if there's three things i love in this world one is saving some coin
two it's art supplies and lastly not leaving the house who would have guessed and on today's
episode of amazon is taking over the world amazon combined all of those three things
by creating their own budget-friendly amazon branded version of the top-selling art supplies
and today as an avid user of art supplies myself i.. did i just say michael phelps
and today i'm going to compare said knockoffs with
the original thing now before we can get into this video in order for you to fully
understand this brand there's a huge premise that you need to know about diapers.com i know
i know that sounds crazy and it sounds like it has nothing to do with the video but just trust me in
2009 diapers.com was the hot spot to get cheap diapers delivered right to your door and the
current owner of amazon aka the world's richest man aka jeff bezos aka the real life lex luthor
he and his company took notice of how profitable diapers.com was becoming so amazon offered to buy
divers.com to which they said no why why why would we do that and in response to
that rejection amazon did what i believe to be the literal most petty thing in existence amazon
lowered their diaper prices so much so they were on track to lose over a hundred million dollars
just so they can get the customers from diapers.com
over to amazon.com and at that point losing a huge huge huge amount of their customers
diapers.com was no longer profitable they had to lay off over 200 people close their website and
sell their main company to the only person who would be willing to buy it amazon.com and just
like that amazon wiped out their main competition and gained control of the diaper market
so yeah circle it around in 2020 they've expanded past diapers and now in the art
supply game which really intrigued me so i plan to be very thorough in this video
completely honest if i like something i'm gonna say it if i don't like something i'll also say
it so now that you understand the full context i have three art supplies here for you today
and with that being said let's unbox it
now this is the amazonbasics premium colored pencils in a 72 count the first thing that i got
to say is that i'm really impressed with the sleek packaging i think this looks really really nice
and i even appreciated their eco-friendly cardboard packaging i think that's really
good for amazon and the claims are they're soft and smooth they have thick cores to
resist breakage and longer lasting usage they have rich saturated pigments and one of the more
questionable claims is that they're artist quality meaning that they're made out of
like the highest quality pigments so we'll be the judge of that now these were made to be a
cheaper alternative to my favorite ride or die prismacolor premiere soft core colored pencils
wow okay now this is the 72 72-pack
now i gotta say i'm pretty impressed with the color selection there's a really really nice
range of colors one thing i see often with colored pencils is there be a lot of blue but not a lot of
yellow or a lot of brown not a lot of gray i gotta hand it to amazon whoever they hired to
create the color palette they did an incredible job now every single colored pencil thank the
lord has the name of the color on here as well as the corresponding number to the back of the tin
i just gotta say this is so surreal right now to see the word amazon on a colored pencil i never
in a million billion years would have thought i would be in this scenario it's so strange
now because that color selection is just so good i'm kind of curious to know if they
copied the exact same color selection from the prisma colors so let's see
uh yeah no they're different i mean there are some similarities like for example the metallics
are very similar and of course with 72 colors you got to get all the primaries in the secondaries
but one thing i got to say is prismacolor has way more vibrant colors than the amazon basic ones
like for example these two neon greens these two together are way more vibrant and bright
in neon than anything else in the packaging so yeah the colors are similar not the same
all right let's check this bad boy out and see how old they work oh no that's gonna bug me
anyway the show must go on alright let's try out kingfisher blue and see how it works
oh my gosh let me make sure i'm using the amazon one because oh my gosh okay i know
this is like the very first swatch but i've been using prismacolors for so long if i was to close
my eyes right now and you were to switch out one of these and tell me it was a prismacolor i would
believe you right off the bat this has that exact same smooth formula that i love about prismacolor
wow that is not what i was expecting if i'm gonna be honest here i was expecting these
to just be like cheap colored pencils but i'm a little shook right now what the heck we'll try
out another color we'll try uh magenta oh and they blend the same too oh my goodness this is
actually crazy all right let's put this to the test because just from that first watch
alone i'm not gonna lie i'm already blown away so i got two very very similar colors
i'm gonna blend them and we'll see so first up will be prismacolor
prismacolor boom seamless as usual now for the amazon basic ones
amazon basics boom also a seamless transition guys our overlord jeff bezos might be onto something
for the first time in my channel i have never done this but i'm about to do a second
blend test because i'm a little shook with how well that blended the first time
wow they blended again seamlessly i'm uncomfortable with how well
that works um just curious i wonder if they layer on top of each other
and by the way i'm sorry if it seems like i'm pressing really really hard
my desk is super unstable right now so i'm giving the illusion that i'm like
going in super hard and shaking my desk but it's actually just my desk is old
wow okay wow it even layers perfectly on top of each other
all i'm saying is in all my years of using colored pencils i've never found
a formulation that works literally exact same as the prismacolor this is crazy
i'm gonna do some swatches of some like really weird unique colors and we'll see how the
pigment does hi siri can you play freak on a leash by korn now playing freak on a leash by
Korn
earlier i had mentioned how well they performed how smooth they were
and i've never seen a formula so similar to prismacolors but there's been a new plot
development i found the catch there is very much a difference in the amount of pigment
for example the amazon basic black is just that much lighter than the prismacolor black
the neons it's a very drastic difference between the two while the pigments in a prismacolor is
about a hundred percent the pigments in amazon basics is about an eighty percent
if you're doing realism you want that extra white you want that extra black to pull out shadows so
yeah that difference in pigment could definitely be a problem for a lot of artists uh the second
potential issue is the barrel size now when i think of thick first thing i think of is myself
and the second thing is the caren d'ashe colored pencils amazon says the barrels are thick but
they're actually just the standard colored pencil size and the whole entire reason as
to why you would want to have a thick barrel is that it protects the lead on the inside
and lastly and this one's probably the biggest issue that i've found so far
it doesn't say anything about the light fastness how archival it is even people online were asking
questions and didn't get an answer not knowing the light fastness and how archival these colored
pencils are that is a huge huge huge deal breaker for so many artists out there especially if you're
working on commissions or in the professional realm you need your colored pencils to last and
you need to know how long they're going to last now just to make sure i'm getting the correct
information about these colored pencils i went ahead and i created a drawing that's
half amazon basics and half prismacolor and yup same results they worked almost identical
but of course amazon basics didn't have that extra vibrancy and pigment that prismacolor had
so do i recommend these yes hell to the s best way that i can truly describe these colored pencils
is they are the truest knock off the prismacolor i have ever found ever i recommend these to every
single person as long as you're not like professional or doing commissions or maybe
you just want to be like extra bougie and have that extra vibrancy and if you are interested in
purchasing anything that i've named i will leave an affiliate link down below uh so yeah we still
have two more art supplies to go but i can truly say i'm pretty impressed with this very first one
now this leads us to the second art supply and guys if this art supply is good it could be a game
changer the next art supply that i'm about to show you is only seven dollars for a 17 piece art set
but first i want to talk about how it came which is in this cardboard packaging which again i think
that's fine especially since it is technically more eco-friendly but this specific art supply as
you're about to see is very very very delicate so i'm very curious to see if it got damaged at all
oh it came perfectly oh thank god this is the amazon basics 17 piece drawing and charcoal set
it comes with a sharpener a variety of drawing pencils not one but two
erasers a tortillons three charcoal pencils in a variety of hardnesses and it comes with four
conte sticks that's incredible now this one's a little bit less of an exact knockoff i guess
you can say compared to the colored pencils but i am going to compare it to one of the
biggest if not the biggest name when it comes to charcoal pencils generals generals charcoal
now i gotta say i really like the design of these charcoal amazon pencils with the matte
barrel and the gold these look really really nice honestly it's a little creepy it's kind
of creepy like how nice all of this stuff is usually with knockoffs the company doesn't know
what makes it good but this is like really really good uncomfortably good
i just woke up so i'm sorry if my voice sounds super deep right now i'm all hello ladies but
uh yeah this side is the pencils this side is the conte stick i had to use a royal
charcoal pencil because the general set only came with two what i said about the colored
pencils you can apply that exact same thing here to the charcoal they work literally the
exact same even more so than the colored pencils if you can believe it or not but the name brand
is just slightly better just slightly more pigmented just slightly more smoother when
i was doing the drawing segment they were so similar that i just started freely switching
out the generals brand with the amazon brand and i could not tell a difference between the two
but as always there's a catch throughout the entirety of this video i've been comparing
the pentel graphic gear pencil with the amazonbasics graphic gear pencil
and i've come to the conclusion amazon basics is just that basics this brand is based on getting
the name brand art supplies and they're cutting corners with production costs by saving money
in very sneaky ways for example the graphic pen the name brand is slightly larger than the amazon
basics it's also a little bit heavier and has more luxurious details like the pencil gripper
while the amazon basic one is just that it's a basic graphic pencil the conte stick it's ever
so slightly smaller than the name brand the tortillon is made out of compressed
paper as opposed to the more expensive option rolled rice paper tortillons like
i mentioned with the colored pencils and the graphite the pigment isn't fully fully there
basic is the most incredible way to describe it if you want a basic colored pencil here it is
if you want a basic graphing pencil with no funny stuff here it is if you need some basic charcoal
here it is there's no luxury when it comes to amazon basics and honestly i'm cool with that i
understand that i i can't believe i'm saying this but our overlord jeff bezos he's on to something
do i recommend all of this stuff for people who are looking for art supplies at a cheap price
yes heck yeah but if you do want that little extra edge that you would find with the name brand then
get the name brand but most people just want the basic job done and that's what amazon basics is
it gets the job done so anyway guys thank you so much again for watching
i will leave a playlist down below of more art supply reviews and art
challenges if you're not subscribed with notifications don't forget hit that bell
thank you guys so much again for watching and i will see you next video bye