DerwentGraphic Soft Graphite Drawing Pencils, Ideal For Illustrating & Shading, Set Of 12, Professional Quality, 34215

As an absolute amateur when it comes to drawing I like having a wide selection of tools to keep me interested in what I am doing.I have several different Derwent products and these pencils live up to the standards of other pencils (apart from the charcoal ones).My only gripe is the tin they arrived in...it's a great tin but the plastic tray inner is very shallow which means the pencils all mix up inside so you have to be very careful on which pencil you select...The pencils are comfortable to use and give great results, sharpen well and are easy to blend with a brush or whatever you choose.Recommended!

Good quality pencils

Good, but all very hard. Might be nice to have a 2B aswell

I have lots of pencils do not the full range in one set. I thought all pencils are equal but I was wrong. These are so much better. I did look at Faber Castell and other good brands but most had a limited range so you need to buy 2 sets. This made the full Derwent set an excellent price and I’ve already noticed a difference in my sketching.

Great strong lead doesn't crack after sharpening

Lovely present

All as requested by the recipient

The reason Derwent has the best graphite pencils in the World (in my opinion) is because they have their own private quarry, that's one way of stopping your competitors from copying your product. I have tried many different brands of professional pencils over the years and none have come close to being as good as Derwents, the way the graphite lays down on the paper is great but it's nothing compared to the way they blend, if you have a look at the pictures I have uploaded you can see how smoothly they blend on portraits, on the Angelina Jolie picture I tell you how I got the finish I did, I have yet to find another pencil that comes close to the blending quality of these, if you get a paper stump and blend along the grain of the way you have drawn then you will leave some texture but if you blend with your stump 90 degrees across the way you have drawn you will get a very very smooth finish which is perfect for doing skin in portraits and the former is for doing hair or fur, whether you are a beginner or a professional artist you will not be disappointed with these pencils you really can't go wrong...I keep writing to them to sell just their leads to us as I prefer to use clutch pencil lead holders 2mm but as yet they won't sell them to me. I believe they are missing out on a whole market there but I don't know why they wont do it?, it wont cost them any more they already have the leads, just doesn't make sense why they wont do it???...happy drawing Boshy.