PANDAFLY Professional Charcoal Pencils Drawing Set, Skin Tone Colored Pencils, Colour Charcoal Pencils, Pastel Chalk Pencils for Sketching, Shading, Coloring, Layering & Blending, 12 Colors

When my package arrived I was so happy to finally have my charcoal leads ,problem was when they get sharpened they crack which makes them equivalent too dollar store material ! Very disappointing

Please be warned: DON'T sharpen these with an electric sharpener. In fact, don't sharpen any charcoal or soft pastel pencils with an electric. It can kill your sharpener. Yep, speaking from experience.The pencils themselves perform decently. As you can see in the first pic, they have good color payoff for the price. They are also water soluble, which I only recently learned that charcoal is water soluble, which was part of what sparked my interest in buying charcoal pencils. I also like that they smudge fairly well.The most difficult thing about these pencils is how hard they are to sharpen. I think getting a fine point will be impossible (maybe this is true for most charcoal/soft pastel pencils due to their crumbly nature). You'll see in the pics I got crummy points on even the "best" sharpened pencil, the red one. The worst was, obviously, the green one.A tip on sharpening: I tried four different sharpeners on these, the electric first, then three handheld ones. Oddly, a Revlon makeup pencil sharpener with two different sized holes worked the best. I think these makeup sharpeners are easy to find on Amazon or a drugstore for around $2. I'm researching sharpeners dedicated to charcoal given my new interest in this medium.I did try a standard double hole metal sharpener that proved useless with these pencils. The small hole was too small and the large too large.I do appreciate that the pencil names were printed at the very end of the pencil so they'll remain visible until the pencils are used up. However, I would've preferred the names be spelled out. Names like "WH" and "BK" are easy enough to figure out, but "BN" and "PUS" are too tricky for me.So, the jury's out on this one. Will post an update if I find they're not for me or if they're surprisingly good in action.Explanation of photos:1. swatch/blend/water solubility test on cold press watercolor paper2. blending test with two colors each - cold press watercolor paper3. poor sharpening test on green pencil4. sharpening test on red pencil (best I could achieve with sharpeners I own)5. swatch/smudge on Strathmore black mixed media paper6. swatch/smudge on Strathmore toned mixed media paper

I had no idea they had charcoal in anything but black, white & brown. These were cheap but packaged well. Very professional looking. My 75 yr. old hubby just took up drawing a couple of years ago & he absolutely loves these.

Only problem is they don't come sharpened.

I’m not a fan of colored pencils, but I love, love these charcoal pencils. They are very easy to work with and blend very, very well. With charcoal, you have to be a little more delicate with them, but if you take your time (as you should with art) you will get a very nice outcome. I started our w portraits w just the basic black charcoal pencils. When I discovered they make charcoal in different colors I was finally able to add skin tones to my art and it really made them pop! I’m hoping they keep adding more and more vibrant colors to work with. This was a great purchase.