Review on Caran d'Ache Grafwood: Premium 15 Piece Round Tube Set for Exceptional Drawing by Gelin Battle

I didn't expect these pencils. I had read rave reviews about them so I was dying to try them and I just expected them to be my favorite pencil, but my experience was very different from what I had read about. They scratch when I sharpen them, wood chips, leads sometimes break when I sharpen them and they're just not very comfortable to use. I've tried Derwent, Lyra, Tombow, and Faber-Castell with mixed results, but I'm genuinely surprised and saddened that these are my least favorites. However, there are several advantages: the colors of the barrels indicate hardness / softness. A big plus and the fact that they go up to 9V is a nice plus too, very dim. Softer variations are just that - very soft and dark. But the downsides are that I've found that the darkest pencils just seem to sit on the surface of the paper leaving white spots, and the buffing just seems to remove most of the graphite from the surface of the paper rather than putting it into it to drive paper . Paper. Also, they are too big to fit in my electric pencil sharpener, so I bought a large brass manual sharpener. BENEFITS: Color coded cylinder indicates softness/hardness. The softest pencils are very dark and soft. CONS: Too big for a standard sharpener. Scratches Somewhat inconsistent graphite coating on paper Price doesn't justify the quality So far I've tried them on Strathmore 400 and 500 Bristol, both on vellum and plates, and on Strathmore 400 sketch paper.