Shading with Black Pencils - no smudge!

I’m in love with black pencils right now mostly because they don’t smudge when doing a lot of shading work. You probably know of my passion for Staedtler Mars Lumograph F pencil, a graphite pencil which produces incredibly smooth results, but for heavy shading, the smudging drives me crazy, I prefer a regular black pencil.

I had been using a Prismacolor Verithin, not the same as the Prismacolor Premier, both are wax based, but the Verithin is a hard lead that can be sharpened to a very fine point. Looking through my pencils, I also found a L&C Hardtmuth Negro 350 No.3 given to me by my son’s great-grandfather. I looked it up and it seems to be made of a mix clay and graphite.

L&C Hardtmuth was formed in 1790 by Josef Hardtmuth in Vienna, Austria. In 1802 he patented the first pencil lead made from a combination of clay and graphite and today the company exists under the name Koh-i-noor Hardtmuth. It seems that the company no longer produces this exact pencil, but Cretacolor produces a similar pencil (read more here) and and it seems that they are made of a mix of charcoal and wax or oil binder.

With this interesting historic background and different black pencil compositions, I couldn’t resist: I had to purchase some different pencils to try them out, right!

Comparing Darkness and Graininess

My most important parameters were to compare graininess versus darkness, and avoid smudging. Ideally, the perfect black colored pencil would have a hard lead as to produce very little grain and smooth shading, but also create darker shading than a regular graphite pencil, all of this without smudging.

These are my notes about each pencil, starting from the left in the above picture:

Caran D’ache Pablo 666.009: wax based, hard lead, very little grain. Although it was one of the best, I found it difficult to produce a smooth gradient without a blender, for some reason, I kept getting streaks.

Faber Castell Polychromos 199: this brand is usually the one I use for most regular colored pencil work, it is oil based and super dark. The graininess is quite considerable, though, did not stand to some of the others in terms of graininess.

Stadtler Mars Lumograph F: a graphite pencil that is hard, lies somewhere between HB and H, and yet produces very dark results. This is my favorite pencil for shading and the one I recommend the most, but it has that inconvenience that it SMUDGES like all graphite pencils. Even though for a graphite pencil it’s pretty dark, it still looks grayed out compared to the others. I included it in the test mostly as a base-line to see how the others would compare.

Prismacolor Premier Black: most people are familiar with this wax based colored pencil. It’s VERY dark and one of the most buttery pencils I have ever tried. It produces quite a bit of grain, probably one of the grainiest of all.

---

Caran D’ache Luminance 6901: wax based pencil and the DARKEST one of all. However, also super grainy, along with the Prismacolor Premier. Would not be my first choice for this purpose, despite the dark color.

Koh-i-noor Hardtmuth Gioconda Silky Black 8815/1: not entirely sure what this is made of, but it seems to be a mix of clay, charcoal and binder. Also one of the darkest of the test, super black! But again, very grainy so would not be my first choice for this purpose.

Cretacolor Nero Extra Hard 461-05: probably a mix of oil and charcoal, this is my new favorite. The extra hard pencil is produces results almost as smooth and with very little grain as my regular graphite pencil. On the other hand, the extra hard does not produce black as dark as some of the other pencils, but the results are very worth it, and it does NOT SMUDGE more than a regular colored pencil.

Prismacolor Verithin 747: just like the Premier pencils, these are wax based, but MUCH harder and nowhere as buttery. The advantage is that this pencil can be sharpened to a very fine point and get into tiny crevices. Also due to the hardness of the pencil, produces very little grain. The darkness is pretty good, all things considered.

Staedtler Mars Lumograph Black 2B: this is a graphite pencil that apparently has a high degree of carbon in it, making it very dark for a 2B. It has the high quality of the Staedtler mars pencils, but I found it to be a little scratchy. This pencil CAN be blended with a blending stump (but then again, it smudges a little).

L&C Hardtmuth 350 no.3: this is a discontinued pencil, but seems to be a mix of oil (or wax) and charcoal. Produces a nice dark result, but there was more grain than others.

Bottom line

Of all the pencils I tested, the two I enjoyed most and had a good, healthy compromise between darkness and smooth grain were the Cretacolor Nero Extra Hard (or Hard) and the Prismacolor Verithin Noir. The first one produces less grain, almost like a graphite pencil, but the Verithin was a little darker.

Below you can see a close-up of the two winners, and see how very little grain is produced by the Cretacolor Nero compared to the Gioconda. Note, I did not use any blender device during these tests. Both pencils did not smudge more than any regular colored pencil, which is negligible compared to regular graphite.

I hope you enjoyed this comparison. Feel free to contact me if you want to ask more questions, or if anything needs to be corrected in the information or composition of the pencils. Remember I am not an expert in pencils, just love using them!

Feel free to pin or share these pictures if you like.

---