COLOURED PENCIL COMPARISON + DEMONSTRATION 🎨 Video Lecture | Become an Artist: Colored Pencil Portrait Drawing Tutorial - Art & Craft

hey guys so today is advent calendar day
number four and for this video I'm going
to be comparing the three main color
pencil brands for you so I'm going to be
comparing the count - luminance the
fabric castell polychromos
and the prismacolor pencils so I'm going
to be doing a demonstration on them and
talk about all the pros and cons and all
of that so the first ones that I'm
starting with is the fabric a style
polychromos and I've got the full set of
all of these color pencils so this is
the hundred and twenty set it has a
really nice price range and it came in
this really nice tin so I'm going to
open it up and show you inside I've got
all my other colored pencils in a
different place I don't really keep them
in this tin but I just put a few in
there to show you what they'd be like so
as you can see they're really nice it
comes in three layers when you buy it so
this is the first layer and then it will
have two more underneath and the tin was
really good because when it was shipped
there was no broken pencils or anything
like that so now I'm just going to show
you what one of the pencils looks like
so it's really good-quality it's really
thick and it's got a really nice
diameter on it you can't see any of like
the wood at the end it's all covered
over and it's got a nice gold rim and it
just looks really nice quality so the
name of each pencil is in this really
nice gold engraved look and it is really
pretty so I'm going to be talking more
in detail about each of these colored
pencils and their pros and cons but I'm
just going to show you the packaging for
the moment so now I'm going to show you
the Karen - luminance color pencils and
this set is a lot smaller it's only 76
colors and it also comes with two full
blenders which I like to use quite often
really so as you can see it comes in a
cardboard box it's not a tin so it's not
a sturdy but what they do is they put
some nice velvet and some nice like
velvet coating on the back of the
cardboard so it helps protect the layer
of pencils underneath which I really
really liked there's also a really nice
layer of velvet between each of the
layers of colored pencil so when they're
shipped it doesn't get damaged anything
like that and then I'm lined with
damaged what I love about these pencils
is that they're all really natural
colors so you really will use all of
them there's not any ones that you just
won't use so here's a look at the pencil
in a bit more detail so as you can see
it's just as thick and it looks really
good quality and the end is got a nice
coating as well so you don't see that
wood
it's really good about these pencils is
the highly light fastness rating but
I'll go through more of that in a minute
okay
so I really like the packaging on these
the cardboard was sturdy enough it
wasn't really really sturdy as the tin
was for the fabric a style pencils but
it did the job and I don't really keep
the pencils in this anyway but even
though it was cardboard that Valve it
between them really gave it a good layer
of protection so now I'm looking at the
prismacolor pencils and the full set of
this is a hundred fifty colored pencils
which is the biggest out of all of them
however what I really didn't like about
the packaging was the cardboard was
really really flimsy as you can see it's
so easy to bend and they didn't give you
any protection between the layers so
there's 150 pencils which is a lot of
pencils so I'm really surprised when
this got shipped that there wasn't any
damage because when I read the reviews a
lot of people said that there's came and
some of the pencils were broken and
there's six layers well 1/2 layers and
there's no it's just the plastic there's
no sort of coating between them which I
thought they could have done a bit
better but this set for 150 pencils was
only 120 pounds so that's less than a
pound per pencil so they are really
cheap and you can tell where the quality
of the pencil they haven't got such a
thick coating and at the end the wood is
exposed and you can just see they're
quite thin so they're not the core
pencil isn't as protected and you can
see that wood at the ends so I wasn't
too disappointed with that but it would
have been nice if it could have been a
bit thicker because Prisma colors are
really prone to a break and to shatter
when you drop them on the floor because
the pencil core is not idea to the
actual word like the other two are so if
you drop the other two then they don't
actually break as much as the
prismacolor would so I hardly ever have
the other two break but prison workers
break so much so here with them compared
all together as you can see the other
two are much thicker and you can just
tell that the quality is so much better
than the prismacolor so what's really
good about all of these Capri coloured
pencil brands is that you can buy all of
the pencils open stock which means any
color that you run out of you can buy
individually instead of having to buy
the full set so I tend to run out of the
white and black Karen - and you can buy
these on loads of art websites you just
have to look because they're different
prices on different
websites to just hunt around for the
best one okay guys so I'm quickly going
to run through the light path since
ratings for each of the three brands of
colored pencils so firstly unlike the
current - luminance coloured pencils and
first I'm just going to run through what
each of the light fastness ratings mean
so if it's light fastness of one it
means that there's going to be no change
when it's exposed to light if it's light
fastness - it means they'll be very very
minimal change when it's exposed to
light and then three four and five you
can see it's progressively getting
lighter okay so this is the current -
luminance color pencil chart and what's
really good about Karen - is that they
only have light fastness ratings one or
two so at the most there's going to be
very minimal fading over time which is
really good because when you sell your
artwork to a customer they don't want to
have it hanging in their house and after
a few months it looking more faded and
different than what they paid for at the
start so Karen - spends a lot of money
making sure they're light fastness
ratings are really really good so all
they have is like fastness one or two
and most of them are light fastness one
anyway which means they're the best
light fastness you can get around ok so
now I'm going to show you the
polychromos light fastness chart
so they've rated it slightly differently
so it's the reverse so three is really
really good up to one which means it
will fade slightly over time so most of
them you can see a light fastness free
which is really really good and you
won't see much fading at all there's
only a couple of ones around so that's
really good also what's really good
about this color chart is if you don't
want to spend all the money on the full
set you can just see which colors are in
these smaller sets and then if there's
any other extra colors you want you can
just buy them open stock okay with
prismacolor they're rating it as one is
excellent two is very good three is good
for is fair and five is poor and at the
start you can see there's two and one so
it's not bad but if you look at the
bright pinks and purples and blues then
you can see there's a lot of fives
there's a lot on a lot of ice there's a
lot of freeze as well there's very
rarely many ones which is excellent and
there's only some twos most of them are
three four and five which as we seemed
earlier it means they're going to fade a
lot when they're exposed
to light also you can see that a lot of
the fours and fives are skin tones which
is something that we really don't want
to fade over time and washout if you're
selling your artwork so for this reason
I wouldn't sell artwork done with
prismacolor pencils because I don't want
to have customers come back to you
really unhappy that their artwork after
a few months of purchasing it doesn't
look like what they want is and what
they brought and what they paid for so I
would use prism colors if I was a
beginner and I know that I'm not gonna
be selling that artwork so if you just
want to practice and get a feel for the
medium and you know that it's going to
be a lot of mistakes because these are
quite cheap anyway the Prisma colors so
if you have to keep rebinding them you
don't want to basically waste 3-pounder
pencil on a Karen - luminance when you
know that it's just going to be
experimenting anyway I'll leave a link
in the description to all of these color
charts so you can have a look in a bit
more detail to see which one best suits
you okay so I just want to show you that
you can get a really nice fine point
with all of these free types of pencils
so they all sharpen to get a really nice
point but the difference is with the
whitespace pencils so the prismacolor
and the Karen - they get a nice fine
point but they don't last as long with
that fine points because they're
whitespace they have a lot softer
whereas the flower Castel is an
oil-based pencil so it maintains its
fine point a lot longer and you can get
some really nice fine strokes also with
Prisma colors when you sharpen them it
gives a nice fine point here but
generally the more you sharpen the
Prisma colors over the other two you're
going to get more breakage with the
prismacolor than the others and more
LEDs shattering okay so now I'm going to
show you a little demonstration with
each of the three colored pencils so I'm
going to be showing you the blending
results you can get with each of these
free types and I'm going to be using
skin tones but this isn't a skin
tutorial and it isn't really a blending
tutorial theirs will be coming up in
future Advent videos this is really just
to show the types of blending results
you can get and the perm the color
pencils potential for blending so
firstly I am using the Karen - luminance
color pencils and I started by layering
the light flesh tones first and then
adding some shadows and the different
tones on top and then I apply really
light pressure at the start and as the
layers build up and I get to the final
layers I then apply a bit more
as you can see and then I glaze the
colors over the top what's really good
about these Karen - pencils is you can
apply so many layers and you can glaze
the colors over the top without really
disturbing your blending layers
underneath and you can already see how
smooth it looks it's really really
smooth and I don't really have to try
that hard to get those blending results
so what I mean is with these color
pencils they're wax based and they've
got a really really soft core so I don't
have to apply much pressure even in the
final layers to get this really softer
look whereas the Kefauver castell
polychromos are oil-based so I have to
apply a bit more pressure and work a bit
harder and it does eat my wrist a bit
more to try and get that smooth tone so
cuz fiber castell polychromos oil-based
they don't naturally layer and blend as
well as the luminance but you can get
really nice blending results it just
does require a bit more work to get
those nice results so again I start by
layering the lightest flesh tone first
and then I go in with some darker
shadows and dark tones and I use really
light layers for this so because you can
have a finer point with the fabric cast
down it naturally fills in the white of
the paper a bit more than the others so
orgy looks a bit smoother however to get
like with the other one I can just go
over with a certain color and blend it
all together really easily with this it
isn't black space so it doesn't blend as
softly so I have to really apply a bit
more pressure to really force it to
blend which means that you can't then
apply so many more layers over the top
because you really have applied a lot of
pressure onto the paper and this causes
some damage in the paper and flattens
the tooth out which means that once you
with the fabric Castile's once you apply
that pressure to do your final layers
it's hard to apply additional layers on
top one thing I don't really like about
the fabric cast down is that the color
range for skin tones is quite limited so
the current - luminance have a lot of
really natural colors and all the colors
in the set like I said you're going to
use and there won't be those really
vibrant ones that you're never going to
really use but with the fabric a style
they don't have too much of a big range
for portraits so skin tones and stuff
like that so it
look a bit too fluorescent in my opinion
but it still gives you a really nice
blending result so now I'm moving on to
the prismacolor pencils and these are
wax based as well and I'm going about
this with the same strategy that you use
with Karen - because they're whitespace
they do blend a bit better and you don't
have to use as much effort to blend them
however they aren't as soft as the Karen
- so you do have to use a bit more
pressure than the can - so it also isn't
as easy to glaze layers over the top
once you've done your let your like
first final layers it's a make sense so
I don't think you can get a smooth
finish as with the Karen - pencils but
you do get still a smooth finish which
is really good considering these that
it's really cheap compared to the others
you do get some nice result so now I'm
going to show you the pencil strokes you
can get with each of the pencils so I'm
using the sharpened pencils that are
sharpened earlier and as you can see the
wax based pencils give you a much more
fuzzy look whereas the fabric a still
polychromos maintains a finer point
that's why I think fabric a styles are
really good if you do a lot of detail
work and if you do like animals with fur
and stuff like that fabric a Styles a
really good option whereas for portraits
I think the wax based pencils are really
good especially the Karen - okay so now
I'm just going to show you a few clips
of how I use each of the compensable
because I do honestly use them all so
for my fan art or cartoons I tend to use
the Prisma colors because they're cheap
and I'm not really going to sell that
work at all so it doesn't really need to
be light fast so I used those color
pencils because they do a really good
job but they're a lot cheaper than the
can - and I don't really want to waste
my Karen - on things that I'm not going
to sell however for some fan art pieces
like this cartoon that I did I thought
the Karen - would give a nice better
skin tone that he had then the Prisma
colors and give a softer look because
they had really soft skin so I decided
to use the Karen - for the hair and for
the face on Nate from storks and because
I thought they would give a really nice
finish what's really good with these
free color pencil brands is that all
three of them worked really well in
conjunction with each other so this
picture bibim wanna I use the can -
luminance for her face to get this
really smooth you know caramel skin
and it looked really nice however she
had a flower in her hair that had a lot
more detail in it then I switched over
to the fabric castell polychromos and I
used them to do all the detail in the
flower because the Karen - would have
been far too like soft to do all that
detail and it wouldn't looked as good
also for all my realistic fan art I love
using the Karen - for the skin tones
so we dr. strange and from fantastic
beasts and where to find them I always
use Karen - pencils and what's really
nice about them is they're so opaque
that they layer so nicely over each
other so when I'm doing all these
different colors they just lay us so
nicely over each other and what's really
nice is then it's really easy to blend
and that's how I get some really smooth
blending because they're so opaque you
can layer the lighter colors over the
darker ones and it really like smooth
them out to get the smooth blending so
that's how I normally do my skin so I
like to layer the lighter colors and
different tones and then I go in with a
lighter color and I basically smooth all
that out by adding a bit more pressure
and then I go in and I glaze different
colors over the tops to get the right
tone what I love to do with the Karen -
pencil is do these beards because when
you do hair
the colors are sub opaque that you can
add those whites over the top and it
really shows up to get those highlights
which is really nice another thing that
you can use like a tool with Karen - is
something called like an etching tool
and it's like a metal tool that you can
use to scratch off the top layer of wax
and it only really works with the Karen
- pencils but it's really good to get
some fine details with when I do the
color pencil work over the water color I
like to use the favo Castells a lot
because because they're fine you don't
just get a really thick wax layer over
the top of the watercolor because
they're more translucent I do like to
see the watercolor effects underneath so
I don't want to really opaque color
pencil going over the top so I tend to
use color pencils though the oil-based
one over the top of the watercolors in
the background
more than I do with the wax and then I
use the wax color pencils to do the
subject
okay so overall my favorite is the Karen
- luminance and then I like the fal
castell polychromos
I love though using those two together
because the Karen -
can't get the detail that the
polychromos can so I love using them in
conjunction with each other however if
you're a beginner I won't really
recommend using the can - straight away
until you're a bit more and practice
with the medium anyway that's it for
this video if you're new to my channel
feel free to subscribe so you don't miss
out on my future Advent videos and my
tutorials and if you have any other
questions on this topic feel free to
comment below and I'll answer them as
best as I can anyway thank you guys so
much for watching I'll leave the social
media links in the description and all
of the other information that I've
talked about I'll leave in the
description as well so you can check
that out anyway thank you guys so much
for watching and I'll see you tomorrow