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mysticsparklewings · 5 years

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Faber Castell Polychromos First Impressions

I've been threatening it, and nowhere it is at last--a test piece for the Faber Castell Polychromos colored pencils! (And also probably my last piece of art for 2018...) Some of my watchers may remember that I've been stalking the internet for months and waiting with very bated breath to get my hands on these famous pencils. Finally, the holiday season came and after cross-referencing no less than three different websites (at least), we ended up paying about $140 for the 120 set off of Cheap Joe's Art Stuff. Which is still more than I wanted to cough up, considering my 150 set of Prismacolors was purchased off Amazon for around $80. But after months and months of waiting and searching and checking, it seemed to me that was about as good as I was going to get if I wanted the full set. (Which because I suffer from what Coloring Bliss on YouTube has dubbed "Full Set Syndrome," of course I wanted the full set). And to be fair, $140 is still way better than the almost $300 price tag some websites place on these, or if you buy them in the special wooden box--which some places can top out at over $500. So let's talk about how they perform first, and then I'll go back to the more superficial things like appearance, packaging, etc. Since the most important thing is performance. But a disclaimer--this is the first piece I've done with these, and they've intrigued me, so I want to work with them more and maybe do an update/follow-up to see if my opinions change or anything interest comes up. (Hence why I'm calling this a First Impressions and not a Review.) Do I think these pencils are super magical and the best-colored pencils I've ever used? No. They are pretty good, but Prismacolor remains my favorite. These are probably my second favorite of the pencils I've tried, but Prisma is the clear winner for me. My main issue is that they're just not as soft as the Prismas, but I did kind of expect that going in because I've watched and seen a few different reviews for both and comparisons, and it comes partly because the Polychromos are oil based and the Prismacolors are wax based. The oil base just makes them a harder pencil. The reason this ended up bothering me personally to the extent it did has to do specifically with the white pencil. My poor white Prismacolor pencil that is so small I had to put it in a pencil extender to be able to continue to use it will tell you first hand that I'm pretty abusive to that color of pencil. I like to use it for blending, as a base on my toned tan and toned gray papers, and for highlights. Now, from what I've already heard about the Polychromos, I knew the white was going to be second fiddle to the Prismacolor--And I have yet to see anyone anywhere make a compelling case for any white colored pencil other than Prismacolor as "the best." To be fair, if you want a white for blending, I actually think this one is better because as I was working and trying to do highlights over other colors, I noticed it liked to blend. But if you're like me and you want the strong white highlights, you're better off to get the Prismacolor white. In fact, I would say if that's what you want and you're going to invest in the Polychromos, I would recommend also purchasing just the white Prismacolor to go with them. And I don't think this is unreasonable since some would also recommend buying separate blender pencils like those by Prismacolor or Derwent (which for the record I say Derwent; that one seems to work better for me). Now that I'm aware of the issue, I should be able to work around it accordingly, but going in blindly I ended up putting an uncomfortable amount of pressure behind the white to get the results I wanted, and even then I had to supplement more than I expected to with my white gel pen. Other than that, I did discover one other issue that isn't that big of a deal, but I thought was interesting to note because this is one thing I haven't really seen anyone specifically test or talk about: The back of the tin specifically says that these pencils are "Smudgeproof." This could be useful if you're like me tend to drag your hand over your work as you go or you really want your colors to hold still. However, I specifically tested this with some swatches. Maybe I don't know what "smudge" actually means, but with a bit of pressure, I did get the pigment to move outside of the swatch by dragging my finger over it. I do think that's probably more pressure than you'd naturally apply while drawing, and this could also be useful in different blending techniques or to get different effects. So while they may be "smudge resistant," they do not appear to be "smudge-proof" as far as I'm concerned. Not that big of a deal, but definitely interesting. Other than that, I really can't complain about performance. They blended and layered quite well. Usually, I see people raving about layering specifically with these, and even I have to admit I feel like I was able to add more layers that actually made a difference with these than I normally could with Prismacolor. At first, I was a little skeptical about blending, but they ended up pleasantly surprising me. Ultimately, I can see why these seem to be competing with Prismacolor in terms of "Most Popular Artist Quality Pencils." But for me, the key difference is just the softness, and that leads me to believe that these might work better if you tend to be heavy-handed and might have issues with just how soft Prismacolors are (like you might have issues with those breaking or coming out too dark/saturated, so the harder nature of the Polychromos would help you not have those issues). I mean, this doesn't really look any different from my other colored pencil drawings, but that's partly because I know what I'm doing and have a few tricks up my sleeve if pencils aren't behaving the way I want them to. However, this time around I wanted to really push these to see what they could do and I did my best not to give them any help. My procedure was pretty normal; White base to neutralize the tan paper, then I cut straight to coloring, lightest areas first, then touching the darkest, and then marrying the two together. The most difficult area was the mountain at the bottom, but that was partly because of my issues with the white and the fact that I don't have much experience with drawing realistic rocks/mountains. But my white gel pen made up for most of that, I think. (Seriously, never underestimate the potential of a good white gel pen). On to the more superficial things: I will give these one major point over Prismacolor; the packaging for the largest set is much better. This 120 set comes in a tin only slightly wider than a 13" laptop. In the tin, there are three layers of plastic trays filled with pencils. These trays feel a lot sturdier than most because they have built-in little elastic handles on either side to pick them up, and that is strictly necessary because the trays are sized pretty close to the tin. I'm not really a fan of the hinged lid just because you can't set it underneath like you might with a shoebox and the hinge makes setting the top tray of pencils back in the box a little fiddly, but it's not the end of the world. For Prismacolor, the 150 set comes in a thick paper/cardboard box with a total of six trays--three stacked on each side--that's almost twice the width of this tin. That's fine if you've got plenty of room to open the box and carefully move the trays around to get what you need and not spill the pencils, but I myself ended up investing a zipper case specifically for my Prismas because that whole set up is more work than I usually want to deal with. The Polychromos tin, at the very least, I can carefully balance in my lap and I'm less concerned about spilling or dropping them because of the way the tin and trays have been designed. I may end up investing in another case just for the Polychromos if I continue to find the one for my Prismas so much to my liking, but it's not a worrying issue like getting one for the Prismas was. Still, I'd much rather have good pencils and have to go find a better case than have a great case and pencils that suck, you know? On that note, the other area where the Polychromos have a leg over the Prismacolors really comes down to the presentation. If you want to feel fancy, the Polychromos are where it's at, from the packaging--that goes so far as to include a little pamphlet about the pencils and company in the tin--to the pencils themselves that have little gold accents and closed-cap ends, and even a lightfast rating on each pencil. (Though at this point in my life that's more of a fun bonus that a selling point for me). And I personally find most of the color names to seem on the fancier side too. I do think I should note also that the Polychromos pencils are a little bit bigger around than the Prismas, but this doesn't really amount to much. The core size is the same--3.8 mm, which is a pretty decent size--and they fit in a standard sharpener seemingly just fine, no issues. (Which the Polychromos do sharpen really beautifully and hold a point well, but I don't feel like that's groundbreaking information.) I think from a technical standpoint it might give the pencils more strength and protection to hold up to breaking, but on the surface, it doesn't make that much of a difference. I didn't feel a noticeable difference while I was working with them. As I stated at the beginning, the Polychromos have intrigued me and I want to work with them more to see if anything changes or comes up, but for now, my final thoughts are that Prismacolor is still my favorite, even though these are really nice. Do I think they're worth $140? That's more difficult to answer. I don't doubt that at least that much money went into making them based on the presentation alone, but my issue comes in with comparing them to the price of Prismacolor and other brands that aren't that far behind in terms of performance. Right now on Amazon, the 150 set of Prismas is $76.02. Almost half of the 120 Polychromos price and you get 30 more pencils. The highest I've seen it get to there is around $100. If you really want oil based pencils, I will vouch for the Schpierrer Farben pencils, which I've tested before and are officially back in stock!, their 72 set is currently $29.78 on Amazon. Half the price of the Polychromos 60 set. The highest I've seen for those is around $40, which is about what I paid when I got mine. (Though I got mine second-hand when it was uncertain if they'd ever be coming back). For comparison, the 120 set of Polychromos is currently sitting at $145 on Amazon. Yikes! That is honestly the only thing holding me back from really recommending these, much like my love/hate relationship with Photoshop. Beautiful tools, ugly, ugly price tags. Maybe my opinion will shift a bit as I work with these more, but as it stands now I'd still recommend Prismacolor as the best value for the price in terms of the pencils I've tried. With that, excuse if the picture quality isn't that great here; I really wanted to include the pencils instead of just scanning it, since the pencils are so gorgeously designed. And now if you'll excuse me, I'm going to close out 2018 with my favorite tradition of watching the Twilight Zone marathon on SyFy and maybe try to squeeze in one last drawing before the year's over. (Or start off 2019 with a brand new piece of art if I'm too slow ) ____ Artwork © me, MysticSparkleWings ____ Where to find me & my artwork: My Website | Commission Info + Prices | Ko-Fi | dA Print Shop | RedBubble | Twitter | Tumblr | Instagram

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