Coloured Pencil Brands: An Independent UK Comparison

By Carol Leather

Walk into any art shop and there are dozens of coloured pencil brands on the shelf. Visit any one brand's own website and they'll tell you theirs are the best. Of course they will.

This page compares seventeen brands across the things that actually matter for an artist: how hard or soft the core is, how lightfast the pigment is, how easy it is to buy individual replacement pencils, and what the brand actually feels like to use. It draws on my own work over fifteen years plus the experience of Peter Weatherill, the original founder of Pencil Topics, who tested more than five thousand pencils across his lifetime ("more than I could use in three lifetimes," as he liked to say). Nothing on the page is sponsored.

The whole page is about dry coloured pencils. For watercolour pencils, see the watercolour pencils hub. For pastel pencils, see the pastel pencils hub. Both cover their topic in proper depth.

Skip ahead to the brand list if you already know what you're looking for. Read through if you want to understand why a soft wax pencil and a hard oil pencil produce such different results from the same hand.

What Actually Matters When You're Choosing

Four things separate the brand you'll love from the brand you'll regret.

Hardness: wax versus oil

This is the biggest practical difference between pencil ranges. The wax-versus-oil question affects how the pencil feels in your hand, how it lays colour down, how many layers you can build, and how easily it sharpens to a point.

• Wax-heavy pencils are softer and creamier. They lay down colour fast, blend easily, and produce smooth vibrant results. They wear down quickly, lose their point quickly, and can develop wax bloom (a hazy film) on heavy layers over time.
• Oil-based pencils are firmer. They hold a sharp point much longer, suit fine detail, and don't develop wax bloom. They take more layers to build the same colour intensity.

Most artists end up with one of each kind in their collection. Carol's full breakdown of pros and cons sits on the wax vs oil page.

Lightfastness: does the work need to last?

Lightfastness is a pigment's ability to resist fading under light. How much it matters depends on what you're making the drawing for.

• Sketching, practice, colouring books: rarely matters. Most artist-grade pencils are fine.
• Work to display, sell or gift: one of the most important factors in your brand choice. Pencils with poor lightfastness can fade noticeably within a few years of ordinary indoor light.

Manufacturer ratings on the packaging don't always match what happens in reality. We tested six leading brands by exposing them to months of extreme sunlight, and some highly rated colours faded badly. Always test before you trust the rating.

Open stock availability

If you fall in love with a brand, you'll use certain colours much faster than others. Browns, greens and greys go first if you draw landscapes; flesh tones go first if you draw people. You'll need to replace those favourites.

Before you commit to a set, check whether you can buy individual replacement pencils ("open stock") from a UK supplier. A brand with poor open-stock availability is a brand you can't really build a relationship with: every refill means buying another whole set or paying expensive import shipping.

Cost

Coloured pencils range from a few pounds for a budget set to over five pounds per pencil at the premium end. Good quality student-grade pencils are perfectly adequate for learning the fundamentals. Investing in artist-grade pencils makes sense once you know what you'd actually use them for. Skill develops with practice, not with the price tag of your tools.

Test Before You Commit to a Set

Before you buy a set of anything, buy three or four open-stock pencils from brands you're curious about. Ten or twelve pounds spent on samples can save you sixty pounds on a set you'll regret. Or borrow: most coloured pencil artists are generous about lending pencils to someone who asks.

Then test on the paper you actually use. Look at three things:

• Fine lines: how sharp a point can you keep, and for how long?
• Layering: when you put one colour over another, do they merge into a richer mix or sit on top of each other?
• Blending: do two colours transition smoothly into each other, or do they look muddy or refuse to mix?

You'll know within ten minutes whether a brand suits the kind of work you do.

Brands Grouped by Character

The seventeen brands below are grouped by what their core is like, since that's the thing that affects how the pencil behaves in your hand. Each brand has a dedicated review page on the site if you want the longer story.

Soft Wax Pencils (creamy, vibrant, fast)

Higher wax content means a softer, creamier core that lays down colour quickly and blends easily. The trade-offs: faster wear, more frequent sharpening, and potential for wax bloom on heavy layers.

Medium Oil-Based Pencils (control, detail-friendly)

The category most artists settle into. Firmer than soft wax, easier to keep a sharp point on, and well-suited to detail work without losing the ability to blend.

Hard Pencils (outlines, fine detail, indenting)

Hard cores aren't a starter category, but they earn their place in a working artist's box. Useful for crisp outlines, detail work, indenting lines into paper before colour goes on, and tidying up edges.

Budget Options (with caveats)

Affordable pencils have their place — adult colouring, sketching, practising techniques without worrying about wear. Don't expect lightfastness or open-stock support, and don't expect them to behave like artist-grade pencils.

Also Reviewed on the Site

Eight smaller or more specialised brands worth knowing about, each with its own review page:

• Bruynzeel Design: limited range, nicely presented, good quality.
• Conté: pastel, watercolour and resin-coated coloured pencils. Unusual multi-medium range from a brand making pencils since 1795.
• Cretacolor Karmina: a relatively small set of colours, good quality.
• Daler Rowney: better known for paint, but has a line of watercolour pencils worth knowing about.
• Koh-i-Noor Polycolor: decent quality at a lower cost; UK open-stock availability has been limited.
• Mitsubishi Uni: Japanese brand. Reviews well on performance but lightfastness and UK replacement availability are real concerns.
• Staedtler: the Karat Aquarelle is branded as a student pencil. Worth considering in that context.
• White Nights: Russian-made watercolour pencils. I do not recommend them for serious work; the review page explains why.

Sets, Single Pencils and Mixing Brands

Once you've picked a brand (or a couple of brands), there's a separate question of how to buy them.

Sets

Sets are convenient, often cheaper per pencil, and come in a tin or case that protects them. But a small set (12 pencils) tends to give you a handful of bright primaries plus white and black, which is fine for sketching and not much else. A medium set (24 or 36 pencils) gives you a much more useful spread of tints and shades.

Before you commit to a big set, always check open-stock availability for that brand. Buying a set is committing to replace your favourite colours one by one over the years. If the brand makes that hard, you'll find yourself stuck.

Single pencils

For most working artists, especially those who specialise (pet portraits, botanicals, landscapes), the most economical path is to buy individual pencils as you need them. You only replace what you use, and you can mix colours from different brands.

Peter Weatherill kept a metal box of 120 Faber-Castell Polychromos in three layers. After five years of use, the bottom layer of reds, violets and bright yellows was hardly touched. The top layers of greens, blues and greys, the colours he used most for landscapes, were on their third or fourth life, replaced multiple times as singles. The box stayed the same. The pencils inside it cycled.

Mixing brands

A set from one manufacturer can usually be supplemented by individual colours from another, especially if both are of a similar type (both oil-based, or both wax-based). Caran d'Ache Pablo and Faber-Castell Polychromos pair particularly harmoniously, since both are oil-based and their colour ranges complement each other well.

The pencil you'll love isn't necessarily the most expensive one. It's the one whose hardness matches the way you draw, whose colours suit your subject, and whose open-stock you can rely on year after year. If you're not sure where to start, Faber-Castell Polychromos is a solid first choice for anyone leaning toward detailed realistic work. Caran d'Ache Pablo is the equivalent for someone leaning toward landscapes and natural subjects. Both are oil-based, both have full ranges, both are widely available in the UK.

For another experienced and unsponsored viewpoint, Peter Weatherill always recommended Ivor Harrison's Art Gear Guide on YouTube for video reviews of new pencils and supplies.

One more thing. This puffin was drawn with unbranded hard pencils I bought on holiday, because I needed to draw and they were what I could find. The colour range was tiny and I have no idea what they're called. The drawing happened anyway. The brand you choose matters less than picking up the pencil and making the next mark.