Castle Art Supplies 120 Coloring Pencils Zipper-Case Set | Premium Quality Soft Core Colored Leads for Adult Artists, Professionals and Colourists | In Neat, Strong Carry-Anywhere Zipper Pouch

I’ve really enjoyed using the Castle Art Supplies 120 Colored Pencils with Zipper Pouch. Right away, I was impressed by how many colors are included—it feels like there’s a shade for just about everything, whether I’m working on landscapes, portraits, or relaxing with an adult coloring book. What stood out most to me is how smooth these pencils feel on paper. The soft leads lay down color easily, blend nicely, and make shading much easier than I expected. I don’t have to press hard to get rich, vibrant color, which makes long coloring sessions more enjoyable. I also love the zipper pouch. It keeps everything neat and organized, and it’s so much easier than dealing with bulky boxes or loose pencils. I can take the set with me or store it away without worrying about losing anything. For the price, I honestly think this set is a great value. They perform much better than I expected and feel like a quality product without the premium price tag. While there are more expensive brands out there, these have been more than enough for my projects. Overall, I’m really happy with this set and would definitely recommend it to anyone who enjoys coloring, drawing, or wants a big variety of colors in one convenient case.

It is easy to see why these are a daily go-to in myhouse! For the price point, the quality of these pencils is absolutely incredible—they give some of the much more expensive "professional" brands a serious run for their money. The soft, wax-based leads are the star of the show; they are highly pigmented, and blend like an absolute dream. The **120-color range** is massive. You get every shade imaginable, from the subtlest skin tones to vibrant neons and deep earth tones. It really takes the guesswork out of layering because you always have the perfect "bridge" color to create those smooth, professional gradients. The zippered carry case is a total game-changer for organization. Instead of digging through a tin or a box, every pencil has its own elastic slot, keeping the tips protected and the colors visible. It makes it so easy to grab the whole set and head to a coffee shop or just move from the desk to the couch. If you’re a serious colorist or just someone who loves high-quality art supplies, this set is a must-have for your collection!

Let me just say that I am a repeat customer of Castle Art’s colored pencils. I originally bought a much smaller collection of their pencils when it was on a super clearance sale, and I was SO pleasantly surprised by the performance. I will say, I’m not someone who has a ton of experience with colored pencils; I’ve used the ones everyone has (crayola, crazy art, etc) and Prismacolor, but besides that I’ve never tried any other “professional” colored pencils. I’ve got to be honest, I personally prefer these to the Prismacolor pencils. I just feel like you get better value for your money with these. The coloring itself is super smooth (one of the main things that attracted me to the color) and I have an easy time blending colors. My only negative is that not all of the pencils arrive super sharpened. It’s like, 1 out of every 20 or so are a bit duller sharpened than the others, but as long as you have a sharpener you’ll be fine! I also find that they are decently bold, but not as bold as Prismacolor CAN be. This doesn’t affect me too much since I’m not trying to have super bold pallets, but if you are someone who wants that, you might want to do a bit more research before committing to these. Overall, a great set of pencils especially for the price! If you are a more casual artist or wanting to start to experiment with more “professional” supplies, these are a great alternative to pricy colored pencil collections. I think these would make a great gift to an artist in your life, and the color variety is pretty good, so they’ll be able to hold you over for a while. Definitely worth checking out if you have been eyeing them for a while.

Near-Prismacolor quality in my opinion, though this set lacks some of the lighter tones needed for fair skin complexions (I've been using a combination of alcohol inks for skin base tones and these pencils for subsurface scattering). These pencils, despite being soft, do hold up fairly well to burnishing, so you can get some pretty very deep and saturated coloration with some work. Doing a light color fill in an area, layering on any other tones you want, and then doing multiple passes between the two with increasingly more pressure up to the final burnishing works quite well to blend them, similar to Prismacolor pencils. Suggestions for owners: -Highly recommend the usual approach of wearing an artist's glove and/or resting your drawing hand on another sheet of paper as you render to prevent from smearing pigment around. These won't smudge like charcoal or graphite, but they will lift and smear on prolonged hand contact. -Some other reviewers have mentioned that the pencil tips break easily - I wouldn't say "easily", but these are soft core after all and will crumble a bit if you put much force on them. If you live in a warmer climate and lack air conditioning, you seriously may want to store them in the refrigerator before use - the wax medium will soften when it gets hot and that can lead to crumbling. That is true for all soft-core pencils, though, not just from this brand. -Try to avoid using automatic pencil sharpeners that don't have depth stops. Automatic pencil sharpeners are a great way to obliterate a large section of the pencil just because you need a sharp point for a small section. A hobby knife and some 300gt sandpaper also help form the tip how you need without a ton of waste. -I did end up purchasing additional singles at a local hobby store to make up gaps in the included color selection; it's a lot of pencils, but most of that arrangement is in the RGB space and not so much the lighter pigments. Overall - very happy with these, and for the few colors you may be missing, you can buy singles at most hobby stores for a few dollars. Seems really nice as a set to get your artist-grade pencil collection started.

I was so excited to get these and once I got them, I bought another set as a gift. The colors are vivid and they lay on smoothly with a creamy texture. However, at least 3 of them had the leads pre-broken for my convenience, so I had to sharpen them before I could start using them; one of them was sharpened slanted so as the wood was all the way up to the tip. As I progressed through testing each color with the included Testing Sheet, I noticed that some of them were out of order, so be sure to READ the label on each pencil. Half of the green pencils were out of order, throughout the book of pencils there were long marks where the person who packed them just shoved them into the slots lead-first, carelessly. This is worst on the green section. One of the green pencils is actually broken up the length of the pencil but painted over anyway... well broken wood doesn't fix with a coat of paint. The wood is peeling. I will be contacting the manufacturer/seller for replacements of the damaged pencils once I finish testing them all. This is the perfect set for a meticulous person; it's a shame that Castle was not so meticulous in the quality check and packaging of the product.

UPDATE 17 APRIL 2023...since posting I received communication from Carlos at Castle Art Supplies! Even though Castle Art Supplies is not responsible for the packaging used at the Amazon warehouse or how the carriers handled the shipment, they have offered me a set of 120 pencils in the tin box! What FANTASTIC customer service! I would like to thank Castle Art Supplies, Carlos especially, for taking my disappointment in shipping breakage as their opportunity to make me happy. I truly enjoy the results of my coloring pages using the Castle Art Supplies Soft Touch colored pencils. They have dedicated customer for sure! I received my order last November and saved them for myself for Christmas, which is why my review comes later than normal for me. When I received my Castle Art Soft Touch wax pencils, I was a bit concerned about the packaging. The case holding the pencils was inside an unprotected, thin sheath of plastic. I know how things are tossed around during shipping, having witnessed it first hand on many occasions. My concern has been proven correct. Without proper packaging, I have had many difficulties with the leads being broken. For me, it is extremely frustrating to have to repeatedly sharpen new pencils because the cores are in pieces. Greens are the worst offenders, at times being more crumbs than core! It's not the way I sharpen my pencils as I have been coloring for years and know how to sharpen pencils correctly. This is a problem that I am sure others will have experienced. Now for the wonderful things! Absolutely beautiful layering of pigment, blends nicely. Fantastic for the smoother and slightly glossed paper of high end books such as Klara Markova and Hannah Karlzon. I am able to put a dozen or more layers of my combos on the paper to create pages I am very happy to share with friends and family. The Castle Art pencils also work pretty well with cheaper papers, as long as light layers are used! Press too firmly and the tooth of the paper gives out too soon. My suggestion...request protective packing before ordering. I would have been giving more stars, had the cores not been damaged. For a budget priced pencil, a good depth of color can be achieved.

I have quite a few large sets of various brands of colored pencils. I think that overall, this is actually my favorite set! Yes, there are obviously better brands, and these pencils are not in their league, neither for performance nor price!! All things considered, especially the price, that's what makes these my favorite standard colored pencil!! No, these aren't a budget set, and you might even find some pencils that perform more to your liking at a much lower price, it's all just a personal preference, after all. This was the first set of Castle Arts pencils that I bought, over a year ago, and have since purchased the Gold set, the metallic, the pastel "macaron" and the water color sets, always the largest quantity available in the zipper pouches. I try not to spend too much on art supplies, but all those other purchases were me chasing the quality of this set. This particular set is hands down superior to any of the others offered by this brand, but that's just my opinion. I would definitely purchase this again, not totally certain if I would invest again in any of their other sets, but possibly would if I use them all up. These pencils perform comparably to the Crayola brand of colored pencils, except these are a little bit smoother and brighter. This set would be a logical next step-up from Crayolas if you've started there, like their performance, but are looking for something a little bit fancier. To be fair, a lot of people want to complain about Crayola, which I think is just based on their availability at every discount and mass retailer. I actually use them at times, even with owning tons of other, more desirable sets. If it's just a coloring book, why burn through professional grade pencils?? These Castle Arts are a great option for coloring books, especially if you opt for them in the zipper case. Very convenient presentation with a sheet to swatch the colors. My love for this set is honestly based a lot from their presentation and the convenience of the color guide. The pencils come with some instructional info, also. I love how well these layer and blend. Yes, there's some wax bloom, but you'll get that with any kind of pencil. To compare this set vs. their Gold set, these layer and blend way way better, but the Gold set has more vibrant colors, and sets down more color with less pressure or more color in a single pass. I would recommend these over the Gold set if you're more of a traditionalist with colored pencils and take your time building layers and ranges of tone. These are the best pencils I have found for layering short of some of the higher priced Derwents. To clarify, yes I compared these to Crayola in some aspects, but these layer better than Crayola. The Gold pencils don't let you build the range of subtle layers and effects like these pencils. The Gold pencils are "oil" pencils. All colored pencils have wax binders, but some pencils have added oils, or a somewhat different blend, all subjective, and all depending on the particular brands formulation. I have several different sets of pencils that are labeled as oil pencils, they lay down a lot more color, but they just don't layer and blend quite as well. Personally, I know of a lot of people who claim they "hate" colored pencils, that they just want to color with markers or gel pens because pencils are too soft and light colored. Of course a lot of coloring books are designed with images on both sides of thin paper, so in that case you're limited to pencils, and if you think you hate pencils, you might want to try oil pencils, like the Gold set. Bottom line, for me this set has been almost the perfect set of pencils. There's a good range and balance of colors in this set, too. They sharpen well. I've not had too many issues with poorly blended spotchy nor "scratchy" areas like you always get with cheaper pencils. I have had these for over a year, no problems. The case is durable, and also the pencils seem to be a good hardness. They hold a point well. They're a consistently good product that allows the versatility to use in coloring books, or stand alone art!

My God, these pencils are awesome! Now before I go into a detailed review about these pencils, few things from my side, I am a watercolor artist/digital media artist. However, I do pencil works often! But I am not a Pro. So these are my experiences with the pencils: I worked in Bristol Vellum 300 series paper which gave enough tooth for the pencils and I used both burnishing and odorless mineral spirits (oms) to test these pencils. Well I am super surprised and happy to see the finished results, which I shared above. Pros 1. Castle Arts pencils are US based and are wax pencils, so comparing them Faber Castle polychromous will be like comparing a Car and. House. Polychromous pencils are oil based and behave very differently! 2. Castle Art Pencils are offering 120 colored wax pencils with round barrel in an attractive zip wallet which I loved unlike the tinned sets, which easily get distorted due to rough handling! 3. These pencils are soft, creamy to the core which gives great advantage when it comes to blending! 4. It blends fantastically with odorless mineral spirit (gamsol/zest). 5. The color at the end of the pencils are similar to that when it comes to finished results so you can make a good guess of the colors from the pencils, and they are numbered which makes it more easy to arrange them while blending! 6. Depending on the paper used (Fabriano hot pressed, Canson, or Bristol Vellum, the pencils can go for tons of layering without any difficulty, however be careful with the strokes! That is not the fault of a pencil. 7. Most significant is that while being soft and creamy to the core, they don’t snap like prismacolor pencils! These are sturdy (strong and reliable core- proven) and can handle heavy pressure while burnishing without shattering! Details can be finely achieved with touch ups. 8. I did a testing with Derwent blender and burnisher but actually I am surprised that these pencils itself can burnish so well that Derwent burnisher seems to leave a wash out effect with a whitish washed out effect! In some cases, this may what you want, but I will still prefer the oms, layering and self burnishing method for these pencils. 9. They are really well priced, at least for artists like us, who invests in all sort of art supplies. It is affordable and of excellent quality! A rare combination. It is great for gifting as well. 10. If you are doing personal works with wax colored pencils, you should definitely have a go with these. It beats many brands at its level! I am not comparing polychromous and prismacolor though I have pointed one disadvantage of prismacolor! 11. They produce much less debris while heavy application (burnishing), that is they have minimum crumpling. Sweet lord, can you imagine, you get wax pencils, in which you don’t have to brush every time to paint one section! While layering, with oms, I did not find any debris at all. So oms makes job pretty easier! Cons: 1. I will not give these much importance because you will face this problem of wax bloom with all wax color pencils! 2. The lightfast ratings are still not tested with these, so professionals who are selling their works may tend to just keep these for practice works or testing! But when comes to selling, they will obviously go for those with lightfast ratings and high markings! My two cents: Go grab these pencils, before they increase their price, because very soon they are going to go top of the charts! Already they have made a big buzz! And yes definitely I recommend them for beginners, intermediates and those professionals who want to test and practice! Myself? I am off course purchasing them next time and gifting them to some of my art friends! Happy Painting

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They are wonderful colouring pencils . They are made in China like most of colouring pencils our days. What is not a bad thing to hold the price reasonable. This set has not the chemical stench like my first castle art supplies 120 set purchased nov.2018 which needed a week airing ! This new set scent is wood ! The soft case is very well made , not one split pencil and no breakage !!!! Of course you have to invest in a decent sharpener. Mine is a Helix desktop crank handle , a really useful buy . The colours are bright and beautiful. The palette is all’s and more what you ever need on variety. They are highly pigmented and not to soft or to hard . They can hold a fine point for detailed work . I owe also the full set of goldfaber(48) of faber-castell and some polychromos . I don’t understand the hype around them. They are just not for me , the polys I mean . Castle art are in my opinion much like goldfaber . But with a much larger colour range . Like with most colouring pencils the very light colours need a bit more work than the rest . I use them for Adult colouring books and they are just perfect. I was lucky, I got the 120 set middle of March As a special offer for £29.99. But I would pay the regular price for them . They blend and layer beautifully. There is nothing not likeable in this set , for less than £0.38 per pencil including a superb case with place for a few accessories like rubber and sharpener I can only advise to buy it before it is again sold out ! Like so many times the past months .

got it during a sales. love that it comes with a case! lovely colours and easy to blend.

I've included as many photos as possible because I am so impressed by this brand. I am not an artist but I enjoy coloring. This set is so well packaged for shipment, it was in three boxes. First, I purchased the 120 color pencil set, the case itself is really sturdy, I won't need anything more durable however, I do wish there was a carrying handle on the side of the case. When you open the case, you'll find a tutorial booklet, a color and product guide, a tester sheet, a help card, a booklet on care, color theory and techniques - this is wonderful for the beginner (like myself). Some reviews mentioned cracked or broken tips, I only had one that was cracked in half, once I removed the broken piece, I was able to use that half without it breaking further. If you're going to use the tester sheet, check each pencil to ensure it matches the number on the sheet, once I made it through the yellows and pinks, I assumed they were all in order, but some of my blues were not and I ended up coloring the wrong blocks on the sheet before I caught the mistake. When applying the pencils to paper, the color goes down like butter, it is so smooth and so beautiful to use, I never thought about colored pencils in that way before but these are top quality, just absolutely wow! Not one of them broke/splintered during coloring and I did use more pressure but the tips remained intact. The blending is just superb and the pigmentation is stunning. I haven't had to sharpen any pencils yet, so I can't write on this area to know how the tips will hold up, but Castle has provided sharpening techniques in their booklet (wish a sharpener was included). I love these pencils and the quality Castle Arts has put into these products. 💯 recommend.

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