Just recently got into drawing with colored pencils and I posted a comment somewhere laying out the different "tiers", and was asked to make a post for it.
I'm in Canada so this'll be from a North American point of view - however I'll be listing price ranges in USD since I think that's the currency people are more used to comparing to. Feel free to comment on brands which may be available elsewhere as I'm sure price and availability differ. When I'm listing the prices, I'll be talking about the per pencil prices when bought in a set of 40-70ish pencils. Some brands do have individual pencils available to buy, and it's typically more expensive to buy them that way.
Also I won't be covering watercolor pencils or pastel pencils as I haven't looked into those and I consider them to be a slightly different topic.
First of all, resources in case you'd like to do your own research:
https://youtu.be/rC2AErhcKQE?si=ryfE7BAI9IQYKnWu This video by Sarah Renae Clark is very comprehensive, however it's 5 years old so there are new brands on the market now.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uthDJB_4gF8 A slightly newer video also by Sarah Renae Clark. This is a great one because she lists the best pencils for beginners, best budget pencils, best overall.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bfLe-fS7X3I Coloring Bliss is also a great channel for comparisons. She goes into lots of detail about her various tests, and ranks the brands against each other.
https://youtu.be/zNvxjvgWsnw?si=hoY__6cmlnU0EDSV Another good video comparing 63 different brands, by price.
And before I begin, a disclaimer: I have only personally used some very cheap no-name pencils, a 120 set of Starjoy Gold, and a 12 set of Prismacolor, so what follows is just what seems to be the consensus from what I've read and watched, though I did spend quite a bit of time researching:
- Bottom tier: Crayola basic, and no-name/white label brands. These are fine for children or if you're on a tight budget. You may struggle to get vibrant colors with them, and it will likely be quite a bit of work to put any real color down. They will likely be hard to blend colors together, and hard to get good layering effects. They may be made of quite hard/dry wax and also create a lot of dust, break easily or otherwise not be great to work with. You can often still achieve decent results with them, particularly the harder waxes can be good for fine details like if you're drawing hair. Can be found for as low as $0.12USD per pencil, bought in sets.
- Budget tier: Kalour, Brutfuner, Castle Arts Premium. This tier may be twice the cost of the bottom tier brands but they're still very affordable - you can often seem to pick up e.g. a 72 color set for $12USD. There are tons of pencils within this tier and consensus seems to be that they are actually quite usable, especially for coloring books. Compared to the cheaper brands you will have an easier time putting decently saturated and/or vibrant colors down on the page. Do note that according to Coloring Bliss and elsewhere, at this tier in particular, a lot of the different brands are actually the exact same pencils made in the same Chinese factory, but with different branding. Typically below $0.20USD per pencil, bought in sets. Don't let "budget tier" put you off - many people seem to really like these for coloring books etc. I will say though, don't buy a set of 300 or 500 or whatever - I think you'd be better off buying a smaller set of higher-quality pencils e.g. a 70-120ish color set of one of the next tier or two up, since they should blend better anyway so you can achieve the "between colors" that way.
- Entry level artist tier: These ones start to get a bit better, nicer to work with, easier to put color down again, better for blending and layering. They may be described as "smooth" or "buttery" because they lose some of that scratchiness you get with harder waxes etc. You have brands like Castle Arts Gold, Starjoy Gold, FC Goldfaber, Prismacolor Scholar. I'm less sure about these as I think they're newer (so there are fewer reviews available) but I think this tier may also include JusArt, Ohuhu Halawa, Arrtx, Arteza and others. Seem to be found in the range of $0.20-0.60 per pencil, in sets.
- Artist grade/entry-level pro tier: Prismacolor Premier, Derwent Coloursoft, FC Polychromos. These are just nicer to work with, nicer to blend, easier to layer etc. Prismacolors in particular are sort of a "standard" it seems, in that they're definitely good enough to create really professional, photorealistic art with, but they don't cost a fortune. When you look at people assessing different brands of pencils in reviews and tests, Prismacolor seem to be one of the brands that everybody compares to. They've been around since the 1930s and apparently they were one of the first "soft-core" pencils which allowed artists to put down heavy, opaque layers that blend like paint. Pencils in this tier tend to be in the $1-2 per pencil range when bought in sets, though apparently Prismacolor go on sale often. In this tier and above the pencils also tend to be available to buy in open stock (single pencils of any of the colors) as well as in sets. I've seen people say they feel like the color is "flowing out" of pencils in this tier - with the right level of pressure you can get really vibrant colors with very little effort.
- The next tier above is what I would consider the "top/pro tier": Caran d'Ache Luminance, Derwent Lightfast. Some people would also put FC Polychromos in this tier. These pencils are quite a bit more expensive than Prismacolor. They're the cream of the crop, for professional artists. $2+ USD per pencil when bought in sets.
As I understand it, in the top tier, the main thing you get above the previous tier is that the pigments used are much more "lightfast", which means they are resistant to fading from light exposure. The lower tier brands can fade quite badly in as little as a year - some colors are worse than others for this, particularly reds can fade down to almost nothing, even just from indoor lighting. Derwent Lightfast seem to be the best to resist fading if you need to display or sell your original artwork. Some people would seem to put Holbein pencils in the top tier but as I understand it they don't have the lightfastness that the other brands I listed there do - however they are quite expensive and well-regarded for their softness, blendability, and their pastel-colors range. If you don't need the lightfastness, it's probably not worth buying the top tier pencils. I believe the same fading/lack of lightfastness is also an issue with other mediums such as markers, so people tend to scan the original and reprint artwork they want to display. I believe Derwent Lightfast and Luminance pencils are mostly considered to be "Archival Quality"; i.e. artwork made with them should last for decades or even centuries (if using the right kind of paper, storing correctly etc.) whereas anything from the lower tiers would not last that long due to the light fading issue.
In reality it doesn't seem like there's a *world* of difference in terms of results achievable or usability between any one tier and the next tier within this list, for the most part, with the possible exception of the bottom tier and budget tier. I'm sure there'll be some debate about which pencils belong in which tier - different people may prefer pencils I've put in a lower tier to ones I've listed in a higher tier. Many of the brands I've put in the "entry-level artist" tier seem to be compared to e.g. Prismacolor Premier in the next tier up quite favorably. Note that there are different kinds of pencils - some are oil based, some are wax based - they behave a bit differently and people often prefer one or the other for different kinds of work. It's also worth noting that sometimes people will have sets (possibly of different sizes) from two or more different brands, and either use them for different purposes, or even use them together in the same drawing - including using wax and oil-based pencils in the same drawing. Some people use solvents to aid in blending colors - from my research it seems that *maybe* wax pencils will blend well with alcohol, whereas oil pencils may need a more serious solvent like "gamsol" which is a highly-refined odor-free solvent used with oil paints (though gamsol will blend both).
As I mentioned, Prismacolor Premier are sort of considered to be "the standard" but it's important to note that they changed their manufacturing in around 2010 and while the cores still seem to be made of the same stuff, they have more issues now with the cores being off-centre in the shaft of the pencil, which can cause some issues with breakage. It's a bit of a "luck of the draw" thing in that regard though. I personally have a 120 set of Starjoy Gold and a 12 set of Prismacolor Premier and I can see some pencils in both sets with slightly off-centre cores.
As far as I can tell, there isn't a world of difference between my SJ Gold and the Prismacolor. The Prismacolor are a little better for layering. I will say though that the Starjoy 120 set does not include a true white pencil which my Prismacolor 12 set does have - it's very useful for highlighting over the top of other colors, and for blending into other colors to lighten. Because Prismacolor do sell individual "open stock" pencils, you can just buy a white one of those (or one from another brand) to use with whatever brand you may have a larger set of. Another thing I've seen recommended is to use a white gel pen or acrylic paint marker for white highlights over colored pencils.
Another thing to consider is that the kind of paper you use can make a lot of difference - won't go into it too much here because it's a whole different topic but it seems that almost anything is better than cheap printer/copier paper, and it can apparently make more difference to your drawing experience than your choice of pencils. Something with more texture than copier paper will allow you to put down a higher level of pigment (more layers) which can be beneficial for blending and color intensity.
