Product Review Series - Coloured Pencils | Ft. Marco Raffiné Fine Art Pencils

Hey everyone, thank you for stopping by. I hope you are having a great day.

I was over the moon to try out and review the Marco Raffiné Fine Art Pencils. I have seen and heard a lot about these pencils from other artists and paper crafters, and I was thrilled to have an opportunity to get my hands on this 48 piece set.

Features:

• Wood Casing
• Hexagonal Barrel 
• Lots of browns/earthy tones
• Includes a Silver and Gold
• Oil based cores

Sadly, this set did not come with a tin box. Sounds snobbish now that I write it out and actually read it, but it's unfortunate. It means that I won't be able to store them in said box and have to come up with other means. As shown above, the pencils that do not come in nifty little tins get separated into basic colour families and bound together. 

There is a great selection of browns, greens and blue. I was, however, incredibly disappointed in the serious lack of yellows and oranges. To even make a separate grouping worthwhile I included the skin tones instead of keeping them in the neutrals as I usually do.

These pencils came sharpened, but that's factory sharp and as I've mentioned that's just not good enough for me. For sharpening, I use an inexpensive electric sharpener that I purchased from Walmart. Since switching to electric, I've never once had the breakage issues that I used to have with manual sharpening and I get a great sharp point. I cannot recommend one enough. 

For testing, I stamped the small sunflower image from Lawn Fawn's "Our Friendship Grows" stamp set with Memento Tuxedo Blank ink on Staples brand 110lb paper. This is my go-to cardstock for most of my projects, it's got a great tooth, it's Copic-friendly and very inexpensive. Which makes it a card maker's dream paper. 

The pigment from these pencils lays down very smoothly. It takes only a very light touch to get down the first layer and building the colours is nice because of it. Given the hexagonal barrel, griping the pencil is a little different, but I found that my hand adapted quickly.

Final Breakdown:

Pros:

• Quality vs Price is quite good
• Smooth application
• Standard size
• Blends well
• Great selection of browns and blues

Cons:

• No colour names on barrel
• Ridiculous lack of yellows and oranges (4 yellows and 1 orange)
• Core is very soft and needs a lot of sharpening to maintain point

I hope you enjoyed today's review. If you have any additional information about the Marco Raffiné Fine Art Oil based pencils I'd love to hear it, please leave a message in the comments section below. Don't forget you can follow me over on the right sidebar so you don't miss any future reviews or project posts!

Click here to check out my review of the Color Collection by Conté.