Seeing Essence Colored Pencil Review
Seeing Essence Colored Pencil Review
Unfortunately or fortunately, depending on how you like to shop for your art supplies and where in the world you live, this review is of another Chinese brand colored pencil. However, before you stop reading, give this pencil a chance as I think there is something quite special about it, so sit back with a coffee, tea or refreshment of your choice, and let me show you my Seeing Essence Colored Pencil Review.
I first caught a glimpse of the Seeing Essence Colored Pencils when I was scrolling through Instagram, as you do, wasting precious hours of my life. I watched a video demonstration, only seconds long, but the demonstration showed a colored pencil being applied to paper and delivering a coverage like I have never seen before. It was almost like, the pencil had become a secret airbrush, layering the pigment in a seamless and unbelievable way. I immediately knew that I had to get hold of the pencils and review them for you guys, either confirming this amazing coverage or exposing the trickery afoot in the video.
The video clip above was the exact clip I seen and after watching the clip, I knew I had to first of all find out what the pencils were and then how I was going to purchase them. I have to be honest, my initial desire to review the pencils was not because the layering looks gorgeous, but because my suspicious mind wanted to test the magic I lay witness to and make sure if it was trickery of the camera, that none of you guys fell into the scam as I had. I knew if this video clip in front of me was false or full of clever video editing skills, that others would buy them on that basis and I wanted to make sure if you are to buy said pencils, then do so on the truth.
Seeing Essence Colored Pencil Characteristics.
Before I get into the specific characteristics of the Seeing Essence Colored Pencils, some of you old hand colored pencil artists / enthusiasts, with a keen eye, might notice just how similar the Seeing Essence Colored Pencils are like the Tom Bow Irojiten. The Seeing Essence Colored Pencils are almost identical to the Tom Bow Irojiten Colored Pencils, core dimension, barrel dimension, pigment identifier, everything except the core. I’m not going to compare both pencils in this review, this is something for a completely new review, but I did want to point it out.
The tin for the 120 set is actually quite sophisticated looking in a strange way, to see just the tin, there is nothing indicating colored pencils inside, nevertheless, it’s matt black finish with bright spectrum colors on the front look well. Printed on top of the lid is the set number, which in this case is the 120, with Chinese Characters printed below. According to Google Translate, the characters simple mean, “Oil Colored Pencils”.
The Seeing Essence Colored Pencils are actually quite beautiful to look at, when you purchase, say, the 120 set as I have done for the purpose of the review, when all three tiers are lined up and the pencils on display, they really look stunning. The first thing we notice is the lacquered brilliant white barrels, this really makes the pigment identifiers stand out and makes them incredibly noticeable.
The Seeing Essence provides an ample 7.7mm barrel, encasing an average 3.6mm core. The Seeing Essence pencils are sold as oil based colored pencils, but if you have been following me for a while now, you will no I don’t describe pencils in oil or wax based terms. I’ll provide a detailed description of the core when discussing the performance.
There is not much information printed along the barrel, at least not much to help non Chinese speaking artists. Along one side of the barrel we see an eye icon, similar to an Egyptian hieroglyphic, beside which is printed “Seeing Essence”. Further along the barrel we come to the inch long pigment identifier, which on this side of the barrel also has a number printed.
On the opposite side of the barrel, there is some Chinese characters printed, they are the same characters which are printed on the top left of the 120 set tin, which according to Google Translate, means; Chihiro Story. When I googled, “Chihiro Story” to find out its connection to colored pencils, I was brought to the popular Japanese Anime, “Spirited Away”
Finally, towards the end of the barrel on this side, after the Chinese characters, on the pigment identifier there is printed “SEE” which I am assuming is another name for the pencil brand, a shortened version if you like. This leaves us with the very end of the barrel, which is capped, for me personally, I prefer the ends of the barrels to be capped, it doesn’t enhance or limit the performance of the pencil in anyway, it is purely aesthetics from my point of view.
Inside the tin of the 120 set, you are presented with three thin plastic trays, each holding 40 pencils, when I first opened the set, the colors were not really in order of color, which wasn’t the end of the world, however I was compelled to sort all colors into the correct color sequence. Once this was completed I found it easier to the sort through the palette and locate the color or color family needed.
Seeing Essence Colored Pencils Performance
Obviously as I mentioned at the beginning of the post, the thing that drew my attention to the Seeing Essence Colored Pencils was he short video clip I embedded above. So, as a result, on top of my traditional tests and demonstrations, I wanted to also try and recreate the layering effect accomplished in the video.
The first thing I always do is to create a full swatch, given the harder nature of the Seeing Essence Core, pretty similar to the Faber Castell Polychromos, I wanted to use a paper with some texture; so for the swatch I used Strathmore 300 Series Bristol Velum paper. As always I sharpen all the pencils before getting started, this is time consuming, but necessary given the wax film applied to protect all cores during transit and if not removed via sharpening, your first layers will be effected.
As you can see from the images applied of the swatch, the palette overall in the 120 range is substantial and what I would consider complete. There doesn’t seem to be too many of one particular color nor does there appear to be a lack of certain pigments, a well balanced palette. However, it was clear that I was not going to replicate this amazing layering video using Bristol Velum paper, so I had to look for a different paper.
Next up I started on testing the pencils, the layer test, blending test and odourless mineral spirit test, ordinarily I wouldn’t use an expensive paper for this test, especially if it was a student to artist quality pencil, but I still wanted to replicate the video clip I originally watched. On this series of tests I used the Fabriano Artistico Extra White, 100% Cotton, hot pressed paper, a more textured paper.
The first test I completed was the layering and as I always do, I apply extremely light layers, totalling five layers and finally finishing of with a single heavy application. I came much closer to replicating the layering in the video clip than I previously managed using the Bristol Velum, however not exactly. Regardless, you can see from the image the pencils performed beautifully, the pigment levels are excellent, even with the lightest touch I was able achieve good saturation. There was no issues at all layering, in fact I could have exceeded five layers, and finally the heavy application provided a rich layer of pigment.
Next up is the blending test and again, you can see the results clearly in the image provided, with this test it is a simple case of blending two colors together to achieve a third. The red and yellow provided a lovely orange and the same was true for the blending of yellow and blue to accomplish a gorgeous green. The final test is always the most difficult to accomplish, but here you can see a clear purple from blend.
Sphere before using OMS Odourless Mineral Spirits
For this next test you will have to visit the YouTube review where you can see the layers dissolve whilst using odourless mineral spirits. For me personally, if I can, I would rather not use OMS in my colored pencil art, but I know a lot of you guys use OMS, so I feel it is important to demonstrate the effects of OMS during my reviews. I have added a still image of the sphere before odourless mineral spirits have been applied and after, however you can watch in real time via the video.
The next test is demonstrating the Seeing Essence Colored pencils on black paper, now this test doesn’t determine if a pencil is good or bad, those artists that enjoy using colored pencils on dark paper, have their own opinions as to how they like the pigments to look. Some artists prefer a thick opaque coverage and others a more translucent coverage, neither is right or wrong, they are all simply down to our own tastes.
I have applied red, yellow, green and blue as well as white, you be the judge as to which type of coverage you feel the Seeing Essence Colored Pencils produce. To my eye the red, blue and green are all quite opaque and the yellow and white are somewhere in-between.
The longest part of my review is undoubtedly the artwork, before I started including art using the product on review, I was able to publish reviews at a much faster pace. However, I have since fully understood the importance of creating and supplying artwork as part of the demonstration, the process allows me a much deeper understanding of the product.
Needless to say, I don’t throw my all into the artwork I provide for reviews, but I do my best to deliver something of substance. I have created a botanical piece to help demonstrate the Seeing Essence Colored Pencils and for this piece, I completed it on Derwent Lightfast Paper. Whilst this paper allowed me to provide a really smooth coverage of every layer, I still don’t think, hand on heart, that I was able to replicate the coverage depicted in the video clip embedded.
I really enjoyed the process of creating this botanical piece, the layering was endless and blending was equally a dream. Between the gorgeous texture of the paper and the excellent quality of the Seeing Essence core, I was really impressed with the performance of this product overall. If you would like to watch the speed drawing of this artwork come to life simply follow the link, alternatively you can check out the still images taken from start to finish of the art by following the link.
However, because the subject of the video clip I originally watched was anime based, I decided to draw something else, something more in line with the original subject and perhaps providing me and you guys with a like for like comparison. As you can see from the image, I drew a character from the kids movie and tv show Miraculous, I simply felt that as the original demonstration that attracted me to the pencils was fan art, I should perhaps try something fan art based and this was the result.
Seeing Essence Colored Pencil Price and Sets
The Seeing Essence Colored Pencil range comes in sets of 36, 72 and 120, there is also a 24 set under the same name, however the pencils in the set look very different.
The only place I was able to find this set of pencils was on Ali-Express, I looked on a few different Amazon sites as well as Ebay and a few other platforms but was unable to locate them. Given the quality of the pencils and the characteristics of the Seeing Essence Colored Pencils, I personally felt the pricing was reasonable, however, the pricing is very much a personal matter and understandably so in the current climate.
For artists in the UK, the 36 set will cost you £25, the 72 set would cost you £44 and the largest set of 120 will cost you £60.
For Artists in the US, you can expect to pay for the 36 Set $32, the 72 set will cost you $55 and the 120 set will cost you $75.
For Artists in the EU, the 36 set will cost you approximately €30, for the 72 set this will cost you €53 and for the 120 set you can expect to pay €72
Seeing Essence Colored Pencil Conclusion
The initial reason I tried to get hold of the Seeing Essence Colored Pencil to review, is not really the best way to select which product to review. After all the testing and on the various different paper types, I was unable to replicate the layering ability caught on the original video, however that being said, I have since discovered the paper used in that video is a professional drawing and sketching paper from Flying Bird, a Chinese paper. The paper could of course be the reason for the smooth coverage, but I am unable to get the paper to try.
Regardless, I really enjoyed using the Seeing Essence Colored Pencils, the core is firm and holds its point well, rather like the Faber Castell Polychromos. The overall palette is well balanced and the pencils performed really well on all tests.
If you would like to see more, check out my YouTube review of the Seeing Essence Colored Pencils, you could also check out my speed drawing of the botanical artwork by following the link. Alternatively if speed drawings are not your thing as I understand a lot of artists don’t care for them, I have taken photos of the artwork throughout the process and added images to The Art Gear Guide Website, here you can inspect the images in your own time and leisure.
