Prismacolor Ebony Graphite Pencils - 12 Count Black Drawing & Sketching Pencil Set for Artists, Professionals & Students | Perfect for Shading, Sketching & Detailed Artwork

Was in fact what I was looking for and needed but I’m a little dissatisfied with the packaging. When opened, the packaging it was in wasn’t very protective and the pencils could have easily been damaged because of it. It looked as though it came undone while in transit. Luckily it didn’t look like any were damaged and sharpened perfectly fine.Great pencils! QC seems to be lacking, pretty sloppy labels, but doesn’t effect the usability.Consistently durable. Easy to sharpen. The only brand I buy for my art room.Lead keeps breaking when sharpening - using manual or electric pencil sharpener. I've used these same pencils before from other vendors without issue. Not sure why these are not performing the same as in the past.Good price, but probably purchase from Art Store in the future.I love these pencils. They have a very soft lead without being charcoal. They are misleading because I thought I'd be getting black lead, but they are Grey. Sometimes it seems as though the lead has broken into 50 pieces, because when sharpened the lead occasionally falls out repeatedly on the same pencil until there is no pencil left. I blame myself because I suspect that I may have dropped the pencil at some point, but I'm not happy with the lead shattering like that. This also sometimes happens with charcoal pencils. Sharpening the opposite end sometimes is a solution, but not always.Great pencils super fast delivery!These arrived in a timely manner and were exactly what I ordered.I will agree that these pencils are not 'Jet Black', even when used to layer and layer until the darkest tone can be achieved. I would call 'jet black' a 2B charcoal pencil (that's my comparison).However, having never used Ebony pencils before, I do like them and enjoy the varied strokes and layering you can do with them. I suggest starting out first using them very lightly then as you need to, build up the depth and tone. They are difficult to completely erase once the tone is quite dark/heavy on your paper.I used them on Bristol paper and the combination of the smoothness of the paper and pencil gave for a lovely, rich working partnership. The pencils glided and were easy to 'manipulate' to the strokes and texture I wanted. They sharpen very nicley and I found working with them using the sharpest point possible was my preferred use. They do tend to smudge but this can be solved by placing a sheet of tracing paper under your working hand (I use tracing paper, as so I can still see what I have done/where I am upto etc.). A light fixative on the finished work will help the pencil not to smudge as it is being handled by the framer.I would recommend these to any artist who enjoys drawing/sketching. I am an artist of 16 years now but only found out about Ebony pencils in January 2011! For quick sketching or more detailed work, you can achieve the lightest of tones and values with them (use your kneaded eraser to gently lift off pencil) or a dark enough tone/value, within the limits of the one pencil. You could combine a charcoal pencil to achieve 'jet black' tones/values, if you wished and they can be used on multiple surfaces with interesting effects.The pencils produce nice dark tone but won't last long due to the great difficulty sharpening them.The 'leads' are shattered - possibly due to no padding in the post ? - so they constantly need re-sharpening as the leads drop out. It's a pity really. All that was needed was a little bubble wrap around the box before going to post.Not a great pencil to be honest. One of the pencils mysteriously broke, so I had to sharpen it quite low to get a point. The pencils are not jet black either, you would be much better off us in a b pencil than these. I am going to visit my local art shop, to try out some black prisma pencils so that I end up with jet black, not grey. Quick delivery though...It is quite a lovely pencil. It is darker than most 8B graphite pencils. It is not a black pencil, but then graphite pencils will not be. If you want a really black pencil, then conte or wolfs carbon pencils are blacker. But for a graphite pencil, this is really dark and soft to use.Perfect pencil for drawing and dark shading. Recommended!I bought these on recomendation but they were not as black as I thought they would be so I am a bit dissapointed with them, I already have graphite pencils and they were not much different from the ones I have already.