Prismacolor Premier Verithin Colored Pencils

The price for these Prismacolor Verithin pencils was just right. I'd been keeping an eye on them for awhile, and this set showed up for less than $15(Fall 2012 price) so I ordered this set of 24 pencils. I love the Prismacolor Premiere soft core pencils so much I asked for the big - really big - set for my birthday. :) The only problem with the soft core, and the reason I got the Verithins is that they can hold a sharp point temporarily, if you're careful, but it's wasteful and annoying to repeatedly put a sharp tip on the same pencil repeatedly when the pencils run more than $1-2 each retail. These Verithin pencils are the answer to the problem of a sharp point which you can't get with the soft core Prismacolor pencils. These are HARD leaded pencils, as advertised. Be careful with your paper, as these will hold a point sharp enough to tear it. I recommend having a hard surface beneath your paper, etc. when coloring with these, a soft layer underneath will cause 'drag' and allow more punctures or tiny rips in your paper. I have already used these with the teeny tiny border around the pics in a coloring book from Dover, which had some very small, intricate design elements. Results were excellent! You may wish, once you try these, for more matching colors than are available, but many of these are chosen to cover a specific color 'group', such as orange-reds, crimson reds, blue-violets, bright greens, etc. Included with the colors are white, a light gray and black. THESE ARE NOT PRESHARPENED. If you prefer not to have this chore to do when your pencils arrive, you'll have to pay more for pre-sharpened Verithins. This package turns into a nice, very well-designed 'easel' for ease of choosing pencils. Be sure to open the cardboard package carefully the first time as the easel feature will be ruined if you rip the bottom tab or mangle the perforation which runs across the front and at an angle up the sides of the package. If you haven't opened this sort of case/easel before, it's easiest to slide the interior holder with pencils out of the bottom of the package entirely, then open the outer package along perforation, make sure easel feature is sturdy enough to hold upright...then carefully slide the interior case with pencils back inside. Some find this a silly or inconvenient annoyance, but having my pencils displayed point up without having to unpack or repackage them each time I use them is a plus. The barrel of the Verithin is hexagonal, which is billed as a no-roll feature, and has the location of manufacture (Mexico), color # & color name stamped into the barrel in English and French. There are several color numbers featuring a 1/2 after the digits. I'm not sure why, but those colors tend to be matches for several colors, rather than an exact match for just one color. All in all, an excellent buy. UPDATE 3/20/2013: Since I bought this package of Verithins I've been very happy with them. I really do wish I had a larger color selection, however. If the price per pencil is comparable, I recommend going straight to the 36 set, or whatever the total number of colors made for the Verithin line happens to be. These pencils are VERY useful and hold their points seemingly forever (as compared to regular 'soft core" Prismacolors. There is one small issue I wanted to mention, though it isn't a deal breaker, for sure! I tend to use more pressure than needed with my colored pencils - or any pencils, for that matter! When I apply too much pressure with the Verithin pencil, it doesn't snap the point (very good!) but it can wear through the paper (depending on quality and type, of course) in only one or two layers, which limits blending, erasing, etc., which I feel are important functions any colored pencil, hard or soft. I've learned to use them more delicately, and read an online excerpt from an art instruction book (whose name I've forgotten, so sorry!) which recommended less pressure, more layers. Seemed good in principle. It works - no more ripped pages if I am careful and patient - but it does increase the amount of time spent in adding color to some relatively small areas. Sharpening: The Verithin Prismacolor pencil is smaller in circumference than their soft core colored pencil, and can be sharpened in a regular #2 type pencil sharpener. I recommend a manual sharpener, even for the first, tedious sharpening of the pencil. A battery/electric sharpener would obviously be of great use the first time you sharpen the Verithin pencil, but if it drags or warps or causes the lead to 'bend' inside the pencil ("no - break" coatings aside), you will find yourself with 1/4 to 1/2 inch bits of colored pencil lead falling out repeatedly with future sharpenings. A regular hand-held sharpener, anything from the most basic metal blade in a metal or plastic housing to brand specific sharpeners will work for the Verithin pencils. My preferred sharpener for my Prismacolor pencils is the Prismacolor Premier Pencil Sharpener which has two blades specifically designed for Prismacolor pencils - one for the thicker soft-core premiers, the other for the Verithin or graphite pencils they make. A great second choice is the Trio sharpener by Faber-Castell, made in Germany. Not only does it work extremely well on Faber pencils, but on every other kind of pencil I've tried in it! The Faber Castell Trio Sharpener is a nifty little piece of superb engineering & design, and being made in Germany, is precise, VERY sharp & consistent. (I've reviewed it here on amazon, for more info) All in all, I am happy with my purchase of Verithin and stick to my 5 star rating. I do wish Prismacolor had a woodless pencil design such as Derwent's Aquatone (that's a watercolor woodless pencil) or Koh-i-noor's fantastic Progresso line, which are oil-based woodless pencils, regular or water-soluble. The "Art Stix" Prismacolor offers simply don't appeal to me for a variety of reasons, foremost that I can't sharpen it like a pencil. Until then, Verithin is your best bet for fine detail work in colors matching Prismacolor's other quality pencil types. An Enthusiastic Colorist in TX

They are great.

I mulled over buying these pencils for quite some time. I'm glad I took the leap. I already own a 120 Prismacolor colored pencil set that I bought over 10 years ago (that till work great btw), but noticed that when doing detailed work, it was difficult because regular Prismas are soft and while they blend great, small details are much more difficult. I've found that even though these pencils are "hard" they are still somewhat soft and if you want truly sharp details you should continually sharpen your pencil when it begins to get blunt. I don't think that is a bad thing though. When the lead does get a little blunt, its easy to do some softer details and shading as opposed to switching back and forth between Premiers and Verithins. I can just use a verithin and when I need sharp details again, I resharpen. The tip stays sharp much longer than a Premier pencil. And the so-called hard lead is still heaps softer than a crayola. The issues I had were minor. I haven't yet sharpened all of these yet but so far, I have NOT had an issue with lead breakage. I use a KUM manual sharpener Kum 107.02.01 Wood 2-Hole Steel Blade Pencil Sharpener, Colors Vary and it gets these pretty sharp. My 2 teenage daughter have the Manga Set that has premiers AND Verithins, and they haven't had any issues with breakage either. There are minor quality control issues like not all the pencils are exactly the same length, most of them are very close, but I had one in particular that I felt was rather short, though it was only by a few millimeters. There's also a creepy warning about the gold pencil containing copper so to not touch your face or mouth area when using it...so since my toddler loves getting into my art supplies, my OCD mom brain told me to wrap it in saran wrap. Somewhere in the description, it states that these are pre-sharpened but they are NOT. I am glad they aren't because I feel like it makes the box look dirty and it wastes little bits of lead which to any artist, serious or hobby, is precious. Update: terra cotta is one of the colors with the highest lightfastness rating (meaning the best rating) so I use that color for most my monochrome drawings. Some of my drawings using verithin pencils are on my instagram @artebeest. Many other colors look great for drawings, they just aren't as lightfast. But if you haven't tried sketching witwith these, they are easy to use, are very smooth and layerable, and dont smudge like graphite!

I have some very old Verithin pencils (over 18 years at this point) and I so wanted these new pencils to be of that same quality. Of course, they aren't. However, they are very close. My main complaint is that the lead breaks so easily. I use a hand-held, artist-grade metal sharpener and still had issues. The first box I sent back because the first 4 pencils out of the box just kept breaking as I sharpened and the wood wasn't smooth as I sharpened. I tried several different sharpeners after the first pencil kept breaking. Perhaps it is because they were shipped through the mail and got jostled? I was very disappointed and I sent them back. The new box arrived yesterday and I spent a great deal of time sharpening them to make certain the leads weren't all broken. I have a very sore thumb this morning--don't try to sharpen them all at once if you are using a small metal sharpener ;-) This second box of pencils had 2 that are now significantly shorter than the others because the lead was broken. I am very pleased with the color selection and that these pencils hold a sharp point. They are perfect for fine, detail work. I use softer pencils for blending and larger areas. I love that Prismacolor pencils come numbered so that you can buy replacements. I am still miffed that my Peacock Blue 740 1/2 and Magenta 759 are the two pencils that had broken leads and I had to sharpen then to almost half the size of an unsharpened pencil. I really wish it would have been colors I don't use very often! I love the price of these pencils on Amazon and I also love the ease of returning the set that had broken leads. I would buy these again. However, I would sharpen the colors I love the most first so if they had broken leads I could end the sharpening process and send back the set. It takes forever to sharpen them and I can't bring myself to send this set back after all the time I invested in getting them all sharpened.

Update- I bought a Smartro helical pencil sharpener (from Amazon of course). Wow, that changed everything. With a nice sharp point, these are amazing! I have seen also that these are to compliment the premier set with detailing, but I'm using them to full on color as well. I also have the botanical premier set now, I like these also. Original review- 3 stars I was cautious to say the least about ordering these. I am new-ish to adult coloring and wanted some decent pencils. I've known this brand to be a top artist brand. But after researching recently, I read all the reviews about breakage. But there were far more reviews stating the opposite, that this is still a great brand. So I saw the Verithin set for $7.03 and the prismacolor sharpener for $2.99 (as a bundle) and thought it was an inexpensive way to try out the brand. If I liked these, I'd try one of the smaller soft core Premium sets. Sharpening them was ok at best. I had one (dark brown) split and the core broke. I've heard there are remedies (glue, melting the core, etc.) and I might try just to see if it works. Another, I wasted about 1/5 of the pencil to get a point. Of the rest, maybe half sharpened evenly, that is until I decided to stop for fear that any more would damage them. I also switched back and forth between the handheld prismacolor sharpener and a kum (a cheaper one) I already had. Results were about the same with each, kum might have been slightly better. May get an electric helical just to see if it's better. That said, the colors so far are beautiful. They are smooth and firm, which may be best for me as I am heavy handed when coloring. Still want to try the soft cores but need to work out some kinks here. Overall, if you are interested, try them as they don't seem as pricey as others in the same brand or class.

These are good but just like premiers, each color is a hit or miss! These work great for details and coloring tiny areas in an adult coloring book as it keeps a fine point. Certain colors are even great for shading and coloring in. I will attach a page from one of my books which I used both premiers and verithins (Butterflies). So far I've had no issues as others have stated. Box did come with a warning label since its lead. Update: lead was loose while I was coloring and a long piece fell out! It broke my heart because I started falling in love with verithins. I ordered scholars to compare next. I will attach pics of the lead and a page I colored using only verithins (the frogs). I tried to save the lead by sharpening the wood collar down little by little, just enough to keep putting the lead back in to use as much as I could. Def didn't want it to go to waste, it worked but once I was done I had to toss it and resharpen. My ratings still stand but only time will tell really. I also used this to outline a drawing before I went in with the prisma watercolors and it works great for that! Update: use the dahle155 sharpener! Your prismas will not break. The sharpeners used for prisma are faulty, probably so you keep repurchasing...more money in their pocket right? Well this sharpener changed my life and love of all pencils! Works great on premiers, verithins, scholars, polychromos, and Caran D'a luminance. I will attach a pic I drew using a verithin for outline and the rest of the tiger I used Sakura microns and prisma watercolor pencils.

Buying the larger set to expand the range that I'm using them for. If you are using a light board, outlining with these will allow you to skip the graphite marks on your work. They clean up the edges of wider pencils. For florals. use these for stamens and fine vine work. Priceless for working around eyes on portraits, human and animals. Explore outlining colors with their complements. To set up the easel, remove the pencils from the box and with an razor knife, cut across the front of the box- then cut the diagonal marks on the sides. Don't cut the back of the box. Bend the box open and put the pencils in the front section. To close up the box, take the pencils out, bend the box back straight and slide the pencil rack back in. Put more tape on the small tab on the bottom- you won't need it again. Unlike the smaller set of twelve, these pencils are not sharpened. On inspection, all the leads are well centered in the wood cores. A purchase you won't regret.

Unlike any other colored pencil I have ever purchased, completely flat on both ends. Getting them sharpened initially was a challenge. My hand crank pencil sharpener worked, but it took some effort. After that, I switched to an electric sharpener and went just a little at a time until I finally got a usable point. Sadly, of the 4 pencils I sharpened, 3 of them had badly un-centered leads. On the plus side, if you're able to get a good set, they do indeed put down rich color and because they're so hard, they hold their point well. In my opinion, the super thin lead cores are not a great selling point. All that says to me is that they are trying to save money by only using half the amount of product in the pencil. These will not be staying. I can find pencils from other oil based sets in colors that are close enough to match my regular Prismacolors if I need to do extreme detail work.

The tips of the pencils keep breaking. I sharpen them and they break again. They must have fallen somewhere a lot. This is very annoying.

Update: Amazon shipped a replacement box of pencils and they are all perfect, the way Prismacolors should be! Verithin pencils are hard core, perfect for detailing. Colours are very pigmented but contrary to the Premier Prismacolor, they don't blend. But that I knew and ordered with that in mind. They are great for anyone. Four out of my 36 pencils had their core broken when I first sharpened them. They lost more than 2 inches before I could even use them once! Bad batch or bad seller? I’m just very unhappy. I have used and loved Prismacolors for over 40 years. It’s the first time I am so disappointed with Prismas. I love my Verithin. They are great for detailing. I assumed because they have a hard core breakage wouldn’t be an issue like the Premier but these are worse than the Premier.

Beautiful colours

Questa serie di matite ha colori identici a molti di quelli presenti nella serie di Prismacolor Premier. La differenza importante è che queste sono matite molto dure, utilissime a tracciare i bordi di lavori eseguiti con i premier. Ho letto che alcuni hanno riscontrato problemi nel temperare le matite. Effettivamente qualche punta si è rotta quando ho cercato di affilarla oltre il limite, ma tranne quelle due o tre, le altre hanno permesso di ottenere una punta molto acuminata. Devo però dire anche che le ho temperate con un temperino elettrico. Non so l'esito con uno manuale.

I've only just bought these pencils, so not used them on a project yet. However, for the price, they seem quite good and should be very useful in conjunction with the softer "normal" Prismacolor pencils and with my Polychromos pencils. As I'm sure you're aware of, other reviewers have complained of off-centre leads and broken leads. No problems with those I've just bought. Oh, and as far as sharpening is concerned, I bought this electric sharpener for £9.95 including prime delivery: Pencil Sharpener Electric and Battery Operated-Best Quiet Portable Electronic Sharpener for Pencils- Heavy Duty Office School Home-3 Sharpness Settings-3 Mode-AC Battery USB- Free Coloring Books (Black) I was more than a bit dubious but it sharpened all 36 pencils very well, and quickly. One thing though - the Verithin pencils are packaged with the colour name uppermost. I'd sharpened three pencils before I realised that I should have sharpened the BOTTOM end so that the colour description is still visible even when you're down to the last couple of inches ...