The Art Gear Guide is your one stop shop for the most recent, up to date, honest reviews on all your favourite art supply products.
The Brutfuner 520 Colored Pencils come in two sets, for the purpose of this review we will refer to them as Set A and Set B. Both sets look similar in terms of the gorgeous botanical artwork on them, however, one is slightly darker in appearance and the other lighter and more colourful. Set A in this instance is the darker set and Set B is the lighter more colourful set.
Brutfuner is a popular pencil, certainly from the budget persuasion, they have quite a few different sets, but the set that we are reviewing here is the Brutfuner 120 Set Square Colored Pencils. On the packaging they are referred to as Brutfuner Oily Colored Pencils.
The thing that drew me to the Nyoni Colored Pencils was the barrel, most of the Japanese pencils I have reviewed have been pencils worthy of use and they have all sported a certain barrel type. When I seen the Nyoni Colored Pencils, their barrel reminded me of said Japanese pencils and so that was the initial attraction.
Not that long ago, I completed a review of the Marco Square C820, which are essentially the same pencil that is on review today, however the entire palette of the Marco Square C820 is made up of pastel tones. As I mentioned in that review, the palette is gorgeous, but a palette best used alongside another palette, hence the Marco Square C800.
I am often asked to recommend a colored pencil with the following traits, high quality, excellent pigment levels, lightfast results and reasonably priced, when asked this question I always reply with the Lyra Polycolor and Koh-I-Noor Polycolor, both outstanding pencils. In this review we are going to compare both these pencils
In this review we take a look at the Artify Brush Tip and Chisel Tip markers. I know lately I have been posting quite a lot of marker reviews and I still have more to come, however, there are a lot of marker artists and mixed media artists out there always on the look out for the next best and cheapest markers.
I have wanted to deliver a review of the Slice product range to you for a while now and I have eventually managed to deliver. Before I get into the actual product, I would just like to very briefly talk to you about the ethics of the company and let me just mention, ethics that I had to find myself, nothing that they mentioned to me and I had to ask permission to mention this.
This was the first time that I had completed a full art piece on the Derwent Lightfast Paper and I was incredibly impressed with the over all results of the artwork and the properties of the paper. About two years ago, I was asked by Derwent to take part in one of their focus groups, I was over the moon to have been asked in the first place, but the entire process was eye opening in so much as the level of work that goes on in the back ground to deliver these products to us.
The Marco Tribute Master Collection 80 Box Set comprises of Eight separate book like boxes, each holding Ten Marco Tribute Colored Pencils and they are all held together in an sturdy, sophisticated looking, marble looking box. For the purpose of the review I will refer to each box of pencils as books and when wanting to remove a book from its surround, each has a silk ribbon attached to the base of the book spine.
I was really frustrated and disappointed with these pencils, to me, the company got the hard part right which is the core, I really enjoyed the level of pigment and whilst the core of the Kalour pencil was soft, it wasn’t Prismacolor soft so a point could be held a little bit longer.
In this review we take a look at a USB Rechargeable Electric Eraser, in the past I have reviewed one or two battery operated erasers and for the most part they are all pretty similar. However, the reason this particular one caught my eye was its shape and design. I am aware that quite a lot of colored pencil artists who watch and subscribe to The Art Gear Guide have medical issues with their hands or wrists etc that in some way make art uncomfortable.
In this review we take a look at the Marco Square C820 Coloured Pencils Pastel Shade. I have long admired the Holbein coloured pencils and in particular the 50 set of pastel shades they provide. However, about a year ago, give or take a few months, I noticed the Marco Pastel Tone Colored Pencils and knew that they would be an interesting set of pencils to review.
Only yesterday, (At the time of writing this post), I uploaded my review of the new Arrtx Brush Markers or as they are officially called, the Arrtx Oros Sketch Marker. However, on that video I made a mistake and it is incredibly important that I highlight the mistake and rectify it. Another amazing YouTuber Lindsay The Frugal Crafter actually brought the mistake to my attention so I have Lindsay to thank for bringing this to my attention
The actual brush nib on the Oros Sketch Marker is sourced from Japan according to Arrtx, meaning that the company has done their research into this field and know that it is worth the time, effort and cost to get this part of the marker right from the get go rather than go cheap and run the risk of having to purchase different nibs at a later date whilst knocking confidence among their customers.
The purpose of this publication is to simply help clarify some information regarding the 24 sets of colored pencils by Castle Arts. I get quite a few emails or social media messages asking me about the Castle Art 24 sets and the difference between those pencils and the pencils in the larger 72 and 120 sets, hence this publication fo a little clarification.
The Swisscolor are quite a light feeling pencil in the hand, I know in the grand scheme of things a pencil is not a heavy object, however pencils do vary in weight and the Swisscolor is light. As well as the slight weight, the pencil is quite slim.
The Hovel Pencil Plane and Iris Drawing Compass from Makers Cabinet, two highly functional, yet breathtakingly stunning works of art in their own right. The Hovel Pencil Plane, a sophisticated sharpener, puts all the control in your hands when sharpening, whilst the Iris is for a particular artist, it to is a thing of beauty and perfect at performing its intended job.
For those of you new to Copic Markers or interested in become an Copic Marker artist, there is no doubt that the Copic Marker range is the industry standard fo illustrators world wide. Despite the amazing alternatives on the market now and most of them being much less expensive than Copics, I think it will be some time before Copic are completely knocked from their perch.
