Prismacolor Premier Graphite Drawing Pencils With Erasers & Sharpeners, Adult Coloring, 18-Piece Set

I have used Prismacolor color pencils for over ten years now and their markers for 3 years. I am an avid believer in the brand, which is what led me to try their graphite pencils.Until I bought this set, I was using Derwent pencils. I am pleased to say, that Prismacolor has once again impressed me as one of the best brands out there. They are a bit more expensive than some others, but the quality is well worth it. I would have bought them sooner, but waited until my skills improved with the Derwent pencils, enough to make the jump to a better quality product more worth it. Buying This set was the best thing I could have done! It gives you everything you need to get started, if you are looking for a great quality set to start out with. You will have plenty to experiment with. It is also great for pro artists that want to delve into graphite on a more serious level and need all the goodies (erasers, sanding board, etc.). I am freelance, but have been an artist for over 14 years. Amazon's price is more than fair for this product. Unless there is a dramatic change in the quality of Prismacolor's products, I will be an advocate for them until the day I die.The woodless graphite pencils (2B, 4B, 6B, 8B) are very soft and lay down wonderful "jet black" strokes. These are the best for getting high contrast work done fast and easy! Extremely dark areas don't take forever to build up (with lighter/harder grades), if you have these!Out of the 7 turquoise pencils (8B,6B,2B,B,2H,4H,6H), I have used 2B, B, 2H and 4H. They have worked beautifully. I'm guessing I would say the same for the other grades.I haven't yet tried any of the 3 water-soluble gray graphite pencils(HB,4B,8B), but am just about to. I will update this review when I do. They way things are going, I don't expect I'll be disappointed.I found the "Magic Rub Eraser" (vinyl eraser, latex free) is perfect for graphite, but especially for erasing the lighter (harder) pencil grades. For the darker stuff, I switched to the good old kneaded rubber eraser. I'm always forming it into odd shapes to fit my highlighting needs and it sucks up dark graphite very well. I've also used this kind of eraser for pastel chalks and charcoal, so I knew what to expect. Prismacolor's version isn't any different than any other brand of kneaded eraser I've tried, but it is not anything less than expected.The sanding board was a big plus in buying this set, for me. It is great for sanding your pencils to any shape you desire, giving you more leeway to produce the kind of line you want (I use it for the woodless pencils). I especially like to shape them flat, so I can get a very fine line holding it horizontally, or a nice thick line holding it vertically (or anything in between)!I would also recommend only using the provided pencil sharpener, unless you know what you've got. If you have something of lesser quality and try it on these nice, soft pencils, you might be disappointed. I haven't tried any other sharpener, so don't take my word to the bank on that, but I would stick with what they give you unless you are a more experienced graphite user. This sharpener works perfectly well anyway.I would recommend this to both professional artists and artists that want to get into graphite for the first time!

Great product I use this all the time the pencils are very durable

Bought for my adult son who has been sketching/drawing for as long as I can remember. Prismacolor has always been his choice brand in colored pencils, but he had not tried these before. He loves the variety of the pencils in the set and loves that they come in a tin to store them in.I read other reviews before buying, and I was unsure whether I should get them or not after reading that so many people were having trouble with the pencils arriving broken or with the erasers melted, and with leads missing from pencils or being broken inside, making them impossible to sharpen. Since he has loved the Prismacolor brand for so long and I know that they've always been a trusted brand, I went ahead and got them.He has been using them regularly since he got them with no problems. I'm not an artist myself, so I don't really know all of the technical terms for the different lead numbers or anything, but he does love the variety and says that it's very easy to draw different darknesses, especially of shading.This turned out to be a great gift after all the concern about the leads and not being sure about them. I'm glad I took the chance, and I would definitely buy these again.

I am an occupational therapist and I consider these my magic pencils. For children who struggle with pressure and/or hand fatigue. They write dark and helps kids feel more successful.

The metal container came in dented otherwise it was fine Needs to be better packaged as It was a gift to a family member for their birthday.

Physically, this case is much larger than I'd expected, which is probably on me since it shows how many pencils are in it and I know the average size of a pencil. To be precise, it's 6 inches wide by 9.5 inches high. That puts it a tiny bit larger than most of my travel sketchbooks, but small enough to fit in any bag I've tried.Because this has woodless pencils, I would advocate for keeping some kind of cloth with the kit. Even touching the sides of them is messy. Also, this kit doesn't come with a blending stomp. The plastic tray that holds the pencils can lift out easily, and underneath is just enough room for a small cloth and a large stomp. It might hold a small water brush (useful as this has some water soluble pencils) but I don't have one small enough to test.I like that it's easy to get any of these pencils separately. I'm going to use up the 2B much faster than the 6H so I can just pick up a pack of those (Amazon usually carries packs of 12 for each of the weights) and only refill what I need. I might swap out the 6H altogether for a 4B, which this set doesn't include (or I could hide one of those under the plastic tray). The flexibility is cool here.The sharpener is excellent, which I didn't expect. This comes with an unsharpened 8B pencil. 8B is difficult under the best or circumstances, and I didn't think the tiny sharpener they threw in would be able to handle it. It did, no breaking on the first go.I'm not sure why this needed two erasers. Both are fine. Neither smudges. Both do an excellent job. It was probably a matter of figuring out what to do with a chunk of empty space.Overall, I love this. It's a great portable set for sketching on the go.

Nice set I gave a young artist as a gift.

Color is more vibrant than crayola. Good investment.