to the hair which include raw umber, dark
cadmium yellow, and cadmium orange. It'd be nice to have a darker Brown for the
hair. There is a sepia but it doesn't come in this set. There's a great selection of
blues for the suit, same with reds. I did find that I had to get into the red-violets
and purples to really get the dark red highlights around the S symbol.
This was also the case with the cape. So while the set gave me
all the colors I needed it wasn't as simple as one two three like the
Premier's. I've completed most of the hair and the face. Because of the shading
the Polychromos side was by far the more difficult, but they handled it well.
I will note a few issues I have with the 60 set. My biggest complaint is the price
For me the set was about $120, which works out to two
dollars the pencil and even then I still need to add a light flesh to that. The 72
set of Prismacolor Premiers was less than $40 or about 50 cents a pencil.
Premieres may wear out a bit quicker, but I would still say you're getting three
to one value with the Premier's. Slight change of topic
but premier sets can usually be found quite cheap on Amazon during Black
Friday sales and Boxing Day sales. So cheap that I would strongly advise
people to not purchase the Scholar pencils. The quality of the Scholars is
so bad that you are far better off spending a few more dollars for the
Premier's. Now back on topic, the second thing I've noticed with the 60 set is
that the colors are all quite intense. There are no light colors. Even lightened
with the premier white most of the pencils are quite intense. Now this is
sort of a good thing, but if you're really trying to get a light green or
blue tone, almost off-white, you really can't do it with this set. The 120 set has
lighter tones, but that is a pretty big jump in cost and I really can't
recommend it to an amateur artist. Other than that I really enjoy using these
pencils. You do need to take your time, you can't rush things. You need to layer,
you need to make sure you've filled in the tooth of the paper, and burnished
everything. They do smudge but no worse than the Premier's. They flake less but
you should still use a brush. I like both the sets I feel I could do more or
a better job with the Polychromos pencils. It would probably take more time
and be more challenging. The Polychromos pencils are beautiful pencils and quite study.
As I tend to be a bit clumsy this appeals to me.
For details they are much better than the Premier's. For lightfastness
the 60 set is pretty solid with 57 pencils in the set having their top
lightfast rating. For me buying a 60 set or a 120 set is a fairly big financial
commitment. These are pencils you would want to take care of, and you
will always be purchasing singles to replace the more commonly used pencils.
Tthe Premier's are very easy to use. They should appeal
to beginners and amateur artists. It may take a drawing or two to get the feel
for them. Price wise these things are a steal. They are so inexpensive that I
want to draw with them. The Polychromos I tend to covet and feel I should only use
for worthy topics or drawings. The Premier's hold up great in lightfast
tests for the 48 pencils I have tested. I haven't tested the 72 set and I imagine
there are some weaker pencils in that set, but I am impressed so far with what I
have seen. Because of the softness of the pencils I do feel they work better when
combined with a harder pencil that can be used for details or even burnishing.
Polychromos work for this, Lyra Rembrandt come to mind. If you are just
getting into drawing, I would advise going with the
Prismacolor Premiers especially if you are on a tight budget. The 72 set is
great, you probably don't need a bigger set. If you live someplace where
Polychromos are comparatively priced to Premiers then Polychromos would be my
first choice. I feel they are much better pencils. But if Premiers are three to
four times cheaper, for someone who's just starting out you really don't need
Polychromos pencils. If you've been working with student grade pencils
you've got some great skills and you want to take things up a notch maybe
Polychromos are for you. Now everyone has different opinions so I would suggest
checking out a couple other comparison reviews before making your decision.
That's all for now. Thank you for watching and don't forget to subscribe.
I hope to post something in the next two weeks before I have to go back to work
Take care