Next time you want a pastel set try Brutfuner macarons. I liked them even better than the Castle Art pasteltint, even softer, very pigmented, and they are less expensive. Almost exactly the same colors.
agree, even though they say Kalour and Brutfuner are the same. I prefer the Brutfuner macarons over the Kalour ones. also have the 300 Kalour and the 520 Brutfuner (flower box and yellow boxes) and I hate the Kalour set.
I have the black widow pencils. People call them "budget" but I think they are expensive if you buy all the sets. In Canada the full set is the same price as Prismacolor. I actually LOVE my black widows. I use Ohuhu markers first and then the pencils on top. It works great. They are so bright and blend well. They also have lots of unique colors that aren't in the Prismacolor or polychromos sets. They are hard and dry. I don't color straight with them. Only to add shading on top of markers.
They are expensive, especially for white labelled Chinese pencils. I bought mine on Amazon and while the per set price is low, when you actually add it all up I could have bought a set of Polychromos.
Oh, probably I hadn't check recent prices for Black Widow pencils. I bought mine sets of Monarch and Dark Skin tone long ago, and ether it was a moment of sales, or they simply raised prices later, but they definitely were budget range. I was curious because of unique colors, but immediately realized that for my way of coloring and heavy hand they are too dry. Thank you for the advice to use them on top of Ohuhu, I will try!!!
I agree on the Black Widow. They are so dry and hard, especially the pastel colors, they would actually scrape off color if I tried to go in and add highlight. I was very disappointed since I bought the entire set based off all the positive reviews at the time. I have some hard artist quality pencils I enjoy, such as the Derwent Procolour, or the Lyra Rembrandt.. but the Blackwidows are somehow waxy and hard at the same time, very hard to blend. I tried light to dark, dark to light, layering.. nothing worked.
Thank you Alena! I love getting a chatty video pop up from you. I am currently injured and not able to use my right arm much or my right leg. I can colour for a little while, but not long and not much pressure. It's interesting though how different a colouring style makes a pencil feel. I actually really like my 250 set of Valour pencils (we got them around the same time). I like them in Amazon printed books. I didn't like them as much on better paper, the colour seemed dull then. But I am a many layers colourist with light pressure. I don't have Soucolor or Arrtex or Arteza so I don't know about them. But I do like my Black Widow pencils although they are a bit harder in the earlier sets. I love the colour range. The pencils I use the least are Prismacolor. I find them tricky to work with, they suit your blending method so much better. Other pencils I don't like much are Derwent Coloursoft. Some lovely shades, but not enough usable greens and they are dry and crumbly. I can't layer them. My favourite pastel shades are Brutfuner Macron. They work very well with Polychromos. I hope you are doing well. Getting used to living under threat and managing to find ways and time to feel happy now and then. This has all gone on so long now. Can you get deliveries from the UK? Do you know about the Coloured Pencil Shop? Online, lovely woman running it. You can buy open stock Polys, Prismas and lots of others there. colourpencilshop.com I got my Christmas cross stitch projects out yesterday. I always think of you when I do that. Although you finish yours and I just slowly do a bit more on them 😅 Take care. Keep colouring.
I love my Kalours. Prismacolors are my favorites, but I love Kalour too. I have no problem blending with them and always get good coverage. Maybe you got a bad set.
I used Soucolor metallics couple of time, and I love them on top of dark watercolor base to create some shiny effects, but on white paper I'm not fond of their uneven coating of paper (sorry I don't know how to explain better). But I rarely use metallic pencils at all, so it's more my whim, rather then fault of pencils.
Hi Alena lovely video thank u for your opinion i also have the that 300 set too i don’t like them i gave mine to my children.. thank you for sharing ❤❤❤😊😊😊xxxx
The Arteza expert were the only budget pencils I kept in my collection. They are great quality and very unique being soft wax but transparent. Beautiful jewel like glowy colors. Good on all paper. Unfortunately they stopped selling the 120 set, and stopped selling the open stock several months ago. There was still a little bit of open stock left on Amazon the last time I checked, so if there is a color you like and use a lot of you might want to grab a pack of singles while you still can. I gave them away after that, I just don't care to use pencils I can't replace without having to buy a whole other set.. and so many of my favorite colors were in the 120, so completely unavailable now. Sometimes I still think about them when I look at a page and decide what pencils to use.. but I know I would also be angry, worried while I used them with Arteza's business decisions.
@@wollfaden1979 It just bugs me to have supplies I can't replace, I was low on several colors I couldn't get anymore. Also I feel like Arteza failed to hold up their end of the bargain... I bought them with the knowledge I had 120 colors to work with and could buy replacements, they never even bothered to announce the decision and give us a chance to stock up.. in fact they flat out lied to me at first when I went to buy some open stock and they were no longer on the website.. told me they were simply out of stock. It wasn't until I pursued the issue of how all of the colors could be out of stock at the same time that they admitted they were discontinued. So they left a bad taste in my mouth every time I looked at them. I expect better of a company I support with my purchase.
Arteza expert 120 set was one of my top favorite budget pencil. I had no clue they did away with the 120 set. I do not like a small 72 set. They just lost my business then. So many budget sets are disappearing from US Amazon. I have the Kalour and do not like them, too waxy imo. Too many colors are alike in their larger sets. Black widow is a brand I don't see the love for. Expensive and never got the reason for so many small sets. I haven't tried the arrtx brand. I don't like a company copying from another, it turns me off and I thought they were pricey for a budget pencil. Castle Arts was a brand I could never come to like so I won't get the gold version. I don't like seeing a company trying to pass off a budget pencil as a professional pencil. I always liked the regular old set of star joys. I don't like their gold set and how they followed a lady who helped change their product. A scratchy pencil is in no way better. I find the new color range quite poor. The owner should have left the product like it was and not listened to an outsider. I have not purchased Soucolor so ha e no opinion on them. I have heard that they are the exact same as another brand yet just sold under another name. Thank you for sharing your personal experience.
I agree with your opinion about all those sets, and about 'bad taste' from copying other company's famous product, and about stupid move of changing really decent set of budget pencil into some UA-cam hype with questionable color palette and quality. I don't understand Arteza at all. Even if the market of coloring books is down, there will be always demand for decent mid-price pencils sets from students, parents, even artists for sketching. Why they destroyed their own good product - I don't understand.
Hi, Alena. I love your videos. I learn a lot with your tips. I have a question please. Dont you mind using budget pencils knowing that the colors will somehow fade away? Recently I was looking my old colorings with budget pencils and the colors were very pale. Light blues desappeared and reds turned rose. The same thing happens with alcohol based brush pens. I would like to know what you think about this issue. Thank you.
Not Alena, but my two cents... regardless of the price range the only way to know if an individual pencil is lightfast is to test them yourself. Just because a pencil doesn't provide lightfast ratings doesn't mean it's fugitive, and too many lightfast ratings even from professional brands are not accurate in actual use. Pastels, reds, yellows, and purples are especially prone to be fugitive in all brands. That is why the color palette is so limited in Luminance and Lightfast.. it's not that they are doing anything different, they are just only providing non-fugitive colors at a huge price increase. If you want to ensure you avoid fugitive colors, I suggest swatching all your pencils and leaving them in a window for a month or two and then culling your collection accordingly. All dye based markers are fugitive. The only option for non fugitive pens and markers are pigment based options, like the Faber Pitt artist pens, Staedtler has also come out with some although I've yet to see real life testing on those.
@@golfinhoazulzinho7396 You are welcome. Also an example.. my daughter drew me two pictures for my birthday three years ago and they are colored using Black Widow.. they have been hanging on my bedroom wall, framed, all this time and are perfectly fine. They are not in direct light but do have widows open just to on side of them and get indirect light. It just depends on the pigment used in the individual pencil.
Honestly I don't care about lightfastness at all. First, I care more about pleasure during coloring, and even if all my colored works would magically disappear at all, it won't be a disaster for me. I have pictures of finished works on Instagram, I have books to color yet, and it's much more important. I also think that as my pictures aren't hanging on walls and are not exposed to sunlight, I can pay no attention to lightfastness. But so far the only problems I noticed with changed pictures, surprisingly, wasn't with pages colored with budget pencils, but rather with Prismacolors. Several pages where I did very dark ,almost black background with colors like Espresso, Black Grape etc, continue to be covered with wax whitish layer.... I try to delete it, but with time it reappears. The second problem with time - colors like Mulberry or Dahlia purple went to the other side into double sided books and created purple stains, which weren't there when I just finished to color it. But with time they appeared. So, budget or not budget, there is no warranty that picture won't change. Paper also matters, only acid free paper won't create reaction with pigment. I know that problem of faded colors is even more serious with alcohol markers, but I mostly use them as first layer, and work with pencils on top, so I hope that even if pictures change with time, still not very dramatically.
@@ColoringwithAlena thank you for your comments. What you said is really important. And wow! This information about Prismacolor is something I would never expect. Always learning from you. Thanks.
Sorry, but Mapped, Kite, FC red are children's pencils, barely suitable for adult coloring. And how Soucolor with price of 39 USD for 180 pencils, or Star Joy with the price of 25 USD for 120 pencils aren't budget?
Loved hearing your words of wisdom. Your coloring pages are outstanding! You are such an asset to this community!
Next time you want a pastel set try Brutfuner macarons. I liked them even better than the Castle Art pasteltint, even softer, very pigmented, and they are less expensive. Almost exactly the same colors.
agree, even though they say Kalour and Brutfuner are the same. I prefer the Brutfuner macarons over the Kalour ones. also have the 300 Kalour and the 520 Brutfuner (flower box and yellow boxes) and I hate the Kalour set.
I have the black widow pencils. People call them "budget" but I think they are expensive if you buy all the sets. In Canada the full set is the same price as Prismacolor.
I actually LOVE my black widows. I use Ohuhu markers first and then the pencils on top. It works great. They are so bright and blend well. They also have lots of unique colors that aren't in the Prismacolor or polychromos sets.
They are hard and dry. I don't color straight with them. Only to add shading on top of markers.
They are expensive, especially for white labelled Chinese pencils. I bought mine on Amazon and while the per set price is low, when you actually add it all up I could have bought a set of Polychromos.
Oh, probably I hadn't check recent prices for Black Widow pencils. I bought mine sets of Monarch and Dark Skin tone long ago, and ether it was a moment of sales, or they simply raised prices later, but they definitely were budget range. I was curious because of unique colors, but immediately realized that for my way of coloring and heavy hand they are too dry. Thank you for the advice to use them on top of Ohuhu, I will try!!!
I agree on the Black Widow. They are so dry and hard, especially the pastel colors, they would actually scrape off color if I tried to go in and add highlight. I was very disappointed since I bought the entire set based off all the positive reviews at the time. I have some hard artist quality pencils I enjoy, such as the Derwent Procolour, or the Lyra Rembrandt.. but the Blackwidows are somehow waxy and hard at the same time, very hard to blend. I tried light to dark, dark to light, layering.. nothing worked.
My black widow collection was not a good decision, I can’t get them to act right. Same issues
I bought the Dark Skin Tone Set for trying and I hate them. Same problems as you describe. I am happy I did not buy the big set.
I have all the sets of Black Widow pencils and I love them, I don’t have problems in any type of paper
Thank you Alena! I love getting a chatty video pop up from you. I am currently injured and not able to use my right arm much or my right leg. I can colour for a little while, but not long and not much pressure.
It's interesting though how different a colouring style makes a pencil feel. I actually really like my 250 set of Valour pencils (we got them around the same time). I like them in Amazon printed books. I didn't like them as much on better paper, the colour seemed dull then. But I am a many layers colourist with light pressure. I don't have Soucolor or Arrtex or Arteza so I don't know about them. But I do like my Black Widow pencils although they are a bit harder in the earlier sets. I love the colour range. The pencils I use the least are Prismacolor. I find them tricky to work with, they suit your blending method so much better. Other pencils I don't like much are Derwent Coloursoft. Some lovely shades, but not enough usable greens and they are dry and crumbly. I can't layer them. My favourite pastel shades are Brutfuner Macron. They work very well with Polychromos.
I hope you are doing well. Getting used to living under threat and managing to find ways and time to feel happy now and then. This has all gone on so long now. Can you get deliveries from the UK? Do you know about the Coloured Pencil Shop? Online, lovely woman running it. You can buy open stock Polys, Prismas and lots of others there. colourpencilshop.com
I got my Christmas cross stitch projects out yesterday. I always think of you when I do that. Although you finish yours and I just slowly do a bit more on them 😅
Take care. Keep colouring.
Thank you for sharing your opinion with us🤗 Realy appreciated💕
Thank you for listening!
That was really interesting. Thank you. We're lucky to have so many interesting choices.
Thank you! Yes, we are lucky! New sets always mean new inspiration to color more, LOL
I love my Kalours. Prismacolors are my favorites, but I love Kalour too. I have no problem blending with them and always get good coverage. Maybe you got a bad set.
Hello Alena This was interesting and informative. Thankyou for your time I always enjoy your videos. Take care💫💫💫
I love my Soucolors as well. You should try the metallics, the colors are pretty, even if not super shiny.
I used Soucolor metallics couple of time, and I love them on top of dark watercolor base to create some shiny effects, but on white paper I'm not fond of their uneven coating of paper (sorry I don't know how to explain better). But I rarely use metallic pencils at all, so it's more my whim, rather then fault of pencils.
Thank you 🥰
Hi Alena lovely video thank u for your opinion i also have the that 300 set too i don’t like them i gave mine to my children.. thank you for sharing ❤❤❤😊😊😊xxxx
The Arteza expert were the only budget pencils I kept in my collection. They are great quality and very unique being soft wax but transparent. Beautiful jewel like glowy colors. Good on all paper. Unfortunately they stopped selling the 120 set, and stopped selling the open stock several months ago. There was still a little bit of open stock left on Amazon the last time I checked, so if there is a color you like and use a lot of you might want to grab a pack of singles while you still can. I gave them away after that, I just don't care to use pencils I can't replace without having to buy a whole other set.. and so many of my favorite colors were in the 120, so completely unavailable now. Sometimes I still think about them when I look at a page and decide what pencils to use.. but I know I would also be angry, worried while I used them with Arteza's business decisions.
Why didnt you use them until they are finished? I dont understand that.
@@wollfaden1979 It just bugs me to have supplies I can't replace, I was low on several colors I couldn't get anymore. Also I feel like Arteza failed to hold up their end of the bargain... I bought them with the knowledge I had 120 colors to work with and could buy replacements, they never even bothered to announce the decision and give us a chance to stock up.. in fact they flat out lied to me at first when I went to buy some open stock and they were no longer on the website.. told me they were simply out of stock. It wasn't until I pursued the issue of how all of the colors could be out of stock at the same time that they admitted they were discontinued. So they left a bad taste in my mouth every time I looked at them. I expect better of a company I support with my purchase.
Awesome Video
Thank you!
Arteza expert 120 set was one of my top favorite budget pencil. I had no clue they did away with the 120 set. I do not like a small 72 set. They just lost my business then. So many budget sets are disappearing from US Amazon. I have the Kalour and do not like them, too waxy imo. Too many colors are alike in their larger sets. Black widow is a brand I don't see the love for. Expensive and never got the reason for so many small sets. I haven't tried the arrtx brand. I don't like a company copying from another, it turns me off and I thought they were pricey for a budget pencil. Castle Arts was a brand I could never come to like so I won't get the gold version. I don't like seeing a company trying to pass off a budget pencil as a professional pencil. I always liked the regular old set of star joys. I don't like their gold set and how they followed a lady who helped change their product. A scratchy pencil is in no way better. I find the new color range quite poor. The owner should have left the product like it was and not listened to an outsider. I have not purchased Soucolor so ha e no opinion on them. I have heard that they are the exact same as another brand yet just sold under another name. Thank you for sharing your personal experience.
I agree with your opinion about all those sets, and about 'bad taste' from copying other company's famous product, and about stupid move of changing really decent set of budget pencil into some UA-cam hype with questionable color palette and quality. I don't understand Arteza at all. Even if the market of coloring books is down, there will be always demand for decent mid-price pencils sets from students, parents, even artists for sketching. Why they destroyed their own good product - I don't understand.
Hi, Alena. I love your videos. I learn a lot with your tips. I have a question please. Dont you mind using budget pencils knowing that the colors will somehow fade away? Recently I was looking my old colorings with budget pencils and the colors were very pale. Light blues desappeared and reds turned rose. The same thing happens with alcohol based brush pens. I would like to know what you think about this issue. Thank you.
Not Alena, but my two cents... regardless of the price range the only way to know if an individual pencil is lightfast is to test them yourself. Just because a pencil doesn't provide lightfast ratings doesn't mean it's fugitive, and too many lightfast ratings even from professional brands are not accurate in actual use. Pastels, reds, yellows, and purples are especially prone to be fugitive in all brands. That is why the color palette is so limited in Luminance and Lightfast.. it's not that they are doing anything different, they are just only providing non-fugitive colors at a huge price increase. If you want to ensure you avoid fugitive colors, I suggest swatching all your pencils and leaving them in a window for a month or two and then culling your collection accordingly. All dye based markers are fugitive. The only option for non fugitive pens and markers are pigment based options, like the Faber Pitt artist pens, Staedtler has also come out with some although I've yet to see real life testing on those.
@@waymire01thank you for your comments. Very informative.
@@golfinhoazulzinho7396 You are welcome. Also an example.. my daughter drew me two pictures for my birthday three years ago and they are colored using Black Widow.. they have been hanging on my bedroom wall, framed, all this time and are perfectly fine. They are not in direct light but do have widows open just to on side of them and get indirect light. It just depends on the pigment used in the individual pencil.
Honestly I don't care about lightfastness at all. First, I care more about pleasure during coloring, and even if all my colored works would magically disappear at all, it won't be a disaster for me. I have pictures of finished works on Instagram, I have books to color yet, and it's much more important. I also think that as my pictures aren't hanging on walls and are not exposed to sunlight, I can pay no attention to lightfastness. But so far the only problems I noticed with changed pictures, surprisingly, wasn't with pages colored with budget pencils, but rather with Prismacolors. Several pages where I did very dark ,almost black background with colors like Espresso, Black Grape etc, continue to be covered with wax whitish layer.... I try to delete it, but with time it reappears. The second problem with time - colors like Mulberry or Dahlia purple went to the other side into double sided books and created purple stains, which weren't there when I just finished to color it. But with time they appeared. So, budget or not budget, there is no warranty that picture won't change. Paper also matters, only acid free paper won't create reaction with pigment. I know that problem of faded colors is even more serious with alcohol markers, but I mostly use them as first layer, and work with pencils on top, so I hope that even if pictures change with time, still not very dramatically.
@@ColoringwithAlena thank you for your comments. What you said is really important. And wow! This information about Prismacolor is something I would never expect. Always learning from you. Thanks.
Those are not budget pencils. Budget pencils are Faber Castell (the red ones), Giotto, Kite, Marco, Marco Raffine, Mapped, Bryunzeel, etc.
Sorry, but Mapped, Kite, FC red are children's pencils, barely suitable for adult coloring. And how Soucolor with price of 39 USD for 180 pencils, or Star Joy with the price of 25 USD for 120 pencils aren't budget?