Arteza 72 Color Pencils Review: A Budget Set That Punches Above Its Price

Introduction

Budget colored pencil sets usually come with tempered expectations, so the Arteza 72 set genuinely surprised during extended testing. These pencils are aimed at a certain demographic, and the price reflects that, yet after running them through layering, blending, solvent and dark paper tests across different papers, they performed well beyond what the price tag suggests. If you want a large, affordable palette for creating artwork rather than selling it, this set deserves a close look.

Who This Product Is For

This is the only set Arteza offers in this line: a 72-pencil box with no smaller or larger alternatives. It suits adult coloring artists, hobbyists, and anyone who draws for enjoyment rather than sale. If you plan to sell original artwork and need certified lightfastness, that is a different story: these pencils carry no ASTM or Blue Wool lightfast ratings, and budget sets rarely do. That is purely a cost issue. Lightfast certification is expensive, and companies that pay for it recover the cost in the pencil price.

What’s in the Box

The set arrives in a cardboard box rather than a traditional tin. The pencils stand upright, inset into a foam base. One small annoyance: the foam holes are not individual to each pencil, so once you remove a few colors from a row, the remaining pencils topple into each other. Individual slots would have solved this, likely at the cost of a larger box.

Color Palette and Core Specs

Measured with a calibration tool, the core came in at 3.9mm with an 8mm barrel, though Arteza’s own site lists 3.8mm and 7.8mm. Either way, these are thick, sturdy, well-balanced pencils with a round barrel that feels comfortable in hand. Each barrel is lacquered the color of its core, making pigment identification easy, and the pigment name is printed on the barrel, a nice touch that many budget sets skip.

The palette has genuine highlights. The greys are gorgeous, offered in percentage-based warm and cool values at 20, 50 and 70, alongside lovely neutrals like sepia, dark umber, light umber, terracotta and sienna. The greens include standouts like lime peel and ginger root, and there are two metallics, gold and silver. The main weakness is the yellow section: many of the yellows are too similar in tonal value. Swapping three or four for a paler sky blue or a darker red would have balanced the palette better. And as with any set, always swatch the pencils yourself rather than trusting the box graphics.

Layering, Blending and Odorless Mineral Spirits

This is where the set earns its keep. In a five-layer test, each pencil layered cleanly, and even a heavy-handed final application produced no tackiness or bloom. Layering could easily have continued past the fifth layer. The core behaves oddly in the best way: it feels firm on the paper but lays pigment down like a soft core pencil, while still holding its point for a considerable time.

Blending tests produced clean third colors: blue and yellow gave a nice green, yellow and red a nice orange, and the harder blue-and-red blend still produced a good purple. With odorless mineral spirits, the pigment broke down into a painterly finish that filled the tooth of the paper without damaging it, leaving the surface ready for further layers. Testing was done on Strathmore Bristol Vellum and a smooth hot press watercolor paper, and the pencils worked beautifully on both.

Dark Paper and Opacity

On black paper, nearly all of the tested colors proved translucent rather than opaque, including the white, which is less opaque than many competitor whites. This is not a verdict on quality, simply information: if you prefer opaque pencils or work heavily on dark paper, keep that in mind.

Things to Consider Before Buying

There are three honest limitations. First, no lightfast ratings, so do not expect these pencils to hold up for a century on a sold piece. Second, they are not available open stock, so replacing a single used-up color means buying another full set, which stings even at a budget price. Third, the foam insert lets pencils tumble once you pull a few out. None of these undercut the core value: well-priced, saturated, soft-laying pencils that layer and blend beautifully.

Buying Advice

Buy this set if you want a large affordable palette for coloring, practice, or personal artwork and can accept the lightfast and open-stock limitations. Skip it if you need artist-grade certification for work you intend to sell, or if you rely on replacing individual pencils. Given the performance in testing, buyers who understand these trade-offs should be pleasantly surprised.

Conclusion

The Arteza 72 set is an excellent quality budget option that layers, blends and dissolves with solvent like a pencil costing considerably more. It will not replace lightfast artist-grade pencils for professional work, but for artists who simply want to create beautiful artwork without a large investment, it is an easy recommendation.