I wanted to incorporate pencils into skin coloring for my illustrations so decided to give these a try. They come in a beautiful tin and are coated in ebony finish designed for both aesthetic and functional performance. Pencils are hexagonal with a 4mm core and this offers a stronger core that requires less frequent sharpening.
Swatches
The Skin Light Tones set comes in a pack of 12 pencils. There is also a darker tones set available that you can purchase in order to build a full range of skin tones. I used a printable swatches template from their website to showcase colors from this set.
Pros and Cons
The visual appeal of this set is very high. I really like the hexagonal design as it makes it easier to hold the pencil for longer periods and the mat finish prevents slipping and making mistakes. Blending and layering are pretty good for this price range and you can easily achieve smooth shadows and delicate blends. The brightness and the vividness of colors is satisfactory and it's easy to control the color by using less or more pressure.
The wax core seems to be good quality but it doesn't have quite the buttery feeling as premium wax core pencils have. It glides well but not completely smooth. They last a bit longer when it comes to sharpening but I noticed it's hard to achieve a very sharp point with a regular sharpener. The good thing is that you can apply quite a pressure without the tip breaking off.
The price is in the mid range and considering the quality I think they are well priced. They are much better that the budget friendly brands and offer good performance for the price. I think they would be good for beginner level artists but if you worked with high quality brands, you might be a bit disappointed.
Sketching Skin Tone
Here is a quick demonstration of the set in action. When you're coloring skin, the basic way to do it is to use 3 shades- light tone for base highlights, one shade darker for shadow and 2 or 3 shades darker for the darkest corners. The set is adequate for this kind of basic skin coloring but if you want to do it more complex, I feel the range is a bit limited. The shades I used are Murk, EggShell and Rust.
Final Thoughts
I would give it 4/5 because it's affordable, has a very beautiful design and they're easy to hold. They are definitely better than regular pencils and you get value for money, but if you're looking for high end professional pencils there may be better brands on the market.
Black Widow - Light Tones (Amazon Link)
Black Widow - Dark Tones (Amazon Link)