Oh my goodness! Oh my goodness! Guys, I did something that took me almost two years
to make the decision to do, and let me just preface this video by saying I'm
a very, very frugal person. I hate spending money, but because art is my
career, I wanted to upgrade something pretty big, since... you know... I sell my
artwork to make a living... and what it is... cannot believe I did this!
But seriously, it took me two years to make up my mind.
I bought the Caran D'ache Luminance colored pencils! I'm super super excited about this!
I pretty much just went all out, and that is because -- let me show you
something real quick... All these old prismacolor pencil tins
that I have... they're really busted up. They're really broken and let's be real...
these are both probably around ten years old. One of them might be nine. I don't know.
And outside ofYouTube, I like to do realism. I like to draw people.
Get all the plastic off. So the
reason why I got these pencils... it's not to a brag that I got new pencils in a
video, but I really want to push myself artistically and off camera dive
into a lot of the artwork that I really like, but maybe don't have time to film
because the filming and editing process is really long. One of the biggest
reasons I got them was because, if I intend to sell my artwork, I want it to
be lightfast. Okay, so these are very lightfast. I almost got the Faber
Castell Polychromos pencils, but I... I looked up a lot of reviews, and
compared them, and I think for the stuff that I plan to draw, the color selection
in this set just made more sense to me. So I'm really excited about this, and I
want to test these out in today's video! And I hope that we like them. *laughs* Oh my
goodness! I'm so excited! Ah! Oh my word this is legit, yo! What in
the world?! This is packaged very nicely! Wow! Never seen art supplies packaged
so boujie before! Okay, I did get the biggest set that they had. That's the 76 set,
because I already know that I like colored pencils, and I would rather just
get the set up front. That's the kind of person I am. I'm not super
huge on slowly building sets. I just want to dive in. I'm really
excited to do portraits! Oh my goodness! Oh my word!
This is incredible. There's all these little trays! What do
I do with them?! Where do I... sit them?Alright, let's let's open this
up! Oh my word! Whoa! Get out! Oh my goodness! Oh my goodness!
Look at all these neutrals! Oh my goodness! This is so beautiful! Do you see this?!
Okay, this is the art nerd in me coming out fully right now. We are going to
swatch some stuff today! I do have my good pencil sharpener on me, so we can
get stuff really sharp and have a good time! Draw some things! I am ready for
this! I am so ready for this, guys! Alright, I have all this colored pencil
paper here, and true story dude, I bought this like
a year and a half ago when I was planning to buy new colored pencils, but
again, I am somebody who like... these kinds of decisions take me a really long time.
So I bought the paper, and then I was like, "oh is that a good decision? I
don't know.. I should look at more reviews." And yeah, here we are!
I even message different artists like, "would you recommend the
Polychromos, or the Caran D'ache pencils?" and then I ended up getting these ones!
Oh my goodness! This is so exciting! This is a nice like.. firm feeling pencil.. you
don't really have to press hard to get a lot of pigment, and that is impressive to
me. So I'm not pressing super hard to like fill in all that white space,
because these pencils aren't like fully sharpened yet. I like them to have a
really really sharp point. Wow, this is so cool, guys! Wow, okay we definitely just
need to jump into a drawing and experience it! I can swatch more
off camera. That's okay! This is nice though.
Alright guys, I have a question for you because when I get a new art supply,
there's always that one thing that I go to draw because I'm comfortable with
that thing -- eyes. So since I'm testing these colored pencils, what a great
opportunity to just draw an eye! Go back to my old roots.. see what we can do with
this new set of pencils.. Does anybody else do this, or am I just weird? Does
anybody go to some sort of comfort thing to draw when they're entering a new
beginning with a new supply? Alright guys, I have a lot to say about these. I'm
gonna be spilling some tea, but I'm gonna give you a little heads up: this is not
sponsored. I paid for this. I saved up for these, and everything I'm gonna tell you
here is just my experience. So I have been using Prismacolors for about
10 years now, and my babies are busted up. They're crumbling to dust, and every time
I sharpen them, I get really frustrated. just being real with you. I love the
pencils to death, but I was just getting annoyed that they broke so much, so
that's why I kind of decided to venture into other brands. I was really
nervous about switching, because I really liked how soft and pigmented the lead
was in my Prismacolors. They blended so beautifully, and I still really like them.
I still plan to use them... I'm not bashing them or anything like that... but I was I
guess I was nervous to switch, because I hear that a lot of other colored pencils
are different, but I noticed some things with these and I really liked it. The
lead is a lot harder. Tt doesn't break as often, so that's a plus. And blending
actually isn't harder like I thought it would be! But it feels the same to
me. They're both wax based, so yeah. I would say the wax bloom on these is
significantly less than Prismacolors. I can layer and layer and yeah it.. just keeps going!
I really like that. I also really enjoyed the fact that there are so many skin
tones, and there are also so many neutrals. I really like layering
neutrals on top of other colors. Guys, this this entire piece just felt like
home to me. Even though it was a new art supply...
diving back into realism just felt really good. I've actually been doing
this a lot behind the scenes lately. I just don't really share it, because
filming YouTube videos is a lot of pressure. Like first of all, you have to
make sure your lighting is okay. Your camera angle. Your audio. And then
then there's the pressure of sketching on camera, you know? And realism it takes
forever, guys. Like... forever. I mean, sometimes I can spend days on a
realistic portrait, so to edit that is like subjecting my computer to crashing,
and then me having a breakdown. So I usually do more illustrative stuff on my
channel. I have done a couple realistic things in the past like Professor Snape,
and it actually it doesn't even do really well on my channel, so I don't even know if
people want to see this. But I'm having fun just creating what I enjoy for
today's video! This piece didn't take super long. It was
more of a gestural realistic piece. Like you can see the paper peeking
through some of the skin tones (yes, I am intentionally using the textured side. That's my style) I would normally cover all of that up, but I was
I was just having fun. I talked about this piece with my Patrons, and I think I
tend to gravitate toward realism when I'm coping with a lot of stressful
stuff in life, so looking at the past like months worth of artwork... I would say
yeah, I have been stressed out. This is such a great outlet for me,
though. Tt feels really good to just let go. Part of my mind feels like it can
turn off and process other compartments of my life when I do
realism. So I really enjoy that. By the way, if you want to see like sneak peeks
of stuff that I don't really talk about on my channel or in-depth on Instagram, you
can find that stuff over on Patreon. There's a link below this video. I do
touch on more personal background info with my pieces and stuff, so if
you're curious, you can check that out because I did ramble on about this
piece on there. This was really fun, and I feel like very in tune with a
lot of things now, because this was just how I introverted and processed a lot of
stuff I've been going through. And I felt kind of burnt out lately, and this was
actually really recharging. Let me know if you guys have a creative outlet below,
and what it is. How do you process life when you need to introvert? I'd be really
curious to hear that ,and the things you enjoy doing! Here's the finished piece!
Thank you so much for watching, guy! I hope you enjoyed this video! If you
liked the realism thing, let me know, and maybe I'll do it here and there more often. Have a
good day, everybody! Bye!