Today, I'm taking my Prismacolor Premier colored pencils and putting them up
against what I've been told, the best colored pencils that money can buy.
The Caren d'Ache Luminance colored pencils.
So stick around to find out what they have in common and which set is right for you.
I'm Sarah Renae Clark,
and it's my goal to help you learn to get more creative in your everyday life.
Over the past few weeks,
I have been hunting online for the most popular color pencil brands that I can
find, and I have bought them all to find out which are the best colored pencils
for adult coloring, for any skill level and for any budget.
And in that search I came across
a set that have been claimed as possibly the best pencils in the world.
But more about that shortly.
Over the next few weeks,
I'm going to be putting all of these other pencil brands to the test to please take
a moment now to like this video, subscribe to my channel and turn on notifications,
so you'll be the first to see when I post
each video and when I finally release the result of my full comparison,
telling you exactly which pencils I think are the best from all of these brands.
But today, I wanted to start with these
the Caren d'Ache Luminance colored pencils, because while I haven't tried all of these
other pencils yet, I have heard so many good things about
these pencils that I couldn't resist trying them first.
Until now, I've mainly used
the Prismacolor Premier soft core coloring pencils for most of my coloring.
They are a wax-based pencil and one of the more
affordable artist grade pencils on the market.
So today I'm going to see just how they
stack up against these new fancy, more expensive pencils from Caren d'Ache.
Let's start by looking at what these pencils have in common now.
There are three different types of pencils that you can buy.
There are wax-based, oil-based, water-based and each have the pros and cons.
Both the Prismacolor and the Luminance
pencils are wax-based, which makes them great for blending
and gives them a beautiful, rich color and a soft,
buttery feel when you're coloring compared to many of the oil-based pencils.
Personally, I find wax-based pencils like these are great choice for beginners over
oil-based pencils because they're easier to blend, they're more vibrant and so
they're just generally more enjoyable to color with.
The downside is that the soft core does
make it a little bit harder to keep a sharp point.
And so they're not necessarily the best but doing fine details.
So a lot of professional artists actually
use these with a combination of an oil based pencil together.
So they use the oil base with a really
fine detail and use this for the rest of it.
Now, both the Prismacolor Premier and the Caren d'Ache Luminance are great wax pencils.
The colors are vibrant,
they are both beautiful and buttery,
they have beautiful soft cores and they
are both perfect for both beginner and experienced artists.
There are some big differences between these two brands.
The biggest difference is the price.
You can get started with the smallest set
of twelve Prismacolor pencils for under fifteen dollars on Amazon in the US.
From this you can get a feel for whether
they are the right set for you or mix the colors.
To make as many colors as you need.
You can buy a slightly larger set
and a good beginning size set of thirty six pencils for around thirty dollars US.
Even the largest set of one hundred
and fifty pencils is just under one hundred dollars US, which is more pencils
than most beginners will ever need and an overkill for adult coloring.
But it's nice to have in your collection, nonetheless.
For the same investment,
of one hundred dollars, you get just twenty of the Luminance
pencils, a better size set of forty Caren d'Ache Luminance pencils
like I have here cost one hundred and thirty one dollars US on Amazon
and the largest set of seventy six comes to two hundred and fifty US dollars.
Even the smallest set of twelve pencils comes in at forty five US dollars.
So just on Amazon, Prismacolor will set you back sixty cents to one-dollar-twenty-five
per pencil, whereas the Luminance are about three
dollars twenty to five dollars per pencil in US.
So why are the Luminance so much more
expensive at literally five times the price of the Prismacolor Premier?
First, let's talk about the Prismacolors.
When I decided to get serious about
my colouring Prismacolors when my pencil of choice, I invested in the largest set
of one hundred and fifty and I was so happy with them.
If I were to start again,
I'd probably buy a smaller set, maybe a set of seventy two,
because honestly I have never used half of the colours in the largest set.
As I mentioned before,
Prismacolor are great for blending and have beautiful rich colours.
They are perfect for beginners because
they are easy to use and they are very enjoyable to colour with.
You don't need any blending solutions or oils,
these pencils blend easily all on their own.
They have a very soft core even compared
to other wax pencils, which is one of the reasons they are so
popular and one of the reasons I love them.
But it's also one of the reasons they are hated by some artists.
You see, the downside to such a soft core is the Prismacolors are notorious for breaking.
Some of the casing comes damaged or split in the packaging, and the cores are often
off center as a manufacturing has reduced quality over the years.
You don't even have to drop these pencils to break them, sharpen them wrong, they break,
press to hard, they break, open the box for the first time,
they break, look at them wrong, they break.
If you buy Prismacolors, expect a few broken pencils.
But in most cases, the buttery blending and the beautiful
colors along the affordable price compared to other artist pencils make them
worthwhile, even with the frustrations of broken leads and easy breakage.
Another downside of the soft core
is that they don't hold a sharp point, which is not uncommon for wax pencils.
This is where some artists like to use
Prismacolors together with an oil-based pencil like
the Faber-Castell Polychromos for areas that need more detail. For most beginners though,
this is a bit unnecessary.
And the final downside, which I never really noticed until I had
better quality pencils to compare them to, is something called 'wax bloom'.
When you layer the Prismacolors, they tend to build up a waxy finish on top
of your artwork, almost like a transparent film.
It's not always obvious, but sometimes you can show up when you try
to photograph your work or it can dull some of the beautiful, vibrant colors.
Often you can wipe some of this away
gently, but you want to be careful not to smudge work if you do.
All-in-all, Prismacolors are a fantastic artist quality
pencil for the price. They hold up well to many of the more expensive brands
and are a great set for artists on a budget, or for beginners. They are still my go-to
pencils for so much of my pencil work.
But let's take a look now at the Caren d'Ache Luminance. At five times the price,
We are expecting a lot more from these pencils,
and in my opinion, they deliver.
Caren d'Ache Luminance are one of the highest quality pencils available.
The easiest way I can describe them is that they have all the qualities I love
about the Prismacolors, without all the negatives I just mentioned,
they don't have as big of a color range as the Premiers,
but like I said, I don't think I would
personally buy the full one hundred and fifty said again anyway,
I've got a set of forty Luminance, but I'm enjoying these so much that I will
eventually buy the largest set of seventy six when my budget allows.
They are easy to blend, beautiful colors,
and have all those same benefits of the wax pencil that the Prismacolors have,
but even just holding this pencil you can feel the better quality.
These pencils are slightly larger with a larger core meaning that will last
a little bit longer with a bit more pigment.
They're slightly firmer without losing that soft core,
so they hold a better point and are easier to keep sharp, which makes them great
for both the smooth blending and some of those finer details.
If you're doing a lot of the fine details like hair or fur, you'd probably still benefit
from using an oil based pencil for those details as well.
But for everything else, I think these are great.
They are much more resilient to breakage than the Prismacolors,
which again just comes down to being a high quality pencil.
It's rare that they will break during
sharpening as long as you're using a decent sharpener, and the white pencil is
great, it seems to be a lot more opaque than the Prismacolor white pencil.
But the biggest reason that these pencils
are so expensive is something that probably isn't relevant to most
ameture or beginner colorists, and that is the lightfastness rating.
Lightfastness refers to how long
your artwork will last over the years, when exposed to sunlight,
most pencil at work will fade over time for art work done with the Luminance
Pencils will last for up to one hundred years
without fading. It will look exactly the same as the day you drew it.
Now, if you're just coloring for fun or
practicing as a hobby, this isn't something that matters.
But if you're selling your artwork or
hoping for it to go in a museum one day, lightfastness becomes important
and the higher writing becomes a worthwhile investment.
So what colored pencils should you buy?
Both Caren d'Ache and Prismacolor make great pencils and both will produce beautiful
results in your coloring and drawing, with vibrant colors and smooth gradients.
But most colorists, the Prismacolor Premier colored pencils are more than enough.
They are great all around pencil that produces artist level results
at a much more affordable price than other artist grade pencils.
But if you're wanting to take your art to a new level and budget isn't a concern,
I definitely recommend spoiling yourself with a set of the Caren d'Ache Luminance.
These are not essential, but they are nice and I am really enjoying using them.
They are definitely better than the Prismacolors, but they are also five
times the price so they are not for everybody.
Personally, I started with the Prismacolors
and I have only bought the Caren d'Ache recently after using my
Prismacolors for a few years, even now, I've only bought the set of 40 instead
of trying to get the largest set right away. If you found today's video helpful,
Please remember to press 'like' below,
and subscribe to watch my future videos as well.
Over the next few weeks,
I'm going to be testing over 20 different brands of colored pencils to find out
exactly which pencils I think are the best from all of these brands.
At the moment, I'm pretty convinced that the Caren d'Ache are as good as it gets.
But if you think you've found something
better, please tell me in the comments and I might just check it out.
And if you're looking for more colored
pencil tips and tutorials, this next video is for you.
So grab a drink and a snack and check it out.