I've been hearing a lot about Holbein colored pencils lately and how a lot of people really like them. However, they are really expensive and so Cutie Boots and I wanted to see what we thought about them. For those who want to try these colored pencils for themselves I have included my Amazon Affiliate links down below. Currently the Holbein pencils are not available on the Amazon US website, but are on Amazon UK and Canada.
Cutie Boots said, "Which ones are they?" (We were reviewing a bunch of supplies at the same time. )
Since Holbein colored pencils are some of the most expensive colored pencils out there, I just purchased a small set to try out. I bought the 12 pastel color set for around $35 on bonanza.com. They are also available on eBay.com and usually ship directly from Japan. Amazon has them available sometimes too.
The pastel color sets for Holbein colored pencils come in 12 or 50 sets. The regular colors come in sets of 12, 24, 36, 50, 100, and 150. The prices range from around $30 for the 12 piece sets to around $350 for the whole set of 150, depending on where you buy them.
This set has a nice range of pretty pastel colors that are fairly lightfast. Holbein colored pencils are highly pigmented and are a cross between a wax and an oil colored pencil. This gives them a soft tip and they cover the paper without a lot of pressure. There is a pamphlet inside the tin that gives the lightfastness rating for every color in the Holbein line.
Doodlin' Time!
The colors in this set are named and numbered, starting with Lettuce Green, Cobalt Green, Ice Green, Sky Blue, Lavender Blue, Wisteria, Mauve, Rose Pink, Pink, Salmon Pink, Cream, and Naples Yellow. They cover the whole spectrum of the rainbow in pastel colors and are a nice little starter set.
'Pink Flower'
by Ellie Taylor
To test out these colored pencils, I did a quick picture of a pink flower. I used Strathmore Drawing paper and used light pressure to add the first layers. I added pinks, purples, blues, and yellows on the petals and greens for the stem and background. Having used Prismacolors and Polychromos pencils, I can say that these seem to be in between them. The Holbeins are not as soft as Prismacolors, but softer than the Polychromos pencils. I don't think they blend quite as well as those two brands, but they probably would blend better with an alcohol blender.
So Cutie Boots and I tried an alcohol Prismacolor Colorless Blender on the Holbein colored pencils. It blended them a little bit and made the colors more vivid. It didn't blend a lot, but it did make a little difference.
In Summary, I think these are nice high quality colored pencils and the big plus with them is the high pigmentation and lightfastness. The big question: Are they worth the big price tag? As I always say, it depends on what you want to do with them. If you are a professional colored pencil artist and need lightfast materials then these would be a good investment. If you are a beginner or casual hobbyist, you might want to start out with more budget friendly materials and work your way up to these after you know how to handle colored pencils.