Review on 🖍️ Derwent Graphic Drawing Pencils: Medium Point, Metal Tin, Set of 12 (34214) by Liz Howard

As someone who enjoys drawing, I really like testing out different products from time to time to see how they compare to what I'm making i use now. This time, however, I needed new pencils because my others were getting pretty short, so I got these. The body of the pencils is a major weak point, they kept cracking no matter which sharpener I used. This caused many breakages of the pencil lead below the tip because the body could not withstand the intense pressure when drawing. The case wasn't very smooth either, it could only be seen by sharpening pencils. There was a feeling that the wood grain on the pencil was not dense, causing weakness in the body. This weakness in the body is common to all pens, not just one or two. The pencil lead wasn't quite up to scratch either, especially in the 9h-2b area where the clay in the throat wasn't clean enough. The unrefined clay left many scratches on the paper when drawing or writing and rendered many hard "h" pencils unusable. Although the problems with these pencils don't end there. Their higher "B" gradient pencils also had issues, such as the lead being too weak to sharpen and constantly breaking. This also had the side effect that they couldn't hold a sharp point without breaking it. Overall they're not the worst I've used, but they're by far the bottom line when it comes to artist pens I've used. The Lyra Rembrandt pencils are much more subtle in their "h" pencils, they are very smooth yet quite light in gradient. The Tombow mono pencils are also very smooth and have amazing tip retention in their "B" pencils. They also grow noticeably darker than Derwents. Mars Lumographs are also an amazing pencil set with good features. I would easily choose any of these sets over the Dervents and it's not even close. Now I know I may have gotten a bad batch of pencils and that's the only reason they have 2 stars instead of 1. I wish I could say more about these pencils.