Caran d'Ache Luminance Pencils, Multicoloured, Box of 76, For Adult Art, Home, Permanent Lead, Light Resistant, For Artists, Designers, Architects

Don’t let anyone fool you that all pastel pencils are the same.I have 3 sets, Orthello, Derwent and Caran d’Ache. Orthello are scratchy as hell and break all the way through the pencil so sharpening is a pain, Dewent are better but slightly chalky and Caran D’Ache are pure quality, like butter. Non-scratchy, smooth, highly pigmented, easy to control and sharpen well. I’ve not had any leads brake when sharpening with a blade and they sharpen well with a good sharpener.You can layer up, (provided you don’t crush the tooth of your paper, which is true for all pastel or pencil work), blend and create incredibly subtitle work. I’ve just purchased some little makeup eyeshadow sponges, which allow me to blend even better, without getting grease from your fingers on your work. I would be reluctant to buy any other brand other than Caran d’Achy

I swatched the Luminance and the Derwent Lightfast to compare the blendability and coverage. First I swatched both sets on plain smooth paper and their performance was very similar; I then swatched on a drawing paper with some tooth an I was amazed by how better the Luminance were compared to the Lightfast. The coverage was exceptional and they blended very well. Similar effect to Prisma but with the quality of Caran d'Ache. Over all money well spent. Best coloured pencils in my opinion.

I love these pencils! They are lovely, they go on smoothly and they blend beautifully.

Well presented set. I liked the sturdy box and inserts. Colours=rs are lovely and are easy to blend. Really quality feel to the pencils. Nice and thick. They are very expensive though. I also use the Fabre-Cadtell polychromos which are almost as good and cheaper. I ordered some pencil extenders for these as I need them to last right down to the last cm at this price! Saying that they are beautifully made and a joy to use. You get what you pay for I guess and they should last me for years.

It's slightly difficult to describe just how good these pencils are; but I'll give it a go. I only got them today and only just swatched them and done a bit of layering and blending. The box is excellent - don't be put off by it being cardboard because it's sturdy enough, each pencil has it's own individual slot, which is not that unusual I bet your thinking - but it with these because you can take out a tray, turn it upside down and the pencils don't fall out! Great! Note: make sure all the pencils are in tray before doing this (if you want to that is). Anyway enough about the box. Let's get to the pencils.When I first swatched them I liked the colours and they were very opaque - but to be honest I wasn't overly impressed. Although, I soon changed my mind - especially after layering some of them.The layering you can do with these pencils is incredible and it doesn't appear to matter what kind of paper is used either (smooth, rough, cheap, expensive, coloured, etc). They apply colour with hardly any pressure. I then proceeded to put down about 12 layers and could have carried on! But I was only seeing what they were like; and therefore it would have just been wasteful. This is when the penny dropped, so I took another look at the swatches and the colours made complete sense. These pencils are designed to layer, layer, and layer again; thus producing extremely vibrant colours; with extremely good colour depth and superb tonal differential. I know you can layer quite a lot with other pencils e.g., Faber-Castell Poly's, Derwent Coloursoft etc - but trust me - not like these!I could go on more about these pencils i.e., blending and those two blenders, which are very unusual indeed (in a good way); but I'll let you mess about with them if you decide to get these pencils, which I highly recommend.

This was by far the best price I could find for this full set of Luminance, and I'm very pleased with them. They were well packed and arrived on time, and they are a top quality product.My favourite pencils of all are Faber Castell Polychromos, but the Luminance are great as a supplement. There's some wonderful colours -I particularly like the very pale colours (which are lacking from the Polychromos range), and they give great coverage. They are very thick and opaque, compared with Polychromos. The colour range is slightly limited, particularly pinks, but this is because there are hardly any lightfast pink pigments so obviously a fully lightfast set of pencils is going to be short on pinks.For my kind of work I wouldn't use these for my main set (I couldn't afford to anyway), but they are lovely to have.

Having been colouring now for about 2 years, I have tried quite a few high-end coloured pencils like Prismacolor Premier and Faber-Castell Polychromos but found it difficult to get the right touch. Immediately upon starting to use the Luminence pencils the difference was amazing. I feel as though my colouring has gone up several notches since starting to use them, and I have much more control. They are so smooth and it's very east to get a "whisper touch" on the page. The blending is outstanding. The only other pencils I have which come close are the Dutch Bruynzeel pencils, but unfortunately these only come in a set of 48 colours (plus silver and gold as extra stand alone buys). I now use these two sets together as they blend beautifully. They are easy to erase if you go over the lines or make a mistake. I appreciate that whilst the Bruynzeels are not too costly, the Luminence are very costly (I bought them for myself as a Christmas present). I bought them from Amazon because they were offering a really good discount and know that they will last a long, long time, depending on the amount of colouring I do of course.