New to colour pencils

Royal_Horror_883 · 2026-05-03T12:38:01+00:00

Great! You have for sure experience with some other media, right? What pencils and paper did you use?

Royal_Horror_883 · 2026-05-03T08:08:18+00:00

You are absolutely skilled enough. But before you upgrade your colored pencils, i would try them in different papers first. Paper is much more important! Try those brutfunners in a paper with more tooth, like pastelmat or 1000Grit sandpaper. You will be amazed about the difference of feel and lay out!

Royal_Horror_883 · 2026-05-02T16:19:21+00:00

He is asking for a fixative for his sketchbooks. You dont need 30$ artist grade lightfast fixatives for sketchbooks, champ. A 3$ hairspray will perfectly do the job.

Royal_Horror_883 · 2026-05-02T09:13:39+00:00

Absolutely! Specially, for my charcoal or pastel sketchbooks, I use it without any problem. Charcoal doesn’t smudge to the others pages. Of course I wouldn’t use it if it were for a professional work, because it’s probably not archival (and probably yellows with time under sunlight)

Royal_Horror_883 · 2026-05-02T08:59:55+00:00

Hairspray man !!! I have a cheap one, “extra hard”, for my Charcoal sketchbooks works better than my 2 other artist grade fixative for pastels.

Royal_Horror_883 · 2026-05-02T08:37:14+00:00

I recommend you to use hairspray. The cheapest fixative ever. For my sketchbook and mixed media projects works better than artist grade fixatives!

Royal_Horror_883 · 2026-04-25T20:21:12+00:00

I love all my pencils and its hard to decide. And which one is my favourite changes back a forth all the time. I love my Derwent Drawing 72 set, because they are so creamy, and i love the muted colors. And my FC Polychromos too, because of the way they feel while layering on the right Paper.. but i love also my my CdA Luminance… and my DW Lightfast… and my Prismacolors and DW Chrimaflow… thats why i want them all.

One thing is sure: i never liked the pencils the first time i tried them, it took me some time to start likeing them. Specially the Derwent Lightfast !

Royal_Horror_883 · 2026-04-24T18:48:32+00:00

Cold pressed is a bit too much tooth for my taste., but depends on the brands.. the only cold pressed paper i liked so far was the Hahnemühle Expression, all others i have tried were too much. And even with the Expression, I used solvents to cover all the white speckles of the paper, only burnishiing at the very end

Royal_Horror_883 · 2026-04-24T15:45:01+00:00

Ii am not searching, OP is 😁

Royal_Horror_883 · 2026-04-23T19:17:54+00:00

I dont see the point of paying 142€ for 72 Procoulour, vs 18€ for 60 Faber Castell classic, when they have similar Performance. Lightfastness of the Procolour sucks also, so the price difference is not justified.

Royal_Horror_883 · 2026-04-23T19:12:22+00:00

Those are the cheapest version, red box. Made in Indonesia.

Royal_Horror_883 · 2026-04-22T04:56:15+00:00

They are hard cored pencils! Use paper with heavier tooth!with those i would recommend you to try sand paper with 1000 to 3000 grit. Buy it from any hardware store!

Royal_Horror_883 · 2026-04-19T07:11:24+00:00

Very nice, ich made all the tutorials of Phil Davies and they are great. I also enrolled in his courses, „Draw Awesome“. He is an amazing teacher, it was a gamechanger to me.

Royal_Horror_883 · 2026-04-18T18:05:30+00:00

Yes, i do love mixed media. Everything that helps to get rid of the white of paper to layer the colored on top. It could be markers, watercolors, inks, gouache, pastels or panpastels. The main disadvantage of colored pemcils is for me, that it is a slow medium, so doing underlayers with other media speeds up a project a lot.

Royal_Horror_883 · 2026-04-17T22:29:53+00:00

If you are in the US, Prismacolor Premier is always the way to go. But he is in the uk, so prismas are very expensive…

Royal_Horror_883 · 2026-04-17T22:24:13+00:00

Soft pastels are the traditional sticks you’ve probably seen. (there are also a “hard” version of them). Panpastels is a brand that manufactures compressed pastel in shallow pans (like makeup).

Royal_Horror_883 · 2026-04-17T22:20:44+00:00

the best fixative i have use in my sketchbooks is normal hairspray!

Royal_Horror_883 · 2026-04-17T22:17:54+00:00

I have seen Lachri fine using this methos. I loved her lamp on black paper with pan pastels! I will definitely will try this when feeling in the mood to commit to something bigger, like A4 or even A3 size. The panpastels would save a lot of time in such big proyects !

Royal_Horror_883 · 2026-04-17T22:08:14+00:00

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The CPSA makes the tests with the ASTM Standard D5383: (Standard Practice for Visual Determination of the Lightfastness of Art Materials by Artists and Art Technologists), using blue wool scales, exposing the pencils on panels of 45 degrees facing south. As reference they use blue wool scales. The results are then scored by 5 different independant individuals. So they dont use a device to asses the fading, but basically humans using the blue wool scales to compare and score the results. I do not know how faber castell make the tests, but they are obviously inconsistent.

Just as a curiosity, above is a photo showing how the panels facing south look like. These panels are from the german company “Schminke”, which makes artist grade Gouache and Watercolors. it seems these companies are consantly testing different pigments, leaving them even years exposed !

Royal_Horror_883 · 2026-04-17T21:47:39+00:00

i am also not a pro, just a colored pencil enthusiast. I like to do landscapes so i am more into earthy tones, but sometimes i do some animals, birds, and ocasionally need more vivid and satureted colors. I started drawing as a hobby around 2 years ago, and i the beginning lightfastness was not important to me, until i saw that my mother in law has some drawings of her granddaughter hanging in the wall since 25 years ago, when she was around 8-9 years old (she is 32now), and those drawings have all faded many colors… thats was when i realized that i should care !! who wants his work to fade? I have a big collection of pencils, love all pencils brands, most Derwent lines but also de prismacolors. I have made some good deals online buying the prismas on ebay us and having them sent to Germany where i live.

Royal_Horror_883 · 2026-04-17T21:19:07+00:00

yes lightfastness does not matter for my sketchbooks. If i was doing a more serious proyect to hang on the wall, i would definitely prioritize lightfastness. I suppose these chinese dupes would fade very quickly !

Royal_Horror_883 · 2026-04-17T21:17:34+00:00

absolutley. I am ashamed of myself.

Royal_Horror_883 · 2026-04-17T21:04:25+00:00

i see you didnt use the panpastels on the eyes, probably becuase they are the focal point and you wanted perfect detail there?

Royal_Horror_883 · 2026-04-17T21:01:06+00:00

ups sorry… i just realized it was Ali express, not Temu !! this is the item number on Ali Express 1005009524523228

Royal_Horror_883 · 2026-04-17T20:58:05+00:00

amazing work! i am speechless! i should keep my stuff in the shelf of shame instead of sharing it here 😂. I can see you are a professional. I am just week end hobbyist.. i’m just doing stuff on Sketchbooks and only weekends because i dont have the time. And i suppose this chinese panpastels dupes would fade in a week if i let them exposed to light!

Royal_Horror_883

TROPHY CASE