Finding The Lost Girl Colored Pencils
Finding The Lost Girl Colored Pencils
In this review we are going to be looking at a very obscure set of colored pencils, the set is called Finding The Lost Girl, they are from the Chinese company H&X and although not easy to get hold of, they are still a set of pencils I wanted to test, review and catalogue on The Art Gear Guide. My goal has always been to have the biggest online catalogue or database of art supply reviews for people to use as a guide before spending their hard earned money.
The theme as you can probably guess of the Finding The Lost Girl colored pencils, seems to be a play on the famous Alice in Wonderland genre. There are actually two sets of the pencils, however both sets provide the exact same colored pencil palette inside. In other words, the only different between both sets is the artwork on the tins. This is why, for me personally, I would place the Finding The Lost Girl Colored Pencils in the category of collectors item.
There are many colored pencils artists out there who collect colored pencils sets, the more obscure the better, given the privileged position I am in reviewing art supplies, I would actually say I am one such artist. Sets such as the Tom Bow Irojiten, the Marco Tribute Colored Pencils or the Phoneixcolor Colored Pencils; would be an example of the type of colored pencil sets artists love to collect.
Before we get into the actual review of the Finding The Lost Girl Colored Pencils, I must say that this set of pencils was sent to me by a subscriber of The Art Gear Guide and so obviously someone I am also subscribed to. This individual goes by the name of Sugha Sweetart on YouTube and other social media platforms. Sugha Sweetart in his own right is an absolutely amazing colored pencil artist, someone who creates his own character and also creates his own colouring books. He also reviews a lot of obscure colored pencil sets and this is a channel you really must check out and send a bit of love and support his way.
Finding The Lost Girl Characteristics
As I mentioned there are two sets for the Finding The Lost Girl Colored Pencils, a red and blue set and each of the sets display beautiful artwork of an Alice in Wonderland type theme. I only have the blue set as you can see from the images but I have also provided images of the red set. It is important to note that the actual pencils inside each set are exactly the same, enhancing my belief that the Finding The Lost Girl colored pencils are a collectors dream.
On opening the tin you are presented with the first layer of beautiful colors, the set I have is a 72 set, as is the red set; to the best of my research there are no other larger or smaller sets. As you can see from the top layer of pencils, we have a beautiful selection of yellows, flesh tones, reds, magentas and then into the blues.
Under the first layer of pencils we are presented with the second and final layer of pencils. Here we can see a continuation of the blues taking us into the greens, earth tones and a few greys. There is one thing I find odd about the sent and that is the presence of a single metallic silver pencil. Most sets with have a silver and Gold, maybe a silver, Gold and Bronze; but to have a single metallic silver pencil I just found it a bit strange.
The core of the Finding The Lost Girl colored pencils is a generous 4.3mm core, for perspective, the vast majority of pencils I review have an average core size of 3.8mm, so quite a bit more with the Finding The Lost Girl. This 4.3mm core is encased in a 7.8mm barrel, again quite a chunky pencil, taking into consideration that the Derwent Drawing Colored Pencil barrel in 8mm and to the best of my knowledge, 8mm is almost the thickest.
The barrel of every pencils is lacquered the same color as the core, this makes pigment identification really simple and fast. All of the pencils are capped at the end of the barrel and about half an inch from the end cap of the barrel, there is a gold decorative ring. On one side of the barrel we have written in gold leaf, “Draw Your Inspiration” and this is follow by H&X along with some Chinese writing.
There is no pigment name or number printed on the barrel whatsoever and this turns out to be quite problematic; I have spoken about this before with other reviews. The reason this presents a problem is swatching, when you swatch your pencils, you need to make sure you replace them in the packaging exactly as they used in the swatch. If when you are using the pencils on a project, should you mix them up, when you look at the swatch for a color you need, you will not be able to pick up the corresponding pencil because there is no pigment name or number on the barrel. This can be overcome by placing stickers on the barrels and writing your own numbers or pigment names, but this is not something I want to be doing after buying a set of pencils, regardless of how cheap they are.
Finding The Lost Girl Colored Pencil Performance
As with all colored pencil reviews, the first thing I do is create a swatch and for this swatch I used Strathmore 300 series Bristol Velum paper, this paper is smooth with a slight tooth, perfect for many colored pencil art projects. Creating the swatch gives me a good understanding of the palette and the type of art I can create in order to help demonstrate the pencils.
You can clearly see from the image, all the colors from the Finding The Lost Girl Colored Pencils were perfect for a botanical art demonstration given the nice selection of greens. The only issue I have with the palette in total is the purples and Lilac colors, a few of them are incredibly similar and so perhaps something could have been done there. The reds are perfect as are the blues, aqua blues and greens, the earth tones are also really well selected and there is a nice selection of greys.
There are two black pencils in the set but they are both subtly different, I would guess, as there is no pigment names or color charts, that one of the blacks is like a Lamb Black or Mars Black and the other a plain black. As I mentioned earlier, strangely there is one metallic silver pencil, ordinarily in sets of colored pencils, should they decide on including metallic pencils, they normally add a silver and gold; but to just have one is a bit odd.
Next up I have conducted a simple layer and blending test and as with the swatch, this test has been completed on Strathmore 300 Series Bristol Velum paper. The first test conducted is a layer test, here I apply a series of light layers with a final heavy application. There are five columns and in each column is a layer test, the first has a single light layer, the second has two light layers all the way to the fifth which displays what five light layers look like on said paper.
I am always asked why five light layers and so I will answer that question here. For those colored pencil artists that like to use odourless mineral spirits, it is general considered, you need to have at the very least, three to five layers of colored pencil before applying the OMS. The reason for this is so there is plenty of colored pencil wax and oil on the paper to mix, should there only be one or two light layers applied, you would not get the desired effect using the odourless mineral spirits. I therefor like to replicate what five light layers of the pencil will look like, followed by a single heavy application of pure pigment.
Next up is the blending test, again carried out on the Strathmore 300 series Bristol Velum surface. For this test we are looking to mix two colors in order to present a third. Mixing colored pencils is not quite the same as mixing watercolours, acrylics or oils, hence the reason colored pencil artists like to purchase huge 120 sets. As you can clearly see from the test, the blue and yellow have blended well to provide a nice green, same with the yellow and red to provide a nice orange. The red and blue is always the trickiest combination to provide a clear purple, but as you can see, Finding The Lost Girl colored pencils have done and excellent job on all tests.
Unfortunately I was unable to provide my odourless mineral spirit test as I have ran out of OMS, I have not been able to get hold of a new bottle just yet, but, as soon as I can I will add the results from the test here on The Art Gear Guide written review.
I also completed a simple opacity and translucency test on black paper, this test does not define the pencils overall ability, it is simply to showcase if the pigments are opaque or translucent, some artists prefer thick opaque pencils and other artists prefer more translucent pigments.
As you can see from the test, the blue and white are really quite opaque, while the green, red and yellow are much more translucent, you can see this due to the black paper showing behind the layer of pencil on the black paper. As I mentioned, this is just a simple additional test to show the levels in the set, as you can see we have both opaque and translucent pencils in the set, which is very typical.
Given the theme of both Finding The Lost Girl sets of colored pencils, I thought it only right to try and do an Alice In Wonderland art piece. This was where I experienced the most trouble with the pencils, however it is difficult to know if it was due to Royal Mail playing football with the package, or if this is a regular occurrence with the Finding The Lost Girls colored pencils.
In total this drawing to over 9 hours and around a week to complete, a drawing like this should not have taken so long, or should I say, it certainly hasn’t taken me this long on similar art pieces. With almost every pencil, when I would sharpen them, a bit of the core would simply fall out. I tired a few different sharpeners, including changing the blades and still the core broke. It got to the point were I was dreading coming out to the studio to draw and finish the art off, whilst wanting to get it over and done with, on some days I just couldn’t bring myself to needlessly be sharpening pencils all the time. As I say, I have no idea if this was a quality control issue or a simple case of the British Royal Mail not taking due care and attention when shipping the product, even though it was incredibly well padded and packaged.
The most frustrating thing about all of this was, the actual core of the pencils is beautiful, whilst the pencil holds a nice point, when layering the pencil provides a rich saturated layer of colored pencil. Using the pencils reminded me a lot of the Holbein Colored Pencils in terms of how the core felt, layered and blended.
Finding The Lost Girl Price List
As I mentioned, the Finding The Lost Girl Coloured Pencils are quite difficult to get hold of, when you see them on Amazon at the time of writing this article, they will show unavailable, however, when the next become available if you want a set you will need to be fast. You can also check sites like AliExpress or eBay for either of the two sets. The link I have provided, they are currently unavailable, but are normally £32 for the full 72 set, which I think is very reasonable.
Finding The Lost Girl Lightfast Information
There is no lightfast information about the Finding The Lost Girl Colored Pencils, this set of pencils are not a professional set of pencils for fine art colored pencil artists. Any 72 set of colored pencils priced at £30 is not going to be lightfast, no matter what the package might tell you. The Finding The Lost Girl colored pencils are in my opinion pencils for artists wanting to use colouring books, adult colouring books, crafters or people wanting to try colored pencils
Finding The Lost Girl Conclusion
For me personally, I think the Finding The Lost Girl sets of colored pencils are really aimed toward collectors, it is almost like someone has thought, “Why not just make two beautiful sets of colored pencils that collectors will want to buy, even though both sets have exactly the same pencils and palettes”. Manufactures are not stupid, they know that us crazy colored pencil artists who like to collect colored pencils, will buy anything that fits into our visual beauty of colored pencil sets.
Other than the persistent breaking of the core, I love the Finding The Lost Girls Pencils, which makes the breakage issue all the more frustrating. All I wanted to do, was crack on with the drawing, layering and blending, but there was just too many breakages to enjoy the process. I don’t know enough artists that have the set to ask if this is a normal occurrence or if it is genuinely down to the mishandling of Royal Mail.
If you would like to watch the speed drawing video of the artwork come to life you can click the link which will take you directly to the video. Alternatively if you would like to watch the YouTube review of Finding The Lost Girl Colored Pencils you can do so by simply clicking the link. I have also added a few still images of the artwork coming to life from start to finish, here you can click on any image you like, enlarge it, zoom in and inspect the layering and blending in more detail, all you have to do is click the Link.
