Tombow Irojiten Coloured Pencils

You may already know the name Tombow as the manufacturer of the popular Dual Brush pens that I reviewed a while ago, but it has only recently come to my attention that they also produce a range of medium-grade Japanese colouring pencils called Irojiten. These lovely pencils come in 3 sets of 3 boxes, totalling 90 pencils in the full collection. The sets are made to look like books, an encyclopedia of colour if you will, and are removable in sets of 10. Each of the three main sets has a colour theme: Rainforests, Woodlands & Seascapes, and I have the Woodland set to show you today.

​The three boxes contain Pale Tones, which look like muted pastels, Vivid Tones which are the bright, vibrant shades and Deep Tones, which are your earthy colours. I love the pastels in particular as they are quite unusual colours.
The lead is wax based like Prismacolor but Irojiten are significantly harder than those. I'd say they're not as hard as Crayola but not at all soft and crumbly either, so I'd class them as a medium hardness. This makes them a lot more reliable when sharpening as the leads don't break easily, but I've found they don't hold a needle-fine point for more than a few seconds before the very tip of the lead snaps off. Anything less blunt than super sharp is fine though. 

The hardness of the core does mean you have to work harder to get the maximum pigment out of the pencil, so make sure your comfortable using relatively hard pressure before buying these pencils. 

Irojiten pencils produce some really nice blends; the palettes chosen work very well together. Obviously a medium-soft pencil isn't going to blend as seamlessly as a soft core, but they're more than adequate for most colourists unless you're looking for the finest artist grade.

The colours are comparable in vibrancy to Polychromos & Prismacolor.

The pencils have a round barrel with their name stamped in silver and are very light in the hand. Each pencil has a dipped end but I'd recommend charting them as a few aren't true to colour. I love the white as all the pencils look uniform and it really makes the colours pop.

What's really outstanding about Irojiten is the presentation. I love the Asian aesthetic for beautiful packaging and this doesn't disappoint. Each card box has a corrugated feel lid which looks like fine linen, and a piece of elastic to keep them closed. The pencils are contained in individual grooves to stop them from moving around, and the reverse of the lid has their pencil names and numbers written for reference.

Like most wax-based pencils Irojiten don't erase well, but sharpen nicely and infrequently. Overall I would recommend these pencils to anyone looking for something a bit special, because that's how they feel to me. If you don't like the buttery-ness of Prismas but still want a good range of colours, Irojiten might be exactly what you're looking for.

Here's a picture I coloured with Irojiten (I used PanPastels for the moon background) from Dagdrommar by Hanna Karlzon. You can find a quick video of me colouring the hair here.

You can find all 3 sets of Irojiten pencils with FREE UK DELIVERY at Cult Pens. The price is variable across the 'net but I find Cult Pens a very reliable stockist when it comes to overseas imports.