Review on Premium 48-Count Black Widow Monarch Colored Pencils for Adult Coloring Books - Smooth Pigments Ensure Best Results for Art and Drawing. by Kristen Simpson

I have all of the Monarch/Black Widow Colored Pencil Sets including the new Skin Tone sets. While the ebony body is unusual despite the wide range of interesting colors (144 in all the different sets combined) and the color names are clever, the pencils themselves are disappointing in their performance. They seemed good in my original swatch, but when I actually used them to color I found that they didn't offer even coverage. I have light and dark colored stripes. They didn't mix well with each other. I wasn't able to get a smooth transition between one color and another, or an effective overlay of one color on top of another. In fact, applying a darker color on top of a lighter one (the best way to add layers) results in very uneven coverage of the second layer over the first. Yes! No pencil blender (I have four different brands of blending pencils) blended them effectively either. All in all, coloring with them was a frustrating experience and a huge disappointment, especially considering the price of all 144 colors spread across six different sets makes them more expensive than Prismacolor! I think you'd be better off with any mid-range crayon with 120 or more colors and save money in the process. In fact, I think even the Crayolas are doing better.