During the Black Friday sales, I bought a full set of Prismacolor Verithin Colored Pencils from Amazon. I had never seen them in art stores and sale sparked my curiosity to try another product from one of my favourite brands. I recently got these pencils out to experiment, so I thought I’d let you guys know what I think of them.

First impressions:

The Prismacolor Premier Verithin Colored Pencils are available in sets of 12, 24 and 36. I bought the 36 set, since the price was so low and I can not buy any open-stock in stores. They come in a cardboard box, rather than a tin, which may be due to the lower price of these pencils in comparison to Prismacolor Premier Soft Core Colored Pencils. Although the box has a lovely printed image,  it’s not exactly suitable to store the pencils. I prefer to put all my pencils in display cases, for ease of use and protection.

The pencils themselves hexagon shape and are quite thin, as are the cores. They look similar to a Faber-Castell Classic pencil. The leads are hard and are meant to be sharpened to a point. According to Prismacolor, they are “perfect for creating clean edges, bold outlines or intricate designs…Ideal for outlining, detailing, and lettering”. The pencils did not arrive sharpened. Instead, the pencils were flat on both top and bottom. The barrel of the pencils painted to reflect their colour. They also are labelled with their brand, type, colour and that they are made in Mexico.

The colours of the pencils and the names of the colours correspond with Prismacolor Premier Soft Core Colored Pencils. For me, this was a big selling point. I love the range of colours that the Premier set come in. Because they are soft core they are hard to sharpen to a narrow point and get into tight corners. Most of the colours in the Verithin 36 set are the colours I actually use the most in my Premier set.

Trying the pencils:

First I had to sharpen all my pencils before I could make up a colour swatch. Since the leads are so hard I was able to use my Derwent Super Point Mini Manual Sharpener,  to get a nice long sharp point.  I only had a couple of leads break, while sharpening, but they were fine after resharpening and no issues since then.

They lay down of the colour is quite smooth and there isn’t much white speckling on the paper. Although they feel like a Faber-Castell Classic pencil in the hand, they actually have the same high-quality pigment of a Prismacolor Premier pencil. They do blend easily, but the hard thin cores require care to be taken when laying down the colour to avoid streaky lines.

Colouring with pencils:

I used the Prismacolor Verithin pencils in combination with Prismacolor Premier pencils to colour this picture from Tanya Bond’s Inkling coloring book. I used the Verithin pencils for the eyes and hair of the girl and cat, as well as the girl’s lips. I found the pencils were great to get to get fine flicks of colour, which gave these features a more realistic look. I usually find it hard to get my Prismacolor Premier pencils to a sharp to a sharp enough point to get sharp lines and the colours end up blending on the paper. I found it was better to use the Verithin pencils first and then go over with the Premier pencils. This is because the Premier pencils are quite waxy. However light detailing could be put over the top carefully.

If you’re interested in seeing more of my finished pages and a review of Tanya Bond’s Inkling, see: Book Review: Tanya Bond’s Inkling and gallery.

Overall I am very happy with results that the Prismacolor Verithin Pencils brought to my colouring. I would definitely use them again for getting a bit more of a realistic edge for people and animals. I don’t believe these pencils are adequate to be used alone to colour but are rather tools to enhance your colouring.

Have you used Prismacolor Verithin pencils?

What are your thoughts on them?