I recently purchased a set of Derwent graphic pencils - H to 9B - 12 pencils for drawing. Now I have to tell you that I have been a Faber Castell gal for a good many years and have achieved fabulous results with said pencils but I had an opportunity for a 'half price' deal so I jumped at the chance to do a little comparing.
When I was going to Art School my drawing teacher (Mrs. Pinkus) introduced us to the knife method of sharpening pencils, this is not my preferred way to sharpen - I like a nice fine point for detail though it works well for shading larger areas. Which brings me to my point (ha ha) it is difficult and sometimes frustrating to sharpen a pencil, to find that the graphite is not centred in the wood, you would hope that being 'drawing' pencils the manufacturer would have this figured out by now.
So back to the Derwent. I was pleased with all the pencils save one, the F, the wood appeared to be longer on one side which leads me to believe that the lead is not centred This is, I have found, to be in the long run a waste as you end up over sharpening to get at the graphite. I'm not sure how much I will use this pencil, I tend to stay away from the harder pencils as they often make impressions in the paper, not very attractive when you attempt to go back in to do a bit of shading.
Tomorrow I will discuss the over all feel or smoothness of the pencils (I have this thing about 'dry drag' on paper, gives me the shivers)
It's always time well wasted to try new materials, you just never know when you will find that 'perfect fit'.
Oooooo...new pencils!