Faber-Castell Polychromos vs Prismacolor Pencils Review

VS

In a head to head battle, I'm putting Faber Castell Polychromos and Prismacolor Premier pencils up against each other in the most comprehensive review you have ever seen, and hopefully in doing this, I can show you the pros and cons of each pencil, while ultimately supporting my opinion of which is a better quality pencil. I have no affiliation with either company. This is purely my opinion and my personal preference, however the pictures and explanations you will read and see are factual unbiased results and evidence about each pencil brand. Faber-Castell had sent me their 60 set of Polychromos pencils to work with, and while I already had Prismacolor pencils, this review is completely unbiased. Each pencil has their strengths, however there is an obvious winner coming out of this review. Here we go!

I'm going to touch base on a few topics of interest when it comes to common questions asked about pencils in colouring groups: Lead breakage probability/sharpening, colour choices in sets, oil vs wax based pigment, blending/layering, and the longevity of pencil life. So, lets start with pencils sets. 

Polychromos come in 12, 24, 36, 60, and 120 tin sets, while Premiers come in 12, 24, 36, 48, 72, 132, and 150 tin sets. The 60 set of Polychromos have a really good variation of colour choice. Multiple shades of every colour, and even a skin tone shade. I've only ever bought the 36 set of Prismacolor Premiers and then added here and there, however my friend purchased the 48 set, and there wasn't even a gray, let alone a skin tone available. Here are the colours you get in the 60 set of polychromos and here are the Premiers I have on hand. 

And just as a side note, Polychromos smell AMAZING when you open the tin! LOL

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The pigments are very rich in both brands, and you're getting an extensive range of colour in both full sets as well. Also, no shade of colour is the same when comparing both brands. So if you were to have both full sets, you would easily have no doubles of colours and have 270 different colour options!

Let's Have Some Fun!

I posted this picture on Colour Your World's Facebook page to see if a difference could be seen. I asked, which seedling is Prismacolor Premier, and which one is Polychromos? Everyone agreed that the Left was Prisma, and the Right was Polychromos, with the exception of two people who never used the brands but said the right had looked smoother and was shaded better. Well you all were right! The left seedling is done in Premier, while the right was done in Poly. There is very much a difference in how they go on to paper. Notice how the left is granier and there is a lot of white spaces left behind? While the Poly seedling is smoother looking and more appealingly coloured in. 

Let's talk pencil components...

So many beginners dont see the difference between the two pencils, however, just in the binders used in the pencils makes them go very different on paper and you see and feel the difference while working with them both. Premiers are wax based, while Polychromos are oil based. What does that mean? Premiers are more prone to wax bloom, a white haze that appears on heavily layered colored pencil areas. With, oil based pencils, you won't get that. Here is an example of what wax bloom looks like with Prismacolor Premier pencils. While it can be easily removed from a canvas (like in the picture shown), it might be harder to do so in a book without damaging the paper or image. 

Layering with Polychromos and Premiers

Colouring with Polychromos pencils is definitely a learning curve, but once you get in some practice, they're amazing pencils. Some say they're hard to layer, while I completely disagree. That's maybe because they're used to having to apply MANY layers while using Premiers to achieve a smooth look with no white spaces left behind. Polychromos don't require as much effort as Premiers. Here's an example of the number of layers it took to achieve a smoothed over look when the two are compared. 

In the left picture, one layer of colour was applied with a medium pressure. Notice how the prisma pencil again leave behind a lot of white. In the right picture, layering is obviously effortless with Polychromos in building up your layers, cutting time in nearly half to achieve a smoothed over look. 

Blending Colours

In this experiment, I chose not to use a blending pencil (that's cheating and didn't want to bias the results!) and I like blending without one anyway. Here you'll see the blending of two shades,. a light and dark purple Polychromos, and a light and dark green Premier. 

As you can see there's no competition. While Prismas, when given time, blend nicely, Polychromos pencils blend seamlessly with little effort. It's almost like painting once you have a couple layers applied. Layering is key to blending, but more so with Premiers.

Erasing

Made a mistake? Go outside the lines, or blended farther then you wanted to go? Polychromos pigment lifts up extremely well when erased when compared to Premiers. The laydown of colour was done using medium pressure, so it wasn't pushed down into the paper extremely hard, and it wasn't barewly put on the paper. Polys prevail again!

Lead Breakage and Sharpening

So the most common problem people have with Premiers is the point breaking off, and then they sharpen it, and the lead keeps falling out or the wood casing chunks off. Here is why. Premiers have an extremely soft, and brittle core that is NOT bonded to the wood casing. Have you ever dropped one of your prismas and when you shake it, you can here the core rattling around? That's because most likely its broken into pieces. People suggest putting them out in the sun or oven or microwave to fuse the core back together. Don't do this. It doesn't work, and will end up making your pencils even more brittle and prone to breaking  once they cool back down. Others also suggest using a scalpel or knife to sharpen a Premier. But let's be serious. We are colorists....we don't whittle pencil points. We're going to use a sharpener because that's what you should be able to use to sharpen a pencil. But it IS about having the right sharpener, and the price you pay is the quality of blade you're going to get. Polychromos on the other hand doesn't have this issue. It's core (which is slightly harder than premiers) is bonded to the wood, preventing breakage when sharpening. I've used many different sharpeners on my Polychromos and haven't had any issues with the point breaking off or the wood casing chunking off or splitting.

With that said, here are two Premier pencils that I have had for the same length of time, however the one pencil kept breaking due to a broken inner core. It was almost comical how many times the lead kept falling out of my brand new peacock green. 

Pencil Longevity

Which leads me to this--which one will last longer? Between the breakage issues with Premiers, you'll have to contantly sharpen, shortening the pencil and it's life. In the time I've been using Polychromos pencils, I've barely had to sharpen them and maybe have done so twice whilst doing a lot of colouring in at one time. Their points last extremely long, where Premiers soft core point doesn't last but 30 seconds and then you have to sharpen again. Just to add, I'm not a heavy handed person either. I love building up layers because you get a better result from doing so. So heavy pressure is not the issue at hand, so for those thinking that, take it off the table ;)

Overview and Overall Opinion...

Faber-Castell Polychromos:
Pros- point lasts long, strong pigment, easy to sharpen, effortless to blend and layer, smooth application, wood bonded core, no breakage
Cons- expensive ($100 for 60 pencils)

Prismacolor Premiers:
Pros- rich, velvety pigmentation, extensive colour range
Cons- layer layer layer (takes time to blend), brittle core, easy to break, point does not last, sharpening ends in turmoil LOL

All in all, Polychromos takes the cake in this battle. While they are super expensive, and while some may not think it's worth it because they aren't "artists" and don't need the highest quality pencil to "just colour", it most definitely is worth it. Even if you buy a few open stock of your favorite colours. They are a treat to colour with, and give such great end results. While it IS all about the artist behind the pencil, sometimes...in THIS case, the pencil does help ;) 

Enjoy some of my works of art done with Faber-Castell Polychromos pencils!

A huge thank you to Faber-Castell for being so generous as to send me their SIXTY set of Polychromos pencils! Purchase them for the most competitive prices on Amazon, and don't forget to stalk eBay for good deals on them as well!


Reviewed by Kourtney Ann Ferro