Its true that all color pencils are made with both oil and wax . Always leaning more one way or the other. The wax based being more buttery and the oil based being harder, sometimes scratchy and others a hard yet smooth oily feel. The Caran D Ache are all wax based pencils since I was informed by the company that they do not make any oil based pencils at all. Wax based pencils blend better and oil based pencils are simply made to layer for best results. So of course they will be very different. I have a small set of both Lightfast & Luminesce. I'm a watercolor artist pigment nerd who have studied pigment properties for 15 years. So naturally I was intrigued to watch. I have gotten a bit board with watercolor and find its not challenging me much anymore. I still love it but wanted to explore something new. Thanks for sharing & God bless you!
It is obvious on the wallpaper drawing in the can of the pencils that Derwent Lightfast's target customers are portrait artists, that is why they focused on putting neutral tones and various skin colors instead of more vibrant like the smaller set of Polychromos and Luminance.
Omg thank you for this! To think a while ago I wanted to find a video about this pencil's lightfastness with details, glad I stumbled upon this one. I dont mind the long video for I enjoyed your commentaries as well
I do like the more muted color palette. Thank you for the thorough review, it always helps to know when someone will be honest enough to say they don't like a product.
Glad it was helpful, Figgy. So many product reviews I've watched in YT (and not just of art supplies), were done by creators who received free products. It always makes me wonder how much truth there is in them because there's always some subtle pressure on endorsers when brands or manufacturers give items for free. I've been offered free products too, in exchange for a review, but I always declined because I don't want my opinions to be tinted in any way. If the products are good, I'll surely tell others. If they're in any way defective, I believe people have the right to know that too. Thanks for visiting my channel, Figgy.
Oh how cool! You're the first ever comment I've received who's background is in the actual archiving of art. I'm so thrilled and giddy happy to hear that ... haha ... Thanks for watching. It might help to listen to this too (th-cam.com/video/0MVnZlwC4l0/w-d-xo.html). I talk more deeply about lightfastness in this video. 😊
This is kind of disingenuous. Both process red and apple green are listed as grade V on prismacolor's chart, so they are expected to fade. Their chart is very accurate, you can go with all the I and II with confidence, unlike polychromos chart (where around 27 of the three star pencils are actually a 1 star)
I am a beginner in drawing and painting and want to get a watercolor pencil set. Saw many reviews but yours are hands down. Thanks for this and the other video about Arteza. I almost got that but going to get Prisma now. Subscribing your channel and looking forward to more great videos!
Aaaw... that's so nice of you! Thanks for subscribing. I'm honored that you found this channel. You'll find plenty of helpful, instructional videos here. I hope you enjoy them too. Enjoy your art discoveries and painting time!
I'm not sure what people are expecting to find doing lightfast tests with products that have passed the rigorous ASTM lightfastness test. Derwent Lightfast and Luminance are the only two products to have passed this and are always going to hold up to a more basic testing method. It's also important to note that Polychromos does not have any recognised lightfast certification - just a star rating from the manufacturer. It's alluded to here that these pencils are a professional lightfast pencil set - they are not.
Faber Castell claims that 102 of its 120 Polychromos pencils have a 3-star lightfastness rating (100+ years). On that basis alone, the pencils are rendered useful for professional, fine artwork. The term "professional" is loosely used here to distinguish from student-grade, lower quality pencils. In my opinion, ASTM-certified or not, the fact that Faber-Castell has survived in this business since 1908, is enough for me to trust their inhouse lightfastness tests.
Wow, Ginger… I have been waiting so long for this test… it is so exciting! So much interesting information 🤩 I also did a small test of some Polychromos, Derwent Lightfast and Prismacolor, too. A 1-year-test with lots of sunny days. The Polychromos yellows, reds (although the cool red „Karmine“ and „Krapplack“, Cobalt Blue and Turquoise show no colour shift 👍🏻 only pink hues - a very small shift. But after 1 year, I think it’s ok. In contrary to them the prismacolor pinks are gone completely- except „pink 1929“, WHITE yet!!! Derwent Lightfast - same colours no shift at all (but there are no pink hues) Prismacolor: it’s surprising that some colours, claimed with „poor lightfastness“ did very well in my test, for example Denim Blue, China Blue, Cerulean Blue, Peacock Blue, Copenhagen Blue, Canary Yellow. No colour shift. I tested all 72 inktense - after only 1 week colourshift in all red and pink hues. I didn’t expect them to fade so soon, The ocre browns faded, too. The blues and most of the greens are ok. I will test the blocks for doing commission, they are rated better. But first I have to save money 😂 PS: The Luminance are my favourite pencils, too. I love the feeling they get over the paper, too. And the opacity, also the colour range. But they are so expensive now. This pencil in Germany costs 3,15 €! Isn’t it crazy? It’s no longer an option for me
Wow, Emily! Hats off to you for doing your lightfastness tests for a year! That's a whole lot of work. Amazing. I didn't mention it in the video, but I even created a daily weather chart and logged the amount of sun we got each day, or if it was cloudy or rainy, or bright and hot. Monitoring the changes everyday was like having a perpetual science experiment in our home. The Luminance are crazy expensive now... like almost double what it was when I first bought my set. I think it priced itself out of competition. I don't see myself wasting money on it anymore, no matter how much l love it. Thanks for sharing the results of your Intense test. Most inks are really not lightfast and since Derwent Inktense is basically ink, I doubted they'd last. But most people don't know it. So thanks for posting your test results here.
So strange how different people "feel" these pencils. I love to work with the lightfast and find them creamy and I for me the caran d'ache feel kind of "dusty" to me. But the luminace are incredible when it comes to final layers.
Thanks for the review, I thought it was awesome. It has helped me a lot 🤗 the lightfast def didn’t look as nice on the swatches for sure. Only thing is the caran dache are actually wax based, so it makes me think maybe the lightfast laid down differently to the prisma and luminance because of that. So I might find a lightfast versus polychromos video to see if I can compare those before I decide to rule out the derwent. Loved ur comments and thoughts tho 😊
Update.. it seems the lightfast are meant to be more creamy and blendable and wax-like than the polychromos. So I think based on ur swatches they’re not the best pencil for that purpose. May as well go luminance or prisma with polychromos. I will probably not bother buying them lol
You're so right on the colors. If you choose the Prismacolors that are light fast, it'll be a similar selection to the 24 Lightfast. I received a sample from Derwent of the Scarlet and really like it. I love the diameters of the pencils. I am glad to hear that you aren't thrilled with them. I have lots of Prismacolor and love them. No reason to change for me. You've saved me some money! Thanks for an excellent review, Ginger.
I'm so relieved to hear that you found the review helpful, Teresa. I was a bit nervous, to be honest, to post an opinion that seems contrary to most of the reviews already in place online. I didn't want to sound like a hater because I'm not hating at all. I only wish to be transparent and speak the truth based on my experience with the product. Some artists use mineral spirits to blend the Derwent Lightfast. That makes layering and blending so much easier. But what I forgot to mention in this review is that when testing for blending ability, colored pencils should be used alone, without aid of extraneous supplies like Gamsol. To me, using agents is cheating. Because if mineral spirits were factored into the equation, of course, all colored pencils will seem easy to blend and layer. Anyway, I think you made a good point there. If we do pick out the lightfast pencils from a Prismacolor set, we're basically on the same playing field as the limited palette of the smaller Derwent sets. Awesome perspective!
Very true, Derwent themselves state they do not test their pencils with the additional uses of solvents, oils, or other liquids to dilute the pigments. Great review. Just found your channel and I love it.
Finally i find a review that i agree with. I dont understand the hype around the DW Lightfast, most other reviews of the Lightfast are very biased and made to hype up the product. i bought the Derwent Lightfast 100 set a couple of months ago and it has been a disapointment for me since day one. First dissapointment was the color palette. As soon as i finished swatching i was like… huh?… a lot of similar colors with different name, too many dark colours. Do we need 4 blues that look almost the same? really? the same with some of the other colors !!! And the worst is the laydown. As soon as the layers start building up, the point of the pencil gets „sticky“ and i get a very inconsistant layer of color that looks very bad. At first i though it was the paper but it happens to me with 3 different types of papers. I regret not having bought the Caran d Ache Luminance full set, so i will have to wait till Christmas for that. And i am not against Derwent, i love the Chromaflow 150 set for example… but I totally agree that the Luminance and the Polychromos are the best option when considering buying high end pencils, because they complement each other very well. My Lightfast set… well… with a few exceptions,i will not be using them.
How sad it is when a product leaves a huge dent on our pocket but doesn't deliver. I feel you! It does take a lot of trial and error before we find that one perfect pencil that makes us enjoy art. But I found that you'll never go wrong with Caran d'Ache. It's worth every penny!
Its true that all color pencils are made with both oil and wax . Always leaning more one way or the other. The wax based being more buttery and the oil based being harder, sometimes scratchy and others a hard yet smooth oily feel. The Caran D Ache are all wax based pencils since I was informed by the company that they do not make any oil based pencils at all. Wax based pencils blend better and oil based pencils are simply made to layer for best results. So of course they will be very different. I have a small set of both Lightfast & Luminesce. I'm a watercolor artist pigment nerd who have studied pigment properties for 15 years. So naturally I was intrigued to watch. I have gotten a bit board with watercolor and find its not challenging me much anymore. I still love it but wanted to explore something new. Thanks for sharing & God bless you!
It is obvious on the wallpaper drawing in the can of the pencils that Derwent Lightfast's target customers are portrait artists, that is why they focused on putting neutral tones and various skin colors instead of more vibrant like the smaller set of Polychromos and Luminance.
Omg thank you for this! To think a while ago I wanted to find a video about this pencil's lightfastness with details, glad I stumbled upon this one. I dont mind the long video for I enjoyed your commentaries as well
I'm so glad you found the video and even more grateful that it's been useful for you. Thanks for visiting my channel.
I do like the more muted color palette. Thank you for the thorough review, it always helps to know when someone will be honest enough to say they don't like a product.
Glad it was helpful, Figgy. So many product reviews I've watched in YT (and not just of art supplies), were done by creators who received free products. It always makes me wonder how much truth there is in them because there's always some subtle pressure on endorsers when brands or manufacturers give items for free. I've been offered free products too, in exchange for a review, but I always declined because I don't want my opinions to be tinted in any way. If the products are good, I'll surely tell others. If they're in any way defective, I believe people have the right to know that too. Thanks for visiting my channel, Figgy.
Thank you so much for this video! I'm learning about archiving for libraries and museums. This video is super helpful. Thank you!
Oh how cool! You're the first ever comment I've received who's background is in the actual archiving of art. I'm so thrilled and giddy happy to hear that ... haha ... Thanks for watching. It might help to listen to this too (th-cam.com/video/0MVnZlwC4l0/w-d-xo.html). I talk more deeply about lightfastness in this video. 😊
Excellent review! Thank you!👏👏
Thank you for watching, Emelie. I really appreciate you dropping me a note here.
Thank you for this video. Thank you for doing it for us! :) By the way, you have nice penmanship. :)
Haha... you're so sweet Dindin. Thank you!
Oh wow, thanks for your test here with all those 3 popular color pencils' brands, really appreciated your efforts and reviews! 😍😘🤗
Glad you like them! Thank you for visiting my channel. Really appreciate it :)
This is kind of disingenuous. Both process red and apple green are listed as grade V on prismacolor's chart, so they are expected to fade. Their chart is very accurate, you can go with all the I and II with confidence, unlike polychromos chart (where around 27 of the three star pencils are actually a 1 star)
I am a beginner in drawing and painting and want to get a watercolor pencil set. Saw many reviews but yours are hands down. Thanks for this and the other video about Arteza. I almost got that but going to get Prisma now. Subscribing your channel and looking forward to more great videos!
Aaaw... that's so nice of you! Thanks for subscribing. I'm honored that you found this channel. You'll find plenty of helpful, instructional videos here. I hope you enjoy them too. Enjoy your art discoveries and painting time!
I'm not sure what people are expecting to find doing lightfast tests with products that have passed the rigorous ASTM lightfastness test. Derwent Lightfast and Luminance are the only two products to have passed this and are always going to hold up to a more basic testing method.
It's also important to note that Polychromos does not have any recognised lightfast certification - just a star rating from the manufacturer. It's alluded to here that these pencils are a professional lightfast pencil set - they are not.
Faber Castell claims that 102 of its 120 Polychromos pencils have a 3-star lightfastness rating (100+ years). On that basis alone, the pencils are rendered useful for professional, fine artwork. The term "professional" is loosely used here to distinguish from student-grade, lower quality pencils. In my opinion, ASTM-certified or not, the fact that Faber-Castell has survived in this business since 1908, is enough for me to trust their inhouse lightfastness tests.
Great video just bought a set of the 100set of lightfast have some Caren de arche luminance pencils and polycroms pencils I like using them all.
Wow, Ginger… I have been waiting so long for this test… it is so exciting! So much interesting information 🤩
I also did a small test of some Polychromos, Derwent Lightfast and Prismacolor, too. A 1-year-test with lots of sunny days.
The Polychromos yellows, reds (although the cool red „Karmine“ and „Krapplack“, Cobalt Blue and Turquoise show no colour shift 👍🏻 only pink hues - a very small shift. But after 1 year, I think it’s ok. In contrary to them the prismacolor pinks are gone completely- except „pink 1929“, WHITE yet!!!
Derwent Lightfast - same colours no shift at all (but there are no pink hues)
Prismacolor: it’s surprising that some colours, claimed with „poor lightfastness“ did very well in my test, for example Denim Blue, China Blue, Cerulean Blue, Peacock Blue, Copenhagen Blue, Canary Yellow. No colour shift.
I tested all 72 inktense - after only 1 week colourshift in all red and pink hues. I didn’t expect them to fade so soon, The ocre browns faded, too. The blues and most of the greens are ok. I will test the blocks for doing commission, they are rated better. But first I have to save money 😂
PS: The Luminance are my favourite pencils, too. I love the feeling they get over the paper, too. And the opacity, also the colour range. But they are so expensive now. This pencil in Germany costs 3,15 €! Isn’t it crazy? It’s no longer an option for me
Wow, Emily! Hats off to you for doing your lightfastness tests for a year! That's a whole lot of work. Amazing. I didn't mention it in the video, but I even created a daily weather chart and logged the amount of sun we got each day, or if it was cloudy or rainy, or bright and hot. Monitoring the changes everyday was like having a perpetual science experiment in our home.
The Luminance are crazy expensive now... like almost double what it was when I first bought my set. I think it priced itself out of competition. I don't see myself wasting money on it anymore, no matter how much l love it.
Thanks for sharing the results of your Intense test. Most inks are really not lightfast and since Derwent Inktense is basically ink, I doubted they'd last. But most people don't know it. So thanks for posting your test results here.
So strange how different people "feel" these pencils. I love to work with the lightfast and find them creamy and I for me the caran d'ache feel kind of "dusty" to me. But the luminace are incredible when it comes to final layers.
Thanks for the review, I thought it was awesome. It has helped me a lot 🤗 the lightfast def didn’t look as nice on the swatches for sure. Only thing is the caran dache are actually wax based, so it makes me think maybe the lightfast laid down differently to the prisma and luminance because of that. So I might find a lightfast versus polychromos video to see if I can compare those before I decide to rule out the derwent. Loved ur comments and thoughts tho 😊
Update.. it seems the lightfast are meant to be more creamy and blendable and wax-like than the polychromos. So I think based on ur swatches they’re not the best pencil for that purpose. May as well go luminance or prisma with polychromos. I will probably not bother buying them lol
Thank you!💓🌞
You are so welcome
You're so right on the colors. If you choose the Prismacolors that are light fast, it'll be a similar selection to the 24 Lightfast. I received a sample from Derwent of the Scarlet and really like it. I love the diameters of the pencils. I am glad to hear that you aren't thrilled with them. I have lots of Prismacolor and love them. No reason to change for me. You've saved me some money! Thanks for an excellent review, Ginger.
I'm so relieved to hear that you found the review helpful, Teresa. I was a bit nervous, to be honest, to post an opinion that seems contrary to most of the reviews already in place online. I didn't want to sound like a hater because I'm not hating at all. I only wish to be transparent and speak the truth based on my experience with the product. Some artists use mineral spirits to blend the Derwent Lightfast. That makes layering and blending so much easier. But what I forgot to mention in this review is that when testing for blending ability, colored pencils should be used alone, without aid of extraneous supplies like Gamsol. To me, using agents is cheating. Because if mineral spirits were factored into the equation, of course, all colored pencils will seem easy to blend and layer. Anyway, I think you made a good point there. If we do pick out the lightfast pencils from a Prismacolor set, we're basically on the same playing field as the limited palette of the smaller Derwent sets. Awesome perspective!
Very true, Derwent themselves state they do not test their pencils with the additional uses of solvents, oils, or other liquids to dilute the pigments.
Great review. Just found your channel and I love it.
Finally i find a review that i agree with. I dont understand the hype around the DW Lightfast, most other reviews of the Lightfast are very biased and made to hype up the product. i bought the Derwent Lightfast 100 set a couple of months ago and it has been a disapointment for me since day one. First dissapointment was the color palette. As soon as i finished swatching i was like… huh?… a lot of similar colors with different name, too many dark colours. Do we need 4 blues that look almost the same? really? the same with some of the other colors !!! And the worst is the laydown. As soon as the layers start building up, the point of the pencil gets „sticky“ and i get a very inconsistant layer of color that looks very bad. At first i though it was the paper but it happens to me with 3 different types of papers. I regret not having bought the Caran d Ache Luminance full set, so i will have to wait till Christmas for that. And i am not against Derwent, i love the Chromaflow 150 set for example… but I totally agree that the Luminance and the Polychromos are the best option when considering buying high end pencils, because they complement each other very well. My Lightfast set… well… with a few exceptions,i will not be using them.
How sad it is when a product leaves a huge dent on our pocket but doesn't deliver. I feel you! It does take a lot of trial and error before we find that one perfect pencil that makes us enjoy art. But I found that you'll never go wrong with Caran d'Ache. It's worth every penny!