Lovely to see Giotto in there. :) Just a note: Giotto is an Italian brand - not to be confused with Lyra and not created by or part of the Lyra company. Both Giotto and Lyra are separate brands, and both are owned by FILA, which is a long-established Italian company, but Giotto was one of FILA's original-developed brands, whereas Lyra was a completely separate company that pre-existed FILA (by a century!) and was absorbed by FILA (not the other way around) at a much later date. In Italy Giotto is kind of a Crayola equivalent in that it's the go-to-brand for children & schools. Italian peeps have a lot of affection for the brand because of that :) Also, "Giotto di natura" is kind of a cheeky word-play on the popularity of the brand and the smooth wood of the pencil: it doesn't mean "natural", it means "by nature" - so it's "Giotto, by nature". :)
My top 5 budget are: Prismacolor (I'm in America so they are often .50 or less in sets) Brutfuner square Arrtx Phoenixcolor student Markart I haven't tried all the ones on your list surprisingly 😆
Excellent list Lindsay, I have the Phoenixcolor Student but just not got round to testing and reviewing them properly yet and the Markart pencils in the U.K. for 120 set are £139 so I’ll have to wait a while before testing them but I’ve heard lots of excellent whispers about them.
@@emptynestscrapper961 watch amazon. The 150 set goes on sale for $75 sometimes. I paid $59 for my 150 set a few years ago and they are legit. I also got 36 sets for $10
Nice to see you Harry. Look forward to seeing all of your top fives. Are you enjoying your new out side space? You’ve been missed! Hope to see you soon.
Nyoni/Markart are the same brand and are an amazing budget brand. Arteza are exceptional but don’t have great skin tones. I used to LOVE the Stay Joy pencils but they changed them to the Gold set which is fine but not as great as the older original set if you can find them. But the Star Joy Gold set has excellent skin tones so I use the skin tones from that set to pad out my Arteza set. Castle Arts are WONDERFUL. I prefer the soft core over the Gold. I think the Gold is a strange consistency. The additional pastel set they released is great. Colleen is a great set as well. There’s some really great pencils out there. I do have my Prismacolors, Polychromos and Luminance and they are very luxurious. I love to use them. But I don’t think they are necessary for beautiful art work. I can use these cheaper ones for sketches, concept images and thumbnails and coloring and keep the expensive brands for my own finished art work. But watercolor paint? That’s an entirely different story and ill bankrupt myself if given half the chance.
I haven’t tried 5 different brands of pencils yet, as I am a beginner. That being said, my favorite of those I’ve tried is the Brut 120 squares, and the Brut 50 pastels. I’m mainly a layering colorist, and these give me enough options that I don’t get overwhelmed by blending and mixing, while still feeling smooth. I bought them based on numerous reviews, and was very nervous. But my experience with them has been wonderful, to the point that I don’t feel the need to ‘upgrade’ until my skills grow. I even bought a second set. 😊👍🏼
getting the 24 classic faber castell set gave me the confidence to really embrace making art :D now i have polychromos and i make money with my work i can not recommend them enough, the first place gave me so much joy! :D
Hi Bethan that is such an amazing comment to hear that the Classic pencils, as a first time Colored pencil artist, gave you the confidence to move to the next level and buy much higher more serious bad boy Colored Pencils. You see it was my eldest daughter who got me into art. She loved art at school and we bought her art supplies, but this was way before I understood anything about art supplies and so looked at a set of Colored pencils priced over £10 and laughed. Needless to say the Art Supplies we bought her were cheap unbranded, Colored pencils. Looking back now knowing what I know, we were terrible for not buying her art supplies that she could really thrive with and enjoy. We used to get the kids those huge art sets at Christmas when they were younger that cost about £15 and have 150 different supplies all in a wooden box. The kids would open them and use them for about an hour and give up simply because there was no pigment in them at all. They would have to scrub hard to achieve Color but the only thing they ever really achieved was torn paper. I firmly believe that so many children turn away from art at a young age, because they are given the same terrible art supplies I have my kids and so they give up and never look at art again, at least not until much later in life. But if kids were given a set of pencils like any of the ones in this list, but especially the Classic, the kids would see immediate results, effortless Color manifesting right before their eyes and perhaps continue with the thrill and excitement that their imagination and art supplies, in combination, were creating. It’s like giving a child a bike with no wheels as their first bike, I bet they give up trying to ride the bike pretty soon. Anyway, so sorry for the lengthy ramble, I’ve not been uploading content lately due to some family problems but now that I am back, I am enjoying chatting with you all and so create these long, sometime incoherent replies. Thank you so so much for your comment and you are proof of my theory so thank you so much for sharing your experience with me.
@@TheArtGearGuide I 100% agree with your theory! I relate to everything you wrote here 😄 There is a fine balance with budget and quality in art supplies and I believe your videos are a huge help for people who may lack insight. So really, thank you for your work!
@@TheArtGearGuide Thanks for saying that Harry! I remember trying to colour in the 60's with what was standard: Lakeland (Derwent?)set of 12 coloured pencils on newsprint colouring book. Never ended well!
I find most helpful when people say why certain features are prioritized for what you do in your own art, and what downfalls of a budget brand don't bother you based on that as well. No one's going to like exactly the same things but it's easier for someone who does stuff similarly to how you do things to assess what they want to try if you contextualize things. Instead of trying to figure out what the all time best is objectively is, which is dumb, justify how they work for you and you're fine.
I’m not sure I fully understand what you mean. Do you mean I should say in this video why these pencils are my top 5, because if that is what you mean, I’m almost certain I mentioned why the No1 pencil was at No1 and why the No5 pencil was at No5. I apologise if I have misunderstood what you are saying in this comment
I enjoy listening to reviews of the different kinds of pencils and the reasons for your selection. So, thank you for taking the time to share. If possible, I would encourage a test of the Amazon Basics. The price point is super friendly, the colors are lovely (they only offer 72 at present), and they are my constant companions with my Prismas.
You must get different quality pencils than we do here in Australia. The classics I can get are rubbish. Going to try the Giotto as always looking for starter sets for students. The Bruynzeel are over $100 on our Amazon so not budget here. I love the Black Widows and have all the sets. I would add the Nyoni to this list. So glad to see you back. Hugs to all.
Thank you so much Kassa, I am much happier now I am back at my reviews. Sometimes it just feels like one thing after another with family but hopefully things will settle for a bit and give me the chance to do reviews
I just purchased this Faber Castell Classic Red 60 color pencils on Amazon for $30.00 they are coming soon and I can’t wait to try them. Thank you and your a great artist … love your work it’s beautiful!!!
Hi Heidi, I think you will really like them, they have a few sets available but I really love the Bruynzeel Expression, value for money wise they are wonderful and they also have a Watercolor set which I will get round to reviewing soon.
Crayola- Very easy to find and cheap, not the best but if you have no clue if you will like pencils, these are good to try. Prisma Scholar- you can get them on sale, and they are a lot cheaper than the Prisma Premiers. Whished they came with more than 60. Black Widow- Buy one set see if you like them and buy more sets when you have money Faber Castel Classics- I like these but they are really hard to find where I live in Canada, they have gone done in price where I live now, but were quite expensive when I started using pencils. Those are the only ones that I have tried that I like.
I didn’t realize the difference that geography makes in availability and price until I started adult coloring. The Crayola is probably the most widely available in the USA . Never occurred to me that they weren’t available everywhere. I was happy to see the Faber Castell Classic set as his top pick for availability and price. They are readily available in the USA and priced competitively. The square Brutfuner are often on sale at $25 or less and are great but only available online as well as some of the others in USA. If one doesn’t have an online account such as the ever more expensive Amazon Prime membership, they cannot be obtained without added shipping costs. I had no idea that there were so many differences on availability even with my neighbors to the north such as yourself. 🙂
@@wanderingstar5673 The price difference can be huge sometimes. For example, the Crayola 120 set of pencils is really hard to find in stores here, in fact, I've never seen them. The 100 set is everywhere, but not the 120. To order on amazon Canada it's 65.43 right now. To get it shipped from Amazon USA to Canada it's still 51.27, (cad) for Americans it's 28.59 (USD) Arteza is another one, some stuff is not really expensive, but some of it costs a ton. We also can't order from the site, we can only get it off of amazon Canada and that means we wait for months before we can even get it.
@@wanderingstar5673 I'd be broke if it weren't for Amazon Prime. It saves me a hundred dollars most months. I think Prime is worth the cost just for the free videos. And every now and then they give me something free, or cut the cost of something I order by as much as half just for being a longtime Prime member. And for spending more than I should.
I'm not sure about Crayola. I'm seen stunning hyperrealism done with Crayola, but a beginner needs something better, in my opinion. Using bad pencils is not a way to see if you're interested in using colored pencils for art. A twelve, or even a twenty-four set of high quality pencils doesn't cost very much, and allows a beginner to know what's possible. I'd choose Amazon Basics over any of the budget brands, and certainly over Crayola. I know a number of pros who use Amazon Basics as one of their out of the studio brands. I don't know any who use Crayola. At seventeen dollars and change for seventy-two pencils, at least where I live, skip the Crayola. The exception with Crayola might be their Colours of the world skin tone sets. These are surprisingly good, and ,ake any skin tone easy. I like black Widow, but they are not a budget brand, in my opinion. Save your money and buy a top brand. It's cheaper than buying multiple sets of Black Widow. You can get very large sets of Scholar pencils where I live, but they cost a fortune when bought this way. Honestly, if you want to do art, just buy Prismacolor Premier, or Faber-Castell Polychromos, or both. Those new at art, and too many who aren't new, greatly overestimate how many pencils you really need. Everyone seems to suffer from "fullsetitis." We all want the biggest set we can possibly get, so we buy cheap in order to get more pencils we will probably never use. I seriously doubt anyone needs more than seventy-two pencils, and forty-eight will do the job ninety-eight percent of the time. I've long since lost count of the number of stunningly beautiful colored pencil creations I've seen than were done with a dozen, or fewer, pencils. Sometimes as few as four.
Love the Faber Castel reds but apart from that set my only other budget set I own is creyart. The problem is that in Australia ALOT of the budget pencils you mentioned are not really budget here. Thanks for you top 5 though Harry I always watch your reviews. Much love & *Virtual hugs* xxx
Was just thinking about you! Thought it had been a little while since we've seen you. I haven't watched the video yet but I already know it's great info. 💕
Yeah I’ve see the metallics from the range, this set of 60 have a Gold and a silver in them and they are excellent so I am sure the full Metallic set is really nice, especially on dark or midtone paper. Thank you so much for your awesome comment really appreciate it.
This is a surprise to me. I've not found the Faber Castell red range to be very pigmented and haven't really enjoyed using them. Maybe I just haven't found the right paper for them yet.
I came on here just to say huge thanks for this recommendation. Based on this review, I purchased the Faber classics and was amazed at how nice they are. I would not have purchased them if it was not for this review. They lay down so well, are so pigmented, and work really well in colouring books especially Rita Herman’s. Thanks again! Off to get the metallics 🙂
My top 5 budget pencils are Shuttle Art Arteza Brutfunner Macaroon Set Koh-i-noor Castle Art I love using them all and often in combination. I can't decide the first or last place... they are all gorgeous. Best wishes from Germany by Judith
Good choices. I do prefer Amazon Basics over any of the budget brands. I know a number of pros who love them and use them as their out of the studio set, which is a great idea. I usually carry small sets of Prismacolor Premier and Faber-Castell Polychromos, but if we go on vacation, or if I have to stay in a hotel for a few days, I also take the Amazon Basics along. At seventeen dollars and change for seventy-two pencils, the Amazon pencils are the best deal on the market.
Interesting how people’s opinions on a product can differ! I LOVE my Brutfuner squares. Only issue I’ve had is a few of them didn’t sharpen well, but once my Dahle 133 comes in this weekend it shouldn’t be a problem anymore. I haven’t been impressed with the Arteza watercolor pencils so didn’t really consider the regular ones. I’ll give them a second look! Love the Black Widows! Ended up getting all the sets. And I have the Castle Art & StarJoys in my cart right now 😂
Trying different sets, I’ve figured out that I prefer oil-based over wax, but I have a couple wax sets I enjoy. That preference probably makes a difference in people’s “top 5”.
Thank you so much for the video. I colour a lot in adult colouring books and am always on the hunt for good budget pencils. I already own 3 of your top 5 (Brutfuner Square, Faber castell, and black widow) and will be looking at the other two you mentioned. My top 5 in no particular order are Brutfuner 120 (round barrel in a pencil case) Artworx 120 Kores kolor Shuttle art Black widow.
Really enjoyed this video, thank you! I find I use my budget pencils quite alot even though I own several of the top brands. From your list I have the Faber Castell Classic and Brutfuner Square, and they would be on my top five list too. Then I would add Faber Castell Black Edition (smooth and awesome on black paper), Marco Renoir (my prismacolor alternative, as I like that they are a bit more firm) and Nyoni Colored pencils.
I just bought a new electric sharpener. It fits up to 6-12 mm pencils. Got it on Amazon pretty cheap. It sharpened the my Brutfener square pencils perfectly.
hi Harry My top 5 budget pencils are the 120 brutfuner set the 72 brutfuner squared pencils the Faber-Castell 60 set the Whsmiths pencils set and the 120 Arteza set they are my favorite top 5 budget pencils that I like to use in my coloring books Lizzie Barry from the isle of man
I like to recommend arteza expert now that their formula is consistent as they technically sell open stock (in 3 packs) so theyre the most affordable open stock. A way around this and a pro to the brutfuner set you mentioned is youll notice some very similar tones very strategically placed in the set. Those tones are coincidentally some of the tones most likely to be used up, where unique tones are less likely to be used up. This ensures most of the set gets used before needing to be replaced. Otherwise a smaller set is more beneficial to artists as it lets them learn colour mixing and colour theory.
I’m so happy you’ve given your favourites, I really value your reviews and your honesty , so looking forward to more favourites videos ! I’ve got a few budget pencils , the Brutfuner square , the Brutfuner macarons, arteza 72 and colorya imaginor . I think the macarons ( Holbein pastels dupe ) are a brilliant set to supplement other sets for the range of paler colours and the colorya as they are less waxy than Brutfuner squares . I’m not keen on my artezas, bright Colours but I don’t love the waxiness. Thanks for a great video ☀️
Catching up on your videos. Had a lot going on. Appreciate this budget list. Your reviews introduced me to Faber Castell Classic set several years ago. I still love them.
Was wondering if you could do a video about the best papers-in your opinion-for each pencil brand of what you have reviewed. I would absolutely agree that the paper you use is so very important to get the best from a pencil. It is definitely not always about the price of a pencil as the wrong paper can make even an expensive pencil not perform well. And it so vital to have the right paper for an economical pencil. A video like that could be so very helpful. Like a culmination in one video instead of having to go through past pertinent videos to piece it together. Thanks for your hard work and helpfulness. It is very appreciated.
Yes, I'd find this very useful. Most paper reviews all talk about Strathmore paper, but it's super expensive on Amazon here in the UK. I've been trying a lot of different paper, but it's so hard to know what works and doesn't work :-(
Strathmore paper I think is pretty expensive everywhere. I purchased some mixed media paper because I also use watercolors as well sometimes with colored pencils only to find that the wax based pencils were terrible on it. It was like they were grease pencils and sat on the top of the paper. It’s a pretty expensive experiment when you don’t know which paper is best with which brand or kind of pencil.
@@sweetart3299 I agree! It's fun to experiment, but when it's over a £1 per sheet, or comes in a large pack, it's a waste when it doesn't work :-( That's why I've been trying to find more videos and info online about paper, but as I said, most just list a lot of different versions of Strathmore unfortunately.
I don't have enough sets to have a top 5, but I have the brutfuner and the bruynzeel. I love that the bruynzeel have the woody smell and remind me of when I was a little girl and got a new set of pencils. I like the colour selection of the brutfuner a bit more.
Great selection I agree to all of them! Just one correction or addition maybe, the Faber Castell Classic goes up to 100! At least here in Japan we have the 100 set for classic color, so they even win on that too!! Really nice selection Harry! Thank you for the video!
My top 5 cheap ones are (not in that order): - Maped; - Tris Mega Soft Color; - Giotto Supermina; - Lyra Groove; - Faber-Castell Eco Line (it would be the same as Classic). I live in Brazil.
I’m in the US. A stellar budget pencil here, generally overlooked, is Dick Blick house brand Blick Colored Pencils. Mostly wax based. About $1 per pencil. Open stock. They are so good that even some of the reds are lightfast.
My favourite budget pencils are. The stabilo green colors arty( just a 24 set ) Castle art soft touch, Winsor and Newton colour pencils, Faber-Castell black edition (Here in Germany very budget pencils) And the brutfuner square. The black widow pencils are nice as well, but you just find them on amazon, and they are sometimes very expensive.
Thanks for sharing all you know. I know that the Koh i Noor red survived a lightfast test done on it better than a Polychromos red. I consider it a budget pencil of good quality. My husband used budget color pencils (I don't know the brand) to make his Coat of Arms drawing way back in 1980. He framed it and put it in storage and it never saw the light of day. Yet all these years later you can hardly see the color anymore. Its nearly totally gone yet it never saw daylight. Obviously Many budget pencils will fade even if stored in a dark place over a long time depending if the company actually used real pigments or dyes to make them. As a watercolor artist, Light fastness matters to me even though I'm retired and not painting to sell any more because we do have family and when we are gone, I know my kids & grand-kids will be wanting the artwork I have done for sentimental reasons. Plus I give my artwork away as gifts these days. You don't have to be in business for light-fastness to matter in your artwork. So if lightfastness matters to you, then just do a lightfast test on them for 6 months in south facing window during the longest days of the year.
Many thanks for sharing! Nice review, it always helps to get the expert advise you provide us with! Not a professional myself but very happy with my Castle art pencils after watching your review.
Thank you so much for your lovely comment, the Castle Colored Pencils are in a different list which I will be uploading soon. I really like the Castle Colored Pencils, I’ve been lucky enough to lunch with the CEO of Castle and listen to his plans which were ambitious to say the least. But he is a good guy and that stands well for me. Thank you so much for your comment and support
Hi Harry, great selection! If you like the Giotto di natura then you gotta try the giotto stilnovo as they are pretty much the same but they come in 50 different colours. They are the only ones I get my kids cause they are super resistant to breakages too.
I am from Sydney Australia, with budget type pencils I am passionate on supporting local Australian businesses/products My top 5 are mostly Australian products No.5 - Mont marte art supplies (they are similar to Arteza. As we know art supplies can be expensive this company replicates those products and make them widely affordable easy they are sold in discounted/dollar stores. They are at number 5 because their products are hit and miss) No. 4 - Born (affordable art range by a store called officeworks it is no.4 because I just recently discovered this brand) No.3 - the black widow pencils range (to me these are even Stevens they are budget friendly and most importantly the philosophy and story behind why these pencils are invented in the first place) No. 2- Micador (this brand is where art started for me) No. 1 is jasart (budget friendly and affordable similar concept to mont marte)
Interesting about the Lyra skin tones Harry. They have actually been out a few years as I bought some from Rennies in Liverpool. I wasn’t keen on them to be honest, but for those who like a harder pencil they are okay. I ended up selling mine.
Hi There, nice to see you, I didn’t mean the Lyra Polycolor I think I confused matters, what I meant to say was the Giotto Di Natura are made by Fila, the name associated with Lyra and so the skin tone set I was referring to was of the Giotto Di Natura range, but I was only told about this set, I’ve not seen them myself. So lovely to see you leave a comment on the channel and thank you so very much
@@TheArtGearGuide lovely to be able to give input. Like you there is usually always something going on with health issues or ‘life’. But I’m still around :-)
@@TheArtGearGuide lovely to be able to give input. Like you there is usually always something going on with health issues or ‘life’. But I’m still around :-)
Great review, thanks! I used the Faber Castell Colour Grip pencils for a very long time, before upgrading to Polychromos. The colour grip pencils are lovely, very pigmented and can also be used as watercolour pencils. The maximum range is only 48, as far as I know, but they would be my recommendation for beginners. From the order numbers one can find the matching pencil colours in higher ranges, so upgrading is very easy within the Faber Castell family.
Hi Bridget I agree with you about the Colour Grip, there not as easy to find now days, but I am almost positive that they used to come in a 60 set as well, at least the Blue Aquarelle Colour Grip did. I have a few open stock of the colour grip aquarelle and love them. Faber Castell are an amazing manufacturer of art supplies, stationary etc and they would have to go monumentally wrong somewhere along the line to produce a terrible product. Mind you, having just said all that, I’m going to immediately contradict myself. I follow a few Oil Pastel artists and they have tried Faber Castells Oil Pastels and despise them, but I’ve never tried oil pastels yet and would love to sometime soon. Sorry for my off topic ramble and thank you so much for your comment
@@TheArtGearGuide I agree as a big fan of all things Faber Castell myself! I do have their oil pastels, they are student grade and not as creamy as some people expect them to be, but I do like them 😊
One more affordable pencil I think is very under rated is the faber castell goldfaber pencils only downfall is their biggest set is still fairly small in my opinion
Well, everyone has fullsetitis, including me. The truth is that no one needs more than seventy-two pencils, including pros. I doubt there's anything that can't be done with forty-eight, and very, very little that can't be done with thirty-six. Some of my favorite works of art were done with twelve, or fewer, pencils. Sometimes as few as four. But I also believe that if some company came out with a set of ten thousand, and wanted five dollars per pencil, many of us would sell our homes, take out a loan, or rob a bank to buy them.
Yes, I agree. I really like these pencils, and they're even available open stock here in the UK. I just need more colours. The 48 set has a lovely range, but it's hard to find enough different shades.
My favourite for real budget, yet great quality for those in the UK are the WH Smith's Let's Create range. They have up to 100 colours and lovely, vivid pigments. I also love the Castle Art in the semi budget range, both the soft and the gold ranges. I'm super shocked to see FC Classic rank No. 1 though. The set I've got isn't very good, not much pigment, so not sure if I got a bad set, they've changed the recipe or I'm just not using them on the right paper.
Have you tried Lamy? I have some great neon pencils from them. I think as regards light fastness - i think it is an important factor even if you arent selling because you might want to display a piece. I bought some cheap watercolour paints and i was disappointed how much it discoloured after about a year of display.
I don’t think so but I will be ordering a set of the Stilnovo soon to review. I don’t think they are the same pencil with different barrels because the Di Natura is only a 36 set and the Stilnovo is a 50 set, I think if they were to do that both sets would have the same number of pencils you would think, but I will soon find out
My nr1 are Brutfuner’s 180 oily pencils. I also liked the Qianyi 180 oily pencils, but only colored one page with those so far… I think putting the Black Widows in here is a little bit cheating? Before you have the whole set complete they are in a different price range as the rest of the list in my opinion :-)
Yep Black Widow are expensive pencils in budget disguise... you have to buy most of them to get anything close to a balanced set and once you do you have to rebuy full sets to get replacements.. you are spending a ton in the end.
I agree. I really like Black Widow, but I don't think it's a budget brand in any way. I think the best use of Black Widow is to buy a different brand, and then buy the single specialty Black Widow set you need to go with it. But buying them all makes no sense to me. I can get a much better brand cheaper than the cost of the same number, or even fewer, Black Widow pencils. Calling them a collection doesn't change this.
@@waymire01 I agree. With other brands, you never have to buy a new set to get replacement pencils. You just buy replacements from a brand that has open stock, using their color chart as a guide. But Black Widow even makes this difficult because of the way they specialize their sets. I do like Black Widow, and I do think their two skin tone sets make sense, especially for beginners who haven't learned how to blend skin tones, but as a rule, these are NOT budget pencils, and I won't buy them.
@@jamesaritchie1 The thing is their colors aren't unusual.. it's just the way they group them. I've seen multiple conversion charts and I know prisma at least has all of them, or close enough not to matter. Also if you look at them all in spectrum order many are very similar.
My top five are- from best to worst - Phoenix color 72 set - brutfuner square 120 set - daubigny 72 set - Faber castell - loops! Sorry, only have four cheaper sets! But my Phoenix number one pencils are the best I've ever used. Super creamy, leads are strong these I find preferable to all other pencils, including prisma! They were mostly around £15 when I bought them - daubigny are by Phoenix! Loved this video, thanks Harry.
Funny how different tastes can be. I really don't like Phoenix at all. I do like Brutfuner lead, but I simply can't use square pencils. It's probably lack of practice, but I have real trouble controlling them. I love anything Faber-Castell, but I only use the Polychromos. Just about every pro I know has set of soft, wax-based pencils, and a set of hard oil-based pencils. The Polychromos are the best oil-based pencils I've found anywhere. I actually think Prismacolor Premier is the best budget brand on the market, but we all have our own idea about what "budget" means.
Harry, bonny lad ! I've the window to throw it out off , but the receptacle is broken is my level of budget. Sir!, you've nailed it with this review. It means I can get a decent set of pencils for my grandkids to use and learn with. Kids deserve good pencils ( unless your 2 and you like to draw on walls)
Nice to see you back mate. Myself it would have been the Faber Castell Black edition. I know you don’t get as many colours but I have seen sets of 50 online, or maybe they are just a bit to expensive. Anyone know what’s happened to Arteza pencils? They seem to just do watercolour pencils now.
Unfortunately I couldn’t add the Markarts pencils to this list because here in the U.K. they are £149 for the set. I am not sure why they are so expensive in the U.K. and so cheap elsewhere, but I would love to buy a set and review them when I can afford to. Thank you so much for sharing your top 5 excellent list.
Here in Australia budget pencils tend to be cheaper on aliexpress than amazon, so my favourite budget pencils are ones I can get on aliexpress. Brutfuner squares and macarons, Marco Renoir, Nyoni and deli would probably be my favourites.
Thank you for this review. I'm choosing pencils for my son and it was very helpful!! I wonder how would you rate them from the perspective of softness? I can't wait to see the watercolour pencil review!
That's the biggest problem with trying to go cheap. You'll spend a lot more money in the long run because they aren't open stock. A LOT more, if you use them very often at all. This is why I recommend Prismacolor and Polychromos, even to beginners. These brands really aren't very expensive, and you can always buy a small set and add to it with open stock as you get the money to do so, It really doesn't take very long to build a full set this way. Just buy the largest set you can afford, whether it's twelve, twenty-four, thirty=six, forty-eight, or seventy-two, and buy two or three new colors each to you have a few dollars to spare. These two brands just aren't very expensive, it's just that everyone suffers from fullsetitis. We lack patience and want to buy the biggest set out there, even if they aren't the best pencils. I really like a lot of the low cost brands, but you will, in the long run, save a LOT of money by buying a brand that has open stock. If you're content to start with a small set, and add to it from open stock as you can, you can save hundreds of dollars over cheap brands that aren't open stock. A great alternative, of course, is to buy a brand you really like that isn't open stock, and the replace the pencils you use up with open stock from Polychromos or Prismacolor. Sort of the best of both worlds. You won't be able to match the colors by name, but it's easy to come extremely close with the charts they have..
Wow. I'm in NZ, and have 3 of those sets! Love my Bruynzeel Expressions, but only have a set of 12, and they are now hard to get. FC Classic is one of the standard pencils here, and I have the 48. Both sets cost around $1 each pencil however. Also have the Brutfuner squares. My top would be in no particular order, Brut squares, Nyoni 120 (same as Markart by all accounts), and Brutfuner 50 Macaron at around 50 c each. Honourable mentions for being the cheapest are the Brutfuner 180 black barrels, and the Fuxi Obos 200 at 30 c each. Under $1 a pencil this is my list of favourites. I use them for colouring books. I would love to put my Phoenixcolor 100 in here, but they are not exactly budget at over $1 each.
I think some people only buy top of the line pencils, some only buy budget pencils, some only buy oil based, and some only buy wax. But I totally agree that everyone is going to be different in their top 5. I have a horrible time ranking art supplies, makeup or anything else because my opinion changes with what I feel like using on any particular day, lol. You always do a great job! If raam refined fixed their core iss, I would say they are one of my favorites, they blend like Prismas but are a tiny bit firmer led. However almost every core is off center. Marco Renoir’s are also awesome, same with Black Widow pencils, and brutfuner, schpirer farben, and I am loving the Kalour pencils I just got.
I like Soucolor, square brutfuner, kalour, black widows and Faber Castell Black Edition and Schpirrer Farben . These are my budget pencils that I own. I like them all for different reasons. Thanks for sharing 🐱
the Faber Castell are def really good budgets pencils, and the brand is easy for me to find too. I dont think i have a list of budget pencils, I just usually grab the mid range pencils and almost never use the expensive ones, they get hidden in a drawer lol
Well, the Faber-Castell Polychromos aren't budget pencils, certainly not for my budget, and they're the only Faber-Castell pencils that I like. Why hide them. If you don't use expensive pencils as often as possible you have no idea how to use them well, and it's just wasted money. There's a big difference in how top end and mid-range pencils work, and being able to use one well doesn't automatically mean you can use the other equally well without burning through quite a few pencils. Top end pencils are also all open stock, so once you have a decently large set, you won't go broke buying replacements for the few colors you go through most often. If you have a large set, chances are you will never need to replace at least a third of the pencils, and probably not even half. It's the initial investment that make high end pencils expensive. After that, being open stock makes them cheaper than any brand that isn't open stock.
i've used them a bit, but just cant think of anything to really us them with since i only have a few colours. I prefer the polys but i've been using coloured pencils for more than 30 years so can use any of them when budget allows, either cheap or expensive
I've only ever used Faber Castell polychromos or castle art gold. So most of these I've never heard of but will most likely be purchasing and trying. Thank you for your video and points of view 😊
It seems to me that it is not the same to paint with watercolor type pencils than with normal ones...? I remember using the Faber Castell Eco from the school line. At the university: the Faber Castell Eco watercolors were the set of 48 and I have kept them for a long time... At this point I have most of the warm colors and some cold ones but I take advantage of their watercolor property and I like the result . Months ago I tried some Stabilo Escolares that they gave me as a giveaway but I think that because it is an economic line the quality is irregular because its tip breaks and it is not pretty when these situations happen. I am not a colorist but I am an artist and I love to paint my creations. I am currently learning to paint with some Polychromos that blessed me as a gift. If I have seen the Giotto brand but I have not had the opportunity to use them. Thank you for your review to learn more about the world of colored pencils :) pdt//Please. What do you think of the "Staedtler" school line colors in case you know the brand??...I'm looking at some for my 6 and 8-year-old nieces. I wonder if there will be a quality collection that will last them a long time. Thanks!
Top five budget pencils on my wishlist are Star Joy Gold, Markart, Soucolor, Black Widow, Castle Arts Gold. From 1-5 for my rating based off the videos reviews. I will buy them in this order.
I think this list is pretty good. I have never tried the Lyra ones you mentioned. I would add Arrtx and Mondo Llama (Target brand). I got a 12 set of the Brunzeel Expressions in a smart art box some months ago. I really like them, unfortunately the 72 set here in the US is nearly $70. It's not a bad per pencil price. It's spending $70 on another set of pencils when I can already likely live out my life within buying anymore pencils and still hand down some sets to my grandkids 😉 I have never met a budget set I'm not willing to at least try. I don't mind a 36 set. One of my favorite sets, Faber Castell Black Edition is only 36 and I've never found it lacking.
Well, the larger the set the easier and faster it is to use an extremely wide range of colors. Even if you're the best blender in the world, there is no way to match all the colors in a large pencil set. That said, very few people need a hundred or more colors. A set of thirty-six can do a tremendous amount of art. So can a set of twenty-four, or even a set of twelve. One of my favorite colored pencils creations was done with four pencils, another with eight. Honestly, while it is fun to use esoteric colors from a massive set, I don't think there's anything that can't be done just as well with a seventy-two set, even for pro artists. It's just that most of us suffer from that dreaded disease called "fullsetitis". We always want the biggest, most expensive set made. If a company came of with a ten thousand set at five dollars per pencil, we'd sell our house, or our first child, to get it. A friend of mine bought me a 172 set of Shuttle Art pencils. I actually like them, and they only cost thirty bucks. He said he uses them to fill in small areas with colors he doesn't have in his small sets of Polychromos and Prismacolor. Seems like a good idea to me.
Thank you for the video. It’s a good starting point because of the countless budget pencils on the market. I found the Faber Castell Classic due to your full review of them. If anyone has doubts about their performance, may I recommend Ali Hader videos on UA-cam. Not only is he a wonderful teacher but he does a lot of videos with the FCC due to his understanding that not everyone can afford a set of FC Polychromos.
Well, a good artist can make Crayola pencils look like the best brand in the world. I've seen stunningly beautiful hyperrealism drawings done with Crayola pencils that just couldn't be better. I'm far from a pencil snob, but I do believe the top brands are worth saving for. As I said in another post, the old saying, "It's a poor worker who blames the tools" is true, but the better the tools, the easier the work. The thing is, Polychromos pencils really are not very expensive, so, to me, it just makes a lot more sense to buy them. Or to buy Prismacolor Premier. They're pretty cheap, too. In the long run, you'll spend a lot more money on quality pencils that aren't open stock that you will on more expensive pencils that are open stock. In a way, price largely comes down to open stock. The initial investment in top end pencils can hurt, especially if you get the largest set available. After that, however, they are really cheaper than any of the mid-range quality pencils that aren't open stock. Many artists I know buy the best brand they can afford that isn't open stock, and replace the pencils they use up with open stock from one of the most expensive brands, buying a color that most closely matches the one they used up. They also buy two or three other colors when they buy a replacement. In time, they have a nice set of expensive pencils without a large upfront investment. I did just think of a second problem I have with pencils that aren't open stock, and that pencils that are white or black. I have yet to find even a mid-range set of pencils that have really high quality white or black pencils. Even the white Polychromos pencil is lousy, though the black one is excellent. The easy solution, of course, is to buy a black Polychromos, and a white Prismacolor or Caran 'd'Ache luminance. These are the two best white pencils I've found.
Great review, thank you. I have polychromos and love them but am looking for something less expensive for coloring books. My husband has a Schpirrer Farben set and I keep stealing his, so I'm wondering how they would compare to the others on your budget list. Are they less pigmented, too oily,? I read your review and they seem good, so I would love your input. Thank you.
First, I've been an artist of one kind or another for fifty years, and I've always believed fully in the old saying, "It's a poor worker who blames the tools." Some of the very best graphite drawings I've ever seen were done with HB pencil stubs and scrap paper, often the remnants of butcher paper rolls, the artists found in a large city dump while looking for food. Some of the most stunning colored pencil works was done using Crayola pencils by artists living in poverty right here in America. Any tools an artist has are just as good, or just as bad, as the artist using them. A good artist with Crayola will produce much better art than a not so good artist will with Caran d'Ache, Faber-Castell, or Prismacolor. But cheap or expensive, I think you have to consider whether you want wax-based or oil-based pencils, or both, before you talk brands. For me, both are needed to do the best possible job, with the most efficiency. Wax-based pencils are much better for wide coverage and for blending, and oil-based are much better for any kind of fine detail work. Second, I don't think anything in the art world is as overrated as lightfastness. It just doesn't matter except under extraordinary circumstances. Half the world doesn't even consider it as a factor. No type of media just fades out, or yellows, because it has little or no lightfastness. Museums are full of centuries old art that have zero lightfastness, but that look as good as the day they were created. Just keep work away from direct sunlight, or sunlight reflected off a mirror or bright metal surface, and it will last nearly forever. Or cover the art with a UV blocker surface or one of the many materials made for the job. Too, many of the Chinese brands have never been tested for lightfastness. I have a fair number of friends in China, both in and out of the art world, and the artist friends don't care at all about lightfastness unless they're creating something actually intended to be displayed outside for very long periods of time, or unless they have a client in one of the countries where lightfastness is a big deal. They have unflattering names for such people. Anyway, I have nothing at all against your selections, other than saying I have a hard time considering Black Widow as budget pencils. By the time you buy all you need it's a sizable investment. I do like them, though, and if I had to use budget pencils, these would be my choice. I don't have five favorite budget colored pencil brands because I have a full set of Faber-Castell Polychromos, a full set of Caran d'Ache, and a full set of Prismacolor, none of which I had to buy, thank goodness. There's no way I could afford all these sets. I also need quality graphite pencils, watercolor paints, and all the different papers required. For graphite, I use sketchbooks, of course, but the important drawings are usually on Strathmore Bristol Board, most often on 23x29, 3 or 4-ply. and it's very, very expensive. I've been very fortunate here, as well, and really only have to buy the Bristol Board. That said, I do have several cheap brands that people have sent me for testing, or that I bought out of curiosity after watching a review, or that I received as birthday or Christmas gifts. I do like the Black Widow pencils quite a bit. While there is a lot of disagreement about the Amazon pencils, I actually like them. Honestly, though, despite having some pretty expensive brands, which, as I said, I didn't have to buy, I'm about as far from a colored pencil snob as you can get. I have a Shuttle Art set of pencils that a friend bought and liked, so he sent me a set. It has 174 pencils, and there is nothing I can't do with it. The ONLY thing I have against cheap pencil brands is that you usually can't buy open stock, and this is a huge drawback. There are half a dozen or so pencils that I can use up in a week, and another two dozen or so that I go through in under a month. The solution most of my friends have for this is buying open stock of an expensive brand that matches such fast used pencils as closely as possible. It's not a bad idea. Anyway, I decided very, very early in my career that the best brand of pencil on the planet, whether graphite, colored, pastel, or charcoal, always has been and always will be the brand an individual artist likes the most.
@@tabbylynn4130 James Ritchie mentions he has the 174 set of Shuttle art and states there is nothing he can not do with them, I own the same set of these pencils, and the one serious issue I am having is that the cores are coming unglued and they are falling out of the wood. Loose cores are really annoying, other than that I believe they are decent and have a wide range in value incriment increase with about a 10% difference from one pencil to the next beside it, almost to the point that they look the same. Is this really neccessary for a budget brand set of pencils? It's almost like having the color red starting from 20 % then 30% then 40%...etc. I also agree that the Black Widows are not a budget pencil and are over priced. I am a huge fan of the Arteza, I own two 120 ( Expert ) sets, and they have amazing colors that rank them up there with Prismacolor Premier, which I have four full sets of 150 and about 200 open stock loose...24 white...20 black...24 blenders...
All colored pencils contain a mix of wax and oil, and none of the companies are public about the ratio because it's a proprietary recipe. (This was actually confirmed by a Faber-Castell employee in response to a customer inquiry.) There are also different types of wax used in different pencil ranges. Polychromos and Derwent Lightfast are both referred to as "oil based", however their hardness is quite different - Lightfast is softer than many other wax-based pencils. Derwent Studio are wax-based pencils, but in my experience even harder than Polychromos. Essentially, the oil vs wax debate is pretty meaningless.
You can never go wrong with graphite. I know of a gentlemen, now deceased & the most fantastic graphite artist ever, who only used one pencil. A number 1 graphite.
Hi Harry, Thanks so much for listing your top 5 budget colored pencils. Can you let me know the name of the set you mentioned that you didn't include because it was slightly higher? You said they was Japanese but I didn't see the name of them.
For absolute beginners or children 1. Amazon Basic Colour Pencils, 72. Was a great price when I bought them. You can buy smaller sets. Great to learn about colouring and your pencils. Also if you like colouring at all. 2. Faber-Castell Goldfaber, although only 48. They are a student pencil for those starting off. I find a limited number of colours helps you to learn. Feel good to use! Was a great price from an excellent company. Two I can recommend but I am not that crazy about Black Widow. Liked the idea you can buy individual sets but with the original sets there is only one white pencil in one set. Make sure you buy the correct set first. I find the pencil very thin in hand. Also I think when you put them all together you would be better off buying Prismacolor. 3.Prismascolor a large set for a good price and you have various sizes of sets. Although I find these too soft for my liking. I ended up buying Prismacolor Verithin, a harder pencil and limited number, to add to the overall set.
I'm an old pro and I've been doing this for fifty years. I can do ANY drawing, including hyperrealism, with the Amazon Basics pencils that I can do with my Polychromos or Prismacolor. I think they're excellent pencils, and I know several pros who use them as their number one out of the studio set. I know some don't like them, but I think they're every bit as good as Prismacolor, and I've been doing this a long, long time. I suspect the low price makes many think they must be bad. They aren't bad. They are excellent pencils. Beginners and children, yes, but mid-range and pro artists, also yes. Right now you can get a seventy-two set of Amazon pencils for seventeen dollars and change. This is the best deal on the market by far. If there's ANYTHING an artist can't do with this set, the fault is with the artist, not the pencils. Amazon did everything possible to duplicate Prismacolor with these pencils, and I think they did an excellent job. I have full sets of Caran d'Ache Luminance, Faber-Castell Polychromos, and Prismacolor Premier, but if I needed a fourth set, it would be the Amazon Basics. I know you aren't doing this, but many of the bad reviews these pencils get come from Prismacolor users who are really afraid that Amazon is going to put Prismacolor out of business. I've even been told that Prismacolor has encouraged such reviews, and may even have paid for several. I do know that Amazon would like to put Prismacolor out of business, or even to acquire the company, if they can do so at a profit making cost. I also know they aren't willing to invest a fortune in this, which is why they came out with the Amazon Basics pencils, and why they sell them at cost. Some have told me they sell far below cost. It doesn't matter to me whether a set has one white or five whites. I prefer one because every additional white pencil removes another color that will probably be far more useful. If I want more white or black pencils, I buy open stock. For most people, white is not a color that's needed all that often, anyway. It's primarily a highlight pencil for most of us. But if it is needed, open stock is the way to get it, not sacrificing other colors. I do use both white and black colored pencils in my graphite drawings. Prismacolor white pencils for highlights,, and Polychromos black pencils when I need a black that graphite can't give me. I buy a dozen box of each about every six months. If you don't mind spending the money, it is best to have a very soft set, such as Prismacolor Premier, or Caran d'Ache, and a hard, oil-based set such as Faber-Castell Polychromos. Soft pencils are much better for layering, blending, and covering large areas, and hard sets are far and away the best for doing fine detail work. Most of the pros I know have two sets, one wax-based, and one oil-based, for just this reason. The Verithin pencils are good, but nowhere near as good as Polychromos, and while they are cheaper, I'm not sure they're the best buy. But it doies depend on your personal budget. Again, I'll take the Amazon Basics over the Verithin. But I do think it's a mistake to buy pencils that have no open stock if you use the pencils very often at all, though you can always replace used up pencils with open stock pencils from your favorite brand. This is probably the most economical way to build a top quality set. I love many budget pencil brands, but nearly all of the good ones simply cost far to much when they have no open stock. This is one more reason to buy Amazon Basics. There simply is nothing a good artist can't do with them, and they're so cheap that replacing used ones with o[pen stock greatly lowers your investment over more expensive brands of budget pencils.
I really like the FC Goldfaber too, just wish there were more colours. I'm very surprised at all the comments raving about the FC classis (red) range, as my set, bought earlier this year, aren't very good. I've found the kids range of WH Smith coloured pencils far better than the FC classic ones. I don't know if I just got a bad set, or they've changed their makeup a bit...
@@jamesaritchie1 I have prismacolors and I dont like them because they’re too soft. I also have the verithins which I prefer but not enough color options.
Ah Harry thank you so much for this list! I started with the Faber Castell classic back in the day, they really are lovely. And for that price, it's just amazing. Though I do want to check out softer pencils (I am using Polychromos at the moment). And I'm really looking forward to your other lists!!!
Can I ask what you've used the FC Classics on/for? I've not found mine to be very good. Unless it's case of old vs new? My set was purchased just a few months ago...
I agree James. But when you're new to pencils you can make a lot of expensive mistakes! My daubigny where about £13 and I think they're excellent for the price. There's such a huge choice - its hard going making choices! Happy drawing anyway 🙆
Budget pencils my top 5 brutfuner square my brutfuner macaron they look a lot like the Holbein pencils Giotto stilnovo pencils The bruynzeel expressions and the last pencils i bought was the winsor and Newton and i like them a lot
Here in Brazil there is a Faber factory. Now there are cheaper, second line brands made by the factory, but not assigned as Faber. The leads have the same quality of classic Faber, but thinner. The wood of barrels are inferior and sets goes until 36 colors. The brands are multicolor, play doo, happy time. I prefer happy time for the palete. And there is Faber Castell Supersoft, more opaque than Classic, with the bigger set of 100 colors. A local, good and budget brand in Brazil is Tris Megasoft with 72 colors
Love, love, love your channel and your work. As you have said.. it is a matter of perspective. I have taken your recommendation to heart and it is of great value as you review way more pencils than rest of us. From my perspective being on the other side of the world, some of your top budget brands are very expensive for me in Australia… so I would swap out Giotto, & Brunzeel for Deli 72, Star-joy Gold or Arrtx 72 which for me also far eclipse the FC Classic.
SO hard to review top 5 or top 10 anything! Everyone's requirements are so different too! I liked your square pencils cheap and easy for me to let kids use. I do not like sharing my "better" pencils. Any of your choices are good for letting others use for coloring books be they an adult or visitor! I just cringe when someone wants to use my Faber Castell or Prismacolors to color a coloring page! Yeah I am a bit of a snob. Ah well sweet video and many Thanks Harry! Take care and Be Well!
I have full sets of Caran d'Ache Luminance, Faber-Castell Polychromos, and Prismacolor Premier, but I'm not a snob at all. My next favorite set is the Amazon Basics, though I know other pros who use them as their out of the studio set, so they can't be that bad. And at seventeen dollars and change for seventy-two pencils, how can you go wrong? I really do love low cost pencils, and as I've said over and over, the old saying, "It's a poor worker who blames the tools" is absolutely true. But I don't share my expensive pencils, period. It's just a silly thing to do unless you're rich. I've had to pay as much as nine dollars for some on the open stock pencils I need, but even at a dollar each I can't afford to have someone else ruin them.
For those who want to buy the Faber-Castell Black Edition to color on black paper, donˋt do it. These cheaper Red one work way better. I have both, tried it and can approve that the Black-Edition doesn’t work so well on black paper!
![UPDATED...Best CHEAP Colored Pencils on Amazon in 2024 [Now Includes Arrtx, Arteza & Castle Arts]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/bfLe-fS7X3I/mqdefault.jpg)
![Lp. Сердце Вселенной #60 РОЖДЕНИЕ ЛОЛОЛОШКИ [Финал] • Майнкрафт](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/YoR0pAV9FVQ/mqdefault.jpg)
Lovely to see Giotto in there. :) Just a note: Giotto is an Italian brand - not to be confused with Lyra and not created by or part of the Lyra company. Both Giotto and Lyra are separate brands, and both are owned by FILA, which is a long-established Italian company, but Giotto was one of FILA's original-developed brands, whereas Lyra was a completely separate company that pre-existed FILA (by a century!) and was absorbed by FILA (not the other way around) at a much later date. In Italy Giotto is kind of a Crayola equivalent in that it's the go-to-brand for children & schools. Italian peeps have a lot of affection for the brand because of that :)
Also, "Giotto di natura" is kind of a cheeky word-play on the popularity of the brand and the smooth wood of the pencil: it doesn't mean "natural", it means "by nature" - so it's "Giotto, by nature". :)
My top 5 budget are:
Prismacolor (I'm in America so they are often .50 or less in sets)
Brutfuner square
Arrtx
Phoenixcolor student
Markart
I haven't tried all the ones on your list surprisingly 😆
Excellent list Lindsay, I have the Phoenixcolor Student but just not got round to testing and reviewing them properly yet and the Markart pencils in the U.K. for 120 set are £139 so I’ll have to wait a while before testing them but I’ve heard lots of excellent whispers about them.
I love prismacolor and faber castell polychromos
Wow! .50 or less for prismacolors! I’ve not seen that...and I’ve been looking. I’d snatch those in a heartbeat. Can you provide a link?
@@emptynestscrapper961 watch amazon. The 150 set goes on sale for $75 sometimes. I paid $59 for my 150 set a few years ago and they are legit. I also got 36 sets for $10
@@TheArtGearGuide yikes! I bought the 72 set for $21 on prime day last year.
Nice to see you Harry. Look forward to seeing all of your top fives. Are you enjoying your new out side space? You’ve been missed! Hope to see you soon.
Nyoni/Markart are the same brand and are an amazing budget brand. Arteza are exceptional but don’t have great skin tones. I used to LOVE the Stay Joy pencils but they changed them to the Gold set which is fine but not as great as the older original set if you can find them. But the Star Joy Gold set has excellent skin tones so I use the skin tones from that set to pad out my Arteza set. Castle Arts are WONDERFUL. I prefer the soft core over the Gold. I think the Gold is a strange consistency. The additional pastel set they released is great. Colleen is a great set as well. There’s some really great pencils out there. I do have my Prismacolors, Polychromos and Luminance and they are very luxurious. I love to use them. But I don’t think they are necessary for beautiful art work. I can use these cheaper ones for sketches, concept images and thumbnails and coloring and keep the expensive brands for my own finished art work. But watercolor paint? That’s an entirely different story and ill bankrupt myself if given half the chance.
I haven’t tried 5 different brands of pencils yet, as I am a beginner. That being said, my favorite of those I’ve tried is the Brut 120 squares, and the Brut 50 pastels. I’m mainly a layering colorist, and these give me enough options that I don’t get overwhelmed by blending and mixing, while still feeling smooth. I bought them based on numerous reviews, and was very nervous. But my experience with them has been wonderful, to the point that I don’t feel the need to ‘upgrade’ until my skills grow. I even bought a second set. 😊👍🏼
getting the 24 classic faber castell set gave me the confidence to really embrace making art :D now i have polychromos and i make money with my work
i can not recommend them enough, the first place gave me so much joy! :D
Hi Bethan that is such an amazing comment to hear that the Classic pencils, as a first time Colored pencil artist, gave you the confidence to move to the next level and buy much higher more serious bad boy Colored Pencils.
You see it was my eldest daughter who got me into art. She loved art at school and we bought her art supplies, but this was way before I understood anything about art supplies and so looked at a set of Colored pencils priced over £10 and laughed.
Needless to say the Art Supplies we bought her were cheap unbranded, Colored pencils. Looking back now knowing what I know, we were terrible for not buying her art supplies that she could really thrive with and enjoy.
We used to get the kids those huge art sets at Christmas when they were younger that cost about £15 and have 150 different supplies all in a wooden box. The kids would open them and use them for about an hour and give up simply because there was no pigment in them at all. They would have to scrub hard to achieve Color but the only thing they ever really achieved was torn paper.
I firmly believe that so many children turn away from art at a young age, because they are given the same terrible art supplies I have my kids and so they give up and never look at art again, at least not until much later in life. But if kids were given a set of pencils like any of the ones in this list, but especially the Classic, the kids would see immediate results, effortless Color manifesting right before their eyes and perhaps continue with the thrill and excitement that their imagination and art supplies, in combination, were creating. It’s like giving a child a bike with no wheels as their first bike, I bet they give up trying to ride the bike pretty soon.
Anyway, so sorry for the lengthy ramble, I’ve not been uploading content lately due to some family problems but now that I am back, I am enjoying chatting with you all and so create these long, sometime incoherent replies. Thank you so so much for your comment and you are proof of my theory so thank you so much for sharing your experience with me.
@@TheArtGearGuide I 100% agree with your theory! I relate to everything you wrote here 😄 There is a fine balance with budget and quality in art supplies and I believe your videos are a huge help for people who may lack insight. So really, thank you for your work!
@@TheArtGearGuide Thanks for saying that Harry! I remember trying to colour in the 60's with what was standard: Lakeland (Derwent?)set of 12 coloured pencils on newsprint colouring book. Never ended well!
Oh also…. The dahle 133 sharpens the square bruts like a dream. Thank you for all your videos and your kind heart. Much love from the states.
I find most helpful when people say why certain features are prioritized for what you do in your own art, and what downfalls of a budget brand don't bother you based on that as well.
No one's going to like exactly the same things but it's easier for someone who does stuff similarly to how you do things to assess what they want to try if you contextualize things. Instead of trying to figure out what the all time best is objectively is, which is dumb, justify how they work for you and you're fine.
I’m not sure I fully understand what you mean. Do you mean I should say in this video why these pencils are my top 5, because if that is what you mean, I’m almost certain I mentioned why the No1 pencil was at No1 and why the No5 pencil was at No5. I apologise if I have misunderstood what you are saying in this comment
I enjoy listening to reviews of the different kinds of pencils and the reasons for your selection. So, thank you for taking the time to share. If possible, I would encourage a test of the Amazon Basics. The price point is super friendly, the colors are lovely (they only offer 72 at present), and they are my constant companions with my Prismas.
You must get different quality pencils than we do here in Australia. The classics I can get are rubbish. Going to try the Giotto as always looking for starter sets for students. The Bruynzeel are over $100 on our Amazon so not budget here. I love the Black Widows and have all the sets. I would add the Nyoni to this list. So glad to see you back. Hugs to all.
Welcome back Harry, we've missed you and looking forward to your review! 😍
Thank you so much Kassa, I am much happier now I am back at my reviews. Sometimes it just feels like one thing after another with family but hopefully things will settle for a bit and give me the chance to do reviews
@@TheArtGearGuide I often log on just so I can see your reviews - even though I know I'll end up buying more because your reviews are so good!
I just purchased this Faber Castell Classic Red 60 color pencils on Amazon for $30.00 they are coming soon and I can’t wait to try them. Thank you and your a great artist … love your work it’s beautiful!!!
So glad you did this list. You’ve introduced me to Brunzeel - never knew about them before. Thank you.
Hi Heidi, I think you will really like them, they have a few sets available but I really love the Bruynzeel Expression, value for money wise they are wonderful and they also have a Watercolor set which I will get round to reviewing soon.
Bruzyneel are good. I don't know about the light-fast aspect though.
Crayola- Very easy to find and cheap, not the best but if you have no clue if you will like pencils, these are good to try.
Prisma Scholar- you can get them on sale, and they are a lot cheaper than the Prisma Premiers. Whished they came with more than 60.
Black Widow- Buy one set see if you like them and buy more sets when you have money
Faber Castel Classics- I like these but they are really hard to find where I live in Canada, they have gone done in price where I live now, but were quite expensive when I started using pencils.
Those are the only ones that I have tried that I like.
I didn’t realize the difference that geography makes in availability and price until I started adult coloring. The Crayola is probably the most widely available in the USA . Never occurred to me that they weren’t available everywhere. I was happy to see the Faber Castell Classic set as his top pick for availability and price. They are readily available in the USA and priced competitively. The square Brutfuner are often on sale at $25 or less and are great but only available online as well as some of the others in USA. If one doesn’t have an online account such as the ever more expensive Amazon Prime membership, they cannot be obtained without added shipping costs. I had no idea that there were so many differences on availability even with my neighbors to the north such as yourself. 🙂
@@wanderingstar5673 The price difference can be huge sometimes. For example, the Crayola 120 set of pencils is really hard to find in stores here, in fact, I've never seen them. The 100 set is everywhere, but not the 120. To order on amazon Canada it's 65.43 right now. To get it shipped from Amazon USA to Canada it's still 51.27, (cad) for Americans it's 28.59 (USD)
Arteza is another one, some stuff is not really expensive, but some of it costs a ton. We also can't order from the site, we can only get it off of amazon Canada and that means we wait for months before we can even get it.
@@Dustyrosepetal 😞
@@wanderingstar5673 I'd be broke if it weren't for Amazon Prime. It saves me a hundred dollars most months. I think Prime is worth the cost just for the free videos. And every now and then they give me something free, or cut the cost of something I order by as much as half just for being a longtime Prime member. And for spending more than I should.
I'm not sure about Crayola. I'm seen stunning hyperrealism done with Crayola, but a beginner needs something better, in my opinion. Using bad pencils is not a way to see if you're interested in using colored pencils for art. A twelve, or even a twenty-four set of high quality pencils doesn't cost very much, and allows a beginner to know what's possible.
I'd choose Amazon Basics over any of the budget brands, and certainly over Crayola. I know a number of pros who use Amazon Basics as one of their out of the studio brands. I don't know any who use Crayola. At seventeen dollars and change for seventy-two pencils, at least where I live, skip the Crayola.
The exception with Crayola might be their Colours of the world skin tone sets. These are surprisingly good, and ,ake any skin tone easy.
I like black Widow, but they are not a budget brand, in my opinion. Save your money and buy a top brand. It's cheaper than buying multiple sets of Black Widow.
You can get very large sets of Scholar pencils where I live, but they cost a fortune when bought this way.
Honestly, if you want to do art, just buy Prismacolor Premier, or Faber-Castell Polychromos, or both. Those new at art, and too many who aren't new, greatly overestimate how many pencils you really need. Everyone seems to suffer from "fullsetitis." We all want the biggest set we can possibly get, so we buy cheap in order to get more pencils we will probably never use.
I seriously doubt anyone needs more than seventy-two pencils, and forty-eight will do the job ninety-eight percent of the time. I've long since lost count of the number of stunningly beautiful colored pencil creations I've seen than were done with a dozen, or fewer, pencils. Sometimes as few as four.
Love the Faber Castel reds but apart from that set my only other budget set I own is creyart. The problem is that in Australia ALOT of the budget pencils you mentioned are not really budget here. Thanks for you top 5 though Harry I always watch your reviews. Much love & *Virtual hugs* xxx
Was just thinking about you! Thought it had been a little while since we've seen you. I haven't watched the video yet but I already know it's great info. 💕
A great list. For me I definitely agree with Faber being the first on the list. They also have metallics in the same range, that I love.
Yeah I’ve see the metallics from the range, this set of 60 have a Gold and a silver in them and they are excellent so I am sure the full Metallic set is really nice, especially on dark or midtone paper. Thank you so much for your awesome comment really appreciate it.
This is a surprise to me. I've not found the Faber Castell red range to be very pigmented and haven't really enjoyed using them. Maybe I just haven't found the right paper for them yet.
I came on here just to say huge thanks for this recommendation. Based on this review, I purchased the Faber classics and was amazed at how nice they are. I would not have purchased them if it was not for this review. They lay down so well, are so pigmented, and work really well in colouring books especially Rita Herman’s. Thanks again! Off to get the metallics 🙂
My top 5 budget pencils are
Shuttle Art
Arteza
Brutfunner Macaroon Set
Koh-i-noor
Castle Art
I love using them all and often in combination. I can't decide the first or last place... they are all gorgeous. Best wishes from Germany by Judith
my top budget are arteza, castle art gold black widow set star joy and gold set brutfuner square are at the bottom of my list.
Good choices. I do prefer Amazon Basics over any of the budget brands. I know a number of pros who love them and use them as their out of the studio set, which is a great idea. I usually carry small sets of Prismacolor Premier and Faber-Castell Polychromos, but if we go on vacation, or if I have to stay in a hotel for a few days, I also take the Amazon Basics along. At seventeen dollars and change for seventy-two pencils, the Amazon pencils are the best deal on the market.
I love the Castle Art sets as well, I'm surprised they weren't on the list. They're a bit harder than pencils like Black Widow, which I much prefer.
Interesting how people’s opinions on a product can differ! I LOVE my Brutfuner squares. Only issue I’ve had is a few of them didn’t sharpen well, but once my Dahle 133 comes in this weekend it shouldn’t be a problem anymore.
I haven’t been impressed with the Arteza watercolor pencils so didn’t really consider the regular ones. I’ll give them a second look!
Love the Black Widows! Ended up getting all the sets.
And I have the Castle Art & StarJoys in my cart right now 😂
Trying different sets, I’ve figured out that I prefer oil-based over wax, but I have a couple wax sets I enjoy. That preference probably makes a difference in people’s “top 5”.
Thanks
Thank you so much for the video. I colour a lot in adult colouring books and am always on the hunt for good budget pencils. I already own 3 of your top 5 (Brutfuner Square, Faber castell, and black widow) and will be looking at the other two you mentioned.
My top 5 in no particular order are
Brutfuner 120 (round barrel in a pencil case)
Artworx 120
Kores kolor
Shuttle art
Black widow.
Really enjoyed this video, thank you! I find I use my budget pencils quite alot even though I own several of the top brands. From your list I have the Faber Castell Classic and Brutfuner Square, and they would be on my top five list too. Then I would add Faber Castell Black Edition (smooth and awesome on black paper), Marco Renoir (my prismacolor alternative, as I like that they are a bit more firm) and Nyoni Colored pencils.
Great video. I love the brutfunner square but sharping is a nightmare. Same as most of my budget sets it’s difficult to sharpen them
I just bought a new electric sharpener. It fits up to 6-12 mm pencils. Got it on Amazon pretty cheap. It sharpened the my Brutfener square pencils perfectly.
hi Harry My top 5 budget pencils are the 120 brutfuner set the 72 brutfuner squared pencils the Faber-Castell 60 set the Whsmiths pencils set and the 120 Arteza set they are my favorite top 5 budget pencils that I like to use in my coloring books Lizzie Barry from the isle of man
I like to recommend arteza expert now that their formula is consistent as they technically sell open stock (in 3 packs) so theyre the most affordable open stock. A way around this and a pro to the brutfuner set you mentioned is youll notice some very similar tones very strategically placed in the set. Those tones are coincidentally some of the tones most likely to be used up, where unique tones are less likely to be used up. This ensures most of the set gets used before needing to be replaced. Otherwise a smaller set is more beneficial to artists as it lets them learn colour mixing and colour theory.
I’m so happy you’ve given your favourites, I really value your reviews and your honesty , so looking forward to more favourites videos ! I’ve got a few budget pencils , the Brutfuner square , the Brutfuner macarons, arteza 72 and colorya imaginor . I think the macarons ( Holbein pastels dupe ) are a brilliant set to supplement other sets for the range of paler colours and the colorya as they are less waxy than Brutfuner squares . I’m not keen on my artezas, bright Colours but I don’t love the waxiness. Thanks for a great video ☀️
Great review. Lots of useful information. 👌🏼👏🏼
Catching up on your videos. Had a lot going on. Appreciate this budget list. Your reviews introduced me to Faber Castell Classic set several years ago. I still love them.
Was wondering if you could do a video about the best papers-in your opinion-for each pencil brand of what you have reviewed. I would absolutely agree that the paper you use is so very important to get the best from a pencil. It is definitely not always about the price of a pencil as the wrong paper can make even an expensive pencil not perform well. And it so vital to have the right paper for an economical pencil. A video like that could be so very helpful. Like a culmination in one video instead of having to go through past pertinent videos to piece it together. Thanks for your hard work and helpfulness. It is very appreciated.
Yes, I'd find this very useful. Most paper reviews all talk about Strathmore paper, but it's super expensive on Amazon here in the UK. I've been trying a lot of different paper, but it's so hard to know what works and doesn't work :-(
Strathmore paper I think is pretty expensive everywhere. I purchased some mixed media paper because I also use watercolors as well sometimes with colored pencils only to find that the wax based pencils were terrible on it. It was like they were grease pencils and sat on the top of the paper. It’s a pretty expensive experiment when you don’t know which paper is best with which brand or kind of pencil.
@@sweetart3299 I agree! It's fun to experiment, but when it's over a £1 per sheet, or comes in a large pack, it's a waste when it doesn't work :-( That's why I've been trying to find more videos and info online about paper, but as I said, most just list a lot of different versions of Strathmore unfortunately.
Thanks!
I don't have enough sets to have a top 5, but I have the brutfuner and the bruynzeel. I love that the bruynzeel have the woody smell and remind me of when I was a little girl and got a new set of pencils. I like the colour selection of the brutfuner a bit more.
Great selection I agree to all of them! Just one correction or addition maybe, the Faber Castell Classic goes up to 100! At least here in Japan we have the 100 set for classic color, so they even win on that too!! Really nice selection Harry! Thank you for the video!
i would have to add arrtx i just got them and i tell you except for a few quirks im really liking them they are smooth and buttery
Interesting review. I would say Faber Castell makes the nicest pencils, even on a budget. I myself have the 60 set too, and they look nice.
Why did we jave to wait yesrs for a video like this? Fast, efficient, informative and logical. Thnx. 👍
My top 5 cheap ones are (not in that order):
- Maped;
- Tris Mega Soft Color;
- Giotto Supermina;
- Lyra Groove;
- Faber-Castell Eco Line (it would be the same as Classic).
I live in Brazil.
I’m in the US. A stellar budget pencil here, generally overlooked, is Dick Blick house brand Blick Colored Pencils. Mostly wax based. About $1 per pencil. Open stock. They are so good that even some of the reds are lightfast.
My favourite budget pencils are.
The stabilo green colors arty( just a 24 set )
Castle art soft touch,
Winsor and Newton colour pencils,
Faber-Castell black edition
(Here in Germany very budget pencils)
And the brutfuner square.
The black widow pencils are nice as well, but you just find them on amazon, and they are sometimes very expensive.
Top selection, I completly agree. Love Faber Castell pencils, they are my favourite budget pencil too
Thanks for sharing all you know. I know that the Koh i Noor red survived a lightfast test done on it better than a Polychromos red. I consider it a budget pencil of good quality. My husband used budget color pencils (I don't know the brand) to make his Coat of Arms drawing way back in 1980. He framed it and put it in storage and it never saw the light of day. Yet all these years later you can hardly see the color anymore. Its nearly totally gone yet it never saw daylight. Obviously Many budget pencils will fade even if stored in a dark place over a long time depending if the company actually used real pigments or dyes to make them. As a watercolor artist, Light fastness matters to me even though I'm retired and not painting to sell any more because we do have family and when we are gone, I know my kids & grand-kids will be wanting the artwork I have done for sentimental reasons. Plus I give my artwork away as gifts these days. You don't have to be in business for light-fastness to matter in your artwork. So if lightfastness matters to you, then just do a lightfast test on them for 6 months in south facing window during the longest days of the year.
Many thanks for sharing! Nice review, it always helps to get the expert advise you provide us with! Not a professional myself but very happy with my Castle art pencils after watching your review.
Thank you so much for your lovely comment, the Castle Colored Pencils are in a different list which I will be uploading soon. I really like the Castle Colored Pencils, I’ve been lucky enough to lunch with the CEO of Castle and listen to his plans which were ambitious to say the least. But he is a good guy and that stands well for me. Thank you so much for your comment and support
Hi Harry, great selection! If you like the Giotto di natura then you gotta try the giotto stilnovo as they are pretty much the same but they come in 50 different colours. They are the only ones I get my kids cause they are super resistant to breakages too.
Thanks for the review. I like H & B. My Kalour I don't like. I am in the US. I am looking for a 120 set.
I got the 100 Faber Castell Black Edition to get that pigment but everyone online bags on either their layering or blending
So good to see you, Harry! Great review.
I am from Sydney Australia, with budget type pencils I am passionate on supporting local Australian businesses/products
My top 5 are mostly Australian products
No.5 - Mont marte art supplies (they are similar to Arteza. As we know art supplies can be expensive this company replicates those products and make them widely affordable easy they are sold in discounted/dollar stores. They are at number 5 because their products are hit and miss)
No. 4 - Born (affordable art range by a store called officeworks it is no.4 because I just recently discovered this brand)
No.3 - the black widow pencils range (to me these are even Stevens they are budget friendly and most importantly the philosophy and story behind why these pencils are invented in the first place)
No. 2- Micador (this brand is where art started for me)
No. 1 is jasart (budget friendly and affordable similar concept to mont marte)
I have a dilemma RED 60 or BLACK 100 lol 😂 I’ve been trying to decide all day haha 😂
i like the fc classic too, but my absolute favorite is the kalour colored pencil
Was thinking bout you and glad you did this video! Thank you so much!
Que alegria.... tengo los Faber Castell Clasico. Gracias. 🤗🤗🤗
Interesting about the Lyra skin tones Harry. They have actually been out a few years as I bought some from Rennies in Liverpool. I wasn’t keen on them to be honest, but for those who like a harder pencil they are okay. I ended up selling mine.
Hi There, nice to see you, I didn’t mean the Lyra Polycolor I think I confused matters, what I meant to say was the Giotto Di Natura are made by Fila, the name associated with Lyra and so the skin tone set I was referring to was of the Giotto Di Natura range, but I was only told about this set, I’ve not seen them myself.
So lovely to see you leave a comment on the channel and thank you so very much
@@TheArtGearGuide lovely to be able to give input. Like you there is usually always something going on with health issues or ‘life’. But I’m still around :-)
@@TheArtGearGuide lovely to be able to give input. Like you there is usually always something going on with health issues or ‘life’. But I’m still around :-)
Great review, thanks! I used the Faber Castell Colour Grip pencils for a very long time, before upgrading to Polychromos. The colour grip pencils are lovely, very pigmented and can also be used as watercolour pencils. The maximum range is only 48, as far as I know, but they would be my recommendation for beginners. From the order numbers one can find the matching pencil colours in higher ranges, so upgrading is very easy within the Faber Castell family.
Hi Bridget I agree with you about the Colour Grip, there not as easy to find now days, but I am almost positive that they used to come in a 60 set as well, at least the Blue Aquarelle Colour Grip did. I have a few open stock of the colour grip aquarelle and love them.
Faber Castell are an amazing manufacturer of art supplies, stationary etc and they would have to go monumentally wrong somewhere along the line to produce a terrible product. Mind you, having just said all that, I’m going to immediately contradict myself. I follow a few Oil Pastel artists and they have tried Faber Castells Oil Pastels and despise them, but I’ve never tried oil pastels yet and would love to sometime soon.
Sorry for my off topic ramble and thank you so much for your comment
@@TheArtGearGuide I agree as a big fan of all things Faber Castell myself! I do have their oil pastels, they are student grade and not as creamy as some people expect them to be, but I do like them 😊
One more affordable pencil I think is very under rated is the faber castell goldfaber pencils only downfall is their biggest set is still fairly small in my opinion
Well, everyone has fullsetitis, including me. The truth is that no one needs more than seventy-two pencils, including pros. I doubt there's anything that can't be done with forty-eight, and very, very little that can't be done with thirty-six.
Some of my favorite works of art were done with twelve, or fewer, pencils. Sometimes as few as four.
But I also believe that if some company came out with a set of ten thousand, and wanted five dollars per pencil, many of us would sell our homes, take out a loan, or rob a bank to buy them.
Yes, I agree. I really like these pencils, and they're even available open stock here in the UK. I just need more colours. The 48 set has a lovely range, but it's hard to find enough different shades.
@@CraftyColourist it’s available open stock here in the USA too, which is a big plus
My favourite for real budget, yet great quality for those in the UK are the WH Smith's Let's Create range. They have up to 100 colours and lovely, vivid pigments. I also love the Castle Art in the semi budget range, both the soft and the gold ranges.
I'm super shocked to see FC Classic rank No. 1 though. The set I've got isn't very good, not much pigment, so not sure if I got a bad set, they've changed the recipe or I'm just not using them on the right paper.
Yeah FC classic has hard texture. I do not like it.
Have you tried Lamy? I have some great neon pencils from them.
I think as regards light fastness - i think it is an important factor even if you arent selling because you might want to display a piece. I bought some cheap watercolour paints and i was disappointed how much it discoloured after about a year of display.
That was a Awesome review some of these pencils I have not thought of!!!!
is Giotto Di Natura just Giotto Stilnovo in clear coating? I love all the fila products, even cheap lyra sets are good
I don’t think so but I will be ordering a set of the Stilnovo soon to review. I don’t think they are the same pencil with different barrels because the Di Natura is only a 36 set and the Stilnovo is a 50 set, I think if they were to do that both sets would have the same number of pencils you would think, but I will soon find out
I was brought the Stilnovo from Italy and loved them but bought a set from C&Wilcox and they felt totally different…🤣🥰
My nr1 are Brutfuner’s 180 oily pencils.
I also liked the Qianyi 180 oily pencils, but only colored one page with those so far…
I think putting the Black Widows in here is a little bit cheating? Before you have the whole set complete they are in a different price range as the rest of the list in my opinion :-)
Yep Black Widow are expensive pencils in budget disguise... you have to buy most of them to get anything close to a balanced set and once you do you have to rebuy full sets to get replacements.. you are spending a ton in the end.
I agree. I really like Black Widow, but I don't think it's a budget brand in any way. I think the best use of Black Widow is to buy a different brand, and then buy the single specialty Black Widow set you need to go with it. But buying them all makes no sense to me. I can get a much better brand cheaper than the cost of the same number, or even fewer, Black Widow pencils. Calling them a collection doesn't change this.
@@waymire01 I agree. With other brands, you never have to buy a new set to get replacement pencils. You just buy replacements from a brand that has open stock, using their color chart as a guide. But Black Widow even makes this difficult because of the way they specialize their sets. I do like Black Widow, and I do think their two skin tone sets make sense, especially for beginners who haven't learned how to blend skin tones, but as a rule, these are NOT budget pencils, and I won't buy them.
@@jamesaritchie1 The thing is their colors aren't unusual.. it's just the way they group them. I've seen multiple conversion charts and I know prisma at least has all of them, or close enough not to matter. Also if you look at them all in spectrum order many are very similar.
My top five are- from best to worst - Phoenix color 72 set - brutfuner square 120 set - daubigny 72 set - Faber castell - loops! Sorry, only have four cheaper sets! But my Phoenix number one pencils are the best I've ever used. Super creamy, leads are strong these I find preferable to all other pencils, including prisma! They were mostly around £15 when I bought them - daubigny are by Phoenix! Loved this video, thanks Harry.
Funny how different tastes can be. I really don't like Phoenix at all. I do like Brutfuner lead, but I simply can't use square pencils. It's probably lack of practice, but I have real trouble controlling them. I love anything Faber-Castell, but I only use the Polychromos. Just about every pro I know has set of soft, wax-based pencils, and a set of hard oil-based pencils. The Polychromos are the best oil-based pencils I've found anywhere.
I actually think Prismacolor Premier is the best budget brand on the market, but we all have our own idea about what "budget" means.
Harry, bonny lad ! I've the window to throw it out off , but the receptacle is broken is my level of budget. Sir!, you've nailed it with this review. It means I can get a decent set of pencils for my grandkids to use and learn with. Kids deserve good pencils ( unless your 2 and you like to draw on walls)
Nice to see you back mate. Myself it would have been the Faber Castell Black edition. I know you don’t get as many colours but I have seen sets of 50 online, or maybe they are just a bit to expensive. Anyone know what’s happened to Arteza pencils? They seem to just do watercolour pencils now.
My top five budget range are: arrtx, square brutfuners, mark arts, arteza and my beloved crayola. Have to edit and add black widows.
Unfortunately I couldn’t add the Markarts pencils to this list because here in the U.K. they are £149 for the set. I am not sure why they are so expensive in the U.K. and so cheap elsewhere, but I would love to buy a set and review them when I can afford to. Thank you so much for sharing your top 5 excellent list.
Thanks for sharing 😊 am eyeing that bruynzeel expression not sure where to buy them tho..def not Amazon
Here in Australia budget pencils tend to be cheaper on aliexpress than amazon, so my favourite budget pencils are ones I can get on aliexpress. Brutfuner squares and macarons, Marco Renoir, Nyoni and deli would probably be my favourites.
Nyoni and Deli are top notch. Exceptional taste you have!
@@SwedePotato314 Which one is the best? Deli or Nyoni?
1 and 5 are on my wishlist! I just got the brutfuner macaron and I love them!
Thank you for this review. I'm choosing pencils for my son and it was very helpful!! I wonder how would you rate them from the perspective of softness? I can't wait to see the watercolour pencil review!
Love your reviews!
Brutfuner is my only budget set and I love them. The only drawback for me is they aren’t sold individually. Guess I’ll buy another set.
That's the biggest problem with trying to go cheap. You'll spend a lot more money in the long run because they aren't open stock. A LOT more, if you use them very often at all. This is why I recommend Prismacolor and Polychromos, even to beginners. These brands really aren't very expensive, and you can always buy a small set and add to it with open stock as you get the money to do so, It really doesn't take very long to build a full set this way.
Just buy the largest set you can afford, whether it's twelve, twenty-four, thirty=six, forty-eight, or seventy-two, and buy two or three new colors each to you have a few dollars to spare. These two brands just aren't very expensive, it's just that everyone suffers from fullsetitis. We lack patience and want to buy the biggest set out there, even if they aren't the best pencils.
I really like a lot of the low cost brands, but you will, in the long run, save a LOT of money by buying a brand that has open stock. If you're content to start with a small set, and add to it from open stock as you can, you can save hundreds of dollars over cheap brands that aren't open stock.
A great alternative, of course, is to buy a brand you really like that isn't open stock, and the replace the pencils you use up with open stock from Polychromos or Prismacolor. Sort of the best of both worlds. You won't be able to match the colors by name, but it's easy to come extremely close with the charts they have..
They are cheap enough so that price doesn't matter, still cheaper to replace your Brut's than buy Poly's :)
Wow. I'm in NZ, and have 3 of those sets! Love my Bruynzeel Expressions, but only have a set of 12, and they are now hard to get. FC Classic is one of the standard pencils here, and I have the 48. Both sets cost around $1 each pencil however. Also have the Brutfuner squares. My top would be in no particular order, Brut squares, Nyoni 120 (same as Markart by all accounts), and Brutfuner 50 Macaron at around 50 c each. Honourable mentions for being the cheapest are the Brutfuner 180 black barrels, and the Fuxi Obos 200 at 30 c each. Under $1 a pencil this is my list of favourites. I use them for colouring books. I would love to put my Phoenixcolor 100 in here, but they are not exactly budget at over $1 each.
Jow about june goldechmi sl colored pencils
Only comes with 36. Bit enpugh for regular coloring book work.
I think some people only buy top of the line pencils, some only buy budget pencils, some only buy oil based, and some only buy wax. But I totally agree that everyone is going to be different in their top 5. I have a horrible time ranking art supplies, makeup or anything else because my opinion changes with what I feel like using on any particular day, lol. You always do a great job! If raam refined fixed their core iss, I would say they are one of my favorites, they blend like Prismas but are a tiny bit firmer led. However almost every core is off center. Marco Renoir’s are also awesome, same with Black Widow pencils, and brutfuner, schpirer farben, and I am loving the Kalour pencils I just got.
I dont have many set of pencils but so far my favorites are Winsor & Newton, Prismacolor Scholars, and Prang.
I like Soucolor, square brutfuner, kalour, black widows and Faber Castell Black Edition and Schpirrer Farben . These are my budget pencils that I own. I like them all for different reasons. Thanks for sharing 🐱
I live in canada farben is so expensive here.😢
the Faber Castell are def really good budgets pencils, and the brand is easy for me to find too. I dont think i have a list of budget pencils, I just usually grab the mid range pencils and almost never use the expensive ones, they get hidden in a drawer lol
Well, the Faber-Castell Polychromos aren't budget pencils, certainly not for my budget, and they're the only Faber-Castell pencils that I like.
Why hide them. If you don't use expensive pencils as often as possible you have no idea how to use them well, and it's just wasted money. There's a big difference in how top end and mid-range pencils work, and being able to use one well doesn't automatically mean you can use the other equally well without burning through quite a few pencils.
Top end pencils are also all open stock, so once you have a decently large set, you won't go broke buying replacements for the few colors you go through most often. If you have a large set, chances are you will never need to replace at least a third of the pencils, and probably not even half. It's the initial investment that make high end pencils expensive. After that, being open stock makes them cheaper than any brand that isn't open stock.
i've used them a bit, but just cant think of anything to really us them with since i only have a few colours. I prefer the polys but i've been using coloured pencils for more than 30 years so can use any of them when budget allows, either cheap or expensive
I've only ever used Faber Castell polychromos or castle art gold. So most of these I've never heard of but will most likely be purchasing and trying. Thank you for your video and points of view 😊
I have Lyra color pencils...are the Giotto very different? I like the Lyra alot. 🙂
It seems to me that it is not the same to paint with watercolor type pencils than with normal ones...?
I remember using the Faber Castell Eco from the school line. At the university: the Faber Castell Eco watercolors were the set of 48 and I have kept them for a long time... At this point I have most of the warm colors and some cold ones but I take advantage of their watercolor property and I like the result .
Months ago I tried some Stabilo Escolares that they gave me as a giveaway but I think that because it is an economic line the quality is irregular because its tip breaks and it is not pretty when these situations happen.
I am not a colorist but I am an artist and I love to paint my creations. I am currently learning to paint with some Polychromos that blessed me as a gift.
If I have seen the Giotto brand but I have not had the opportunity to use them.
Thank you for your review to learn more about the world of colored pencils :)
pdt//Please. What do you think of the "Staedtler" school line colors in case you know the brand??...I'm looking at some for my 6 and 8-year-old nieces. I wonder if there will be a quality collection that will last them a long time. Thanks!
I wonder if Arrtx colored pencils can dethrone any of the 5 brands mentioned 🤔
Oil: Soho, sargent
Wax: goldfaber, Crayola
Watercolor: old derwent, stabilo all color
Thank you for this video!! So very helpful.
Top five budget pencils on my wishlist are Star Joy Gold, Markart, Soucolor, Black Widow, Castle Arts Gold. From 1-5 for my rating based off the videos reviews. I will buy them in this order.
Great video Harry!
I think this list is pretty good. I have never tried the Lyra ones you mentioned. I would add Arrtx and Mondo Llama (Target brand).
I got a 12 set of the Brunzeel Expressions in a smart art box some months ago. I really like them, unfortunately the 72 set here in the US is nearly $70. It's not a bad per pencil price. It's spending $70 on another set of pencils when I can already likely live out my life within buying anymore pencils and still hand down some sets to my grandkids 😉
I have never met a budget set I'm not willing to at least try. I don't mind a 36 set. One of my favorite sets, Faber Castell Black Edition is only 36 and I've never found it lacking.
Well, the larger the set the easier and faster it is to use an extremely wide range of colors. Even if you're the best blender in the world, there is no way to match all the colors in a large pencil set.
That said, very few people need a hundred or more colors. A set of thirty-six can do a tremendous amount of art. So can a set of twenty-four, or even a set of twelve. One of my favorite colored pencils creations was done with four pencils, another with eight.
Honestly, while it is fun to use esoteric colors from a massive set, I don't think there's anything that can't be done just as well with a seventy-two set, even for pro artists. It's just that most of us suffer from that dreaded disease called "fullsetitis". We always want the biggest, most expensive set made. If a company came of with a ten thousand set at five dollars per pencil, we'd sell our house, or our first child, to get it.
A friend of mine bought me a 172 set of Shuttle Art pencils. I actually like them, and they only cost thirty bucks. He said he uses them to fill in small areas with colors he doesn't have in his small sets of Polychromos and Prismacolor. Seems like a good idea to me.
Thank you for the video. It’s a good starting point because of the countless budget pencils on the market. I found the Faber Castell Classic due to your full review of them. If anyone has doubts about their performance, may I recommend Ali Hader videos on UA-cam. Not only is he a wonderful teacher but he does a lot of videos with the FCC due to his understanding that not everyone can afford a set of FC Polychromos.
Well, a good artist can make Crayola pencils look like the best brand in the world. I've seen stunningly beautiful hyperrealism drawings done with Crayola pencils that just couldn't be better. I'm far from a pencil snob, but I do believe the top brands are worth saving for. As I said in another post, the old saying, "It's a poor worker who blames the tools" is true, but the better the tools, the easier the work.
The thing is, Polychromos pencils really are not very expensive, so, to me, it just makes a lot more sense to buy them. Or to buy Prismacolor Premier. They're pretty cheap, too. In the long run, you'll spend a lot more money on quality pencils that aren't open stock that you will on more expensive pencils that are open stock.
In a way, price largely comes down to open stock. The initial investment in top end pencils can hurt, especially if you get the largest set available. After that, however, they are really cheaper than any of the mid-range quality pencils that aren't open stock.
Many artists I know buy the best brand they can afford that isn't open stock, and replace the pencils they use up with open stock from one of the most expensive brands, buying a color that most closely matches the one they used up. They also buy two or three other colors when they buy a replacement. In time, they have a nice set of expensive pencils without a large upfront investment.
I did just think of a second problem I have with pencils that aren't open stock, and that pencils that are white or black. I have yet to find even a mid-range set of pencils that have really high quality white or black pencils. Even the white Polychromos pencil is lousy, though the black one is excellent.
The easy solution, of course, is to buy a black Polychromos, and a white Prismacolor or Caran 'd'Ache luminance. These are the two best white pencils I've found.
Great review, thank you. I have polychromos and love them but am looking for something less expensive for coloring books. My husband has a Schpirrer Farben set and I keep stealing his, so I'm wondering how they would compare to the others on your budget list. Are they less pigmented, too oily,? I read your review and they seem good, so I would love your input. Thank you.
First, I've been an artist of one kind or another for fifty years, and I've always believed fully in the old saying, "It's a poor worker who blames the tools." Some of the very best graphite drawings I've ever seen were done with HB pencil stubs and scrap paper, often the remnants of butcher paper rolls, the artists found in a large city dump while looking for food.
Some of the most stunning colored pencil works was done using Crayola pencils by artists living in poverty right here in America. Any tools an artist has are just as good, or just as bad, as the artist using them. A good artist with Crayola will produce much better art than a not so good artist will with Caran d'Ache, Faber-Castell, or Prismacolor.
But cheap or expensive, I think you have to consider whether you want wax-based or oil-based pencils, or both, before you talk brands. For me, both are needed to do the best possible job, with the most efficiency. Wax-based pencils are much better for wide coverage and for blending, and oil-based are much better for any kind of fine detail work.
Second, I don't think anything in the art world is as overrated as lightfastness. It just doesn't matter except under extraordinary circumstances. Half the world doesn't even consider it as a factor. No type of media just fades out, or yellows, because it has little or no lightfastness. Museums are full of centuries old art that have zero lightfastness, but that look as good as the day they were created. Just keep work away from direct sunlight, or sunlight reflected off a mirror or bright metal surface, and it will last nearly forever. Or cover the art with a UV blocker surface or one of the many materials made for the job.
Too, many of the Chinese brands have never been tested for lightfastness. I have a fair number of friends in China, both in and out of the art world, and the artist friends don't care at all about lightfastness unless they're creating something actually intended to be displayed outside for very long periods of time, or unless they have a client in one of the countries where lightfastness is a big deal. They have unflattering names for such people.
Anyway, I have nothing at all against your selections, other than saying I have a hard time considering Black Widow as budget pencils. By the time you buy all you need it's a sizable investment. I do like them, though, and if I had to use budget pencils, these would be my choice.
I don't have five favorite budget colored pencil brands because I have a full set of Faber-Castell Polychromos, a full set of Caran d'Ache, and a full set of Prismacolor, none of which I had to buy, thank goodness. There's no way I could afford all these sets. I also need quality graphite pencils, watercolor paints, and all the different papers required. For graphite, I use sketchbooks, of course, but the important drawings are usually on Strathmore Bristol Board, most often on 23x29, 3 or 4-ply. and it's very, very expensive. I've been very fortunate here, as well, and really only have to buy the Bristol Board.
That said, I do have several cheap brands that people have sent me for testing, or that I bought out of curiosity after watching a review, or that I received as birthday or Christmas gifts. I do like the Black Widow pencils quite a bit. While there is a lot of disagreement about the Amazon pencils, I actually like them.
Honestly, though, despite having some pretty expensive brands, which, as I said, I didn't have to buy, I'm about as far from a colored pencil snob as you can get. I have a Shuttle Art set of pencils that a friend bought and liked, so he sent me a set. It has 174 pencils, and there is nothing I can't do with it.
The ONLY thing I have against cheap pencil brands is that you usually can't buy open stock, and this is a huge drawback. There are half a dozen or so pencils that I can use up in a week, and another two dozen or so that I go through in under a month. The solution most of my friends have for this is buying open stock of an expensive brand that matches such fast used pencils as closely as possible. It's not a bad idea.
Anyway, I decided very, very early in my career that the best brand of pencil on the planet, whether graphite, colored, pastel, or charcoal, always has been and always will be the brand an individual artist likes the most.
Very well said James Ritchie. I agree with everything you have said.
They are starting to make some open stock. Arteza had and I think arrtx is going to in the future.
@@tabbylynn4130 James Ritchie mentions he has the 174 set of Shuttle art and states there is nothing he can not do with them, I own the same set of these pencils, and the one serious issue I am having is that the cores are coming unglued and they are falling out of the wood. Loose cores are really annoying, other than that I believe they are decent and have a wide range in value incriment increase with about a 10% difference from one pencil to the next beside it, almost to the point that they look the same. Is this really neccessary for a budget brand set of pencils? It's almost like having the color red starting from 20 % then 30% then 40%...etc. I also agree that the Black Widows are not a budget pencil and are over priced. I am a huge fan of the Arteza, I own two 120 ( Expert ) sets, and they have amazing colors that rank them up there with Prismacolor Premier, which I have four full sets of 150 and about 200 open stock loose...24 white...20 black...24 blenders...
All colored pencils contain a mix of wax and oil, and none of the companies are public about the ratio because it's a proprietary recipe. (This was actually confirmed by a Faber-Castell employee in response to a customer inquiry.) There are also different types of wax used in different pencil ranges. Polychromos and Derwent Lightfast are both referred to as "oil based", however their hardness is quite different - Lightfast is softer than many other wax-based pencils. Derwent Studio are wax-based pencils, but in my experience even harder than Polychromos. Essentially, the oil vs wax debate is pretty meaningless.
You can never go wrong with graphite. I know of a gentlemen, now deceased & the most fantastic graphite artist ever, who only used one pencil. A number 1 graphite.
Thank you so much, great information!
Hi Harry, Thanks so much for listing your top 5 budget colored pencils. Can you let me know the name of the set you mentioned that you didn't include because it was slightly higher? You said they was Japanese but I didn't see the name of them.
For absolute beginners or children 1. Amazon Basic Colour Pencils, 72. Was a great price when I bought them. You can buy smaller sets. Great to learn about colouring and your pencils. Also if you like colouring at all. 2. Faber-Castell Goldfaber, although only 48. They are a student pencil for those starting off. I find a limited number of colours helps you to learn. Feel good to use! Was a great price from an excellent company. Two I can recommend but I am not that crazy about Black Widow. Liked the idea you can buy individual sets but with the original sets there is only one white pencil in one set. Make sure you buy the correct set first. I find the pencil very thin in hand. Also I think when you put them all together you would be better off buying Prismacolor. 3.Prismascolor a large set for a good price and you have various sizes of sets. Although I find these too soft for my liking. I ended up buying Prismacolor Verithin, a harder pencil and limited number, to add to the overall set.
I'm an old pro and I've been doing this for fifty years. I can do ANY drawing, including hyperrealism, with the Amazon Basics pencils that I can do with my Polychromos or Prismacolor. I think they're excellent pencils, and I know several pros who use them as their number one out of the studio set. I know some don't like them, but I think they're every bit as good as Prismacolor, and I've been doing this a long, long time. I suspect the low price makes many think they must be bad. They aren't bad. They are excellent pencils. Beginners and children, yes, but mid-range and pro artists, also yes.
Right now you can get a seventy-two set of Amazon pencils for seventeen dollars and change. This is the best deal on the market by far. If there's ANYTHING an artist can't do with this set, the fault is with the artist, not the pencils. Amazon did everything possible to duplicate Prismacolor with these pencils, and I think they did an excellent job.
I have full sets of Caran d'Ache Luminance, Faber-Castell Polychromos, and Prismacolor Premier, but if I needed a fourth set, it would be the Amazon Basics. I know you aren't doing this, but many of the bad reviews these pencils get come from Prismacolor users who are really afraid that Amazon is going to put Prismacolor out of business. I've even been told that Prismacolor has encouraged such reviews, and may even have paid for several.
I do know that Amazon would like to put Prismacolor out of business, or even to acquire the company, if they can do so at a profit making cost. I also know they aren't willing to invest a fortune in this, which is why they came out with the Amazon Basics pencils, and why they sell them at cost. Some have told me they sell far below cost.
It doesn't matter to me whether a set has one white or five whites. I prefer one because every additional white pencil removes another color that will probably be far more useful. If I want more white or black pencils, I buy open stock. For most people, white is not a color that's needed all that often, anyway. It's primarily a highlight pencil for most of us. But if it is needed, open stock is the way to get it, not sacrificing other colors.
I do use both white and black colored pencils in my graphite drawings. Prismacolor white pencils for highlights,, and Polychromos black pencils when I need a black that graphite can't give me. I buy a dozen box of each about every six months.
If you don't mind spending the money, it is best to have a very soft set, such as Prismacolor Premier, or Caran d'Ache, and a hard, oil-based set such as Faber-Castell Polychromos. Soft pencils are much better for layering, blending, and covering large areas, and hard sets are far and away the best for doing fine detail work. Most of the pros I know have two sets, one wax-based, and one oil-based, for just this reason.
The Verithin pencils are good, but nowhere near as good as Polychromos, and while they are cheaper, I'm not sure they're the best buy. But it doies depend on your personal budget. Again, I'll take the Amazon Basics over the Verithin.
But I do think it's a mistake to buy pencils that have no open stock if you use the pencils very often at all, though you can always replace used up pencils with open stock pencils from your favorite brand. This is probably the most economical way to build a top quality set.
I love many budget pencil brands, but nearly all of the good ones simply cost far to much when they have no open stock. This is one more reason to buy Amazon Basics. There simply is nothing a good artist can't do with them, and they're so cheap that replacing used ones with o[pen stock greatly lowers your investment over more expensive brands of budget pencils.
I really like the FC Goldfaber too, just wish there were more colours. I'm very surprised at all the comments raving about the FC classis (red) range, as my set, bought earlier this year, aren't very good. I've found the kids range of WH Smith coloured pencils far better than the FC classic ones. I don't know if I just got a bad set, or they've changed their makeup a bit...
@@jamesaritchie1 I have prismacolors and I dont like them because they’re too soft. I also have the verithins which I prefer but not enough color options.
Ah Harry thank you so much for this list! I started with the Faber Castell classic back in the day, they really are lovely. And for that price, it's just amazing. Though I do want to check out softer pencils (I am using Polychromos at the moment). And I'm really looking forward to your other lists!!!
Can I ask what you've used the FC Classics on/for? I've not found mine to be very good. Unless it's case of old vs new? My set was purchased just a few months ago...
Giotto 50 pieces set is available
Thank you for great information 😊
I agree James. But when you're new to pencils you can make a lot of expensive mistakes! My daubigny where about £13 and I think they're excellent for the price. There's such a huge choice - its hard going making choices! Happy drawing anyway 🙆
Budget pencils my top 5 brutfuner square my brutfuner macaron they look a lot like the Holbein pencils
Giotto stilnovo pencils
The bruynzeel expressions and the last pencils i bought was the winsor and Newton and i like them a lot
I would be curious all the pencils you looked at to get to this top 5.
Here in Brazil there is a Faber factory. Now there are cheaper, second line brands made by the factory, but not assigned as Faber. The leads have the same quality of classic Faber, but thinner. The wood of barrels are inferior and sets goes until 36 colors. The brands are multicolor, play doo, happy time. I prefer happy time for the palete. And there is Faber Castell Supersoft, more opaque than Classic, with the bigger set of 100 colors. A local, good and budget brand in Brazil is Tris Megasoft with 72 colors
Love, love, love your channel and your work. As you have said.. it is a matter of perspective. I have taken your recommendation to heart and it is of great value as you review way more pencils than rest of us. From my perspective being on the other side of the world, some of your top budget brands are very expensive for me in Australia… so I would swap out Giotto, & Brunzeel for Deli 72, Star-joy Gold or Arrtx 72 which for me also far eclipse the FC Classic.
SO hard to review top 5 or top 10 anything! Everyone's requirements are so different too! I liked your square pencils cheap and easy for me to let kids use. I do not like sharing my "better" pencils. Any of your choices are good for letting others use for coloring books be they an adult or visitor! I just cringe when someone wants to use my Faber Castell or Prismacolors to color a coloring page! Yeah I am a bit of a snob. Ah well sweet video and many Thanks Harry! Take care and Be Well!
I have full sets of Caran d'Ache Luminance, Faber-Castell Polychromos, and Prismacolor Premier, but I'm not a snob at all. My next favorite set is the Amazon Basics, though I know other pros who use them as their out of the studio set, so they can't be that bad. And at seventeen dollars and change for seventy-two pencils, how can you go wrong?
I really do love low cost pencils, and as I've said over and over, the old saying, "It's a poor worker who blames the tools" is absolutely true. But I don't share my expensive pencils, period. It's just a silly thing to do unless you're rich. I've had to pay as much as nine dollars for some on the open stock pencils I need, but even at a dollar each I can't afford to have someone else ruin them.
I like the Schpirerr Farben
That's one I don't know.
For those who want to buy the Faber-Castell Black Edition to color on black paper, donˋt do it. These cheaper Red one work way better. I have both, tried it and can approve that the Black-Edition doesn’t work so well on black paper!