#art materials

I. Was. Devastated.

The thing about this non-photo blue formula is that it's very light and very smooth; it's so fun to draw with! It's also so easy to get rid of with software and of course, does not print if you make a copy.

Here's what it looks like out of my scanner, then edited for white balance. It's almost invisible already!

Recently, I was looking to get some packaging because I'm finally planning to sell my work, and out of curiosity I looked to see if the price had changed on the 'lead' in the last ... 15 years (oof). And ... I couldn't find it for sale. I found one or two retailers selling it for $35, which, I'm not in a position to purchase just to see if it's the right product.

Before we go on, there are several options for wooden pencils, Blackwing recently released non-photo blue pencils and they're beautiful. Prismacolor's col-erase are also available. My beef with wooden pencils is that I don't really enjoy pencil sharpening and I hate when the barrel of lead is broken within the wood. It drives me nuts! So, if there's a lead holder/mechanical pencil option, I want that instead. There is also a mechanical pencil and the Pilot Color Eno Neox Color lead in soft blue with the pencil (.07) It's soft and wonderful, but the lead breaks very often, which I find really frustrating.

I went to JetPens, cause they have this non-photo blue guide, isn't that lovely? But of the two available 2mm options linked in the guide, one was no longer for sale and the other was for the pentel multi-pen. While the price for the multi pen lead is pretty low at $1.75 for a pack of two, it's only 2.3 inches long with a metal clip that I'd have to break off since I really like my current lead holder and don't want the chonky Multi-Pen.

(keeping in mind that the prismacolor np blue is over 5 inches long)

I checked the other art sites I like to shop at; Blick, Artists & Craftman, Jacksons, Jerry's Artarama. I spent like.... 8 hours looking for pencil leads on other websites and I did find one that looked promising (s/o r/mechanicalpencils). I ordered them, they have not arrived:

The Blue Leads I Found and Tested:

At the end of my rope, I went to the dreaded Amazon :(

I searched for "non-photo blue", "non-repo blue", and ended up searching for "sky blue" and "ice blue" and I found some that looked close, but still dark.

Many years ago, I purchased this set because I lost some of my lead holders, and bonus, had some light blue lead:

I eventually purchased this Jun Gold set of sky blue leads ($6.99):

And also, this set that came with a holder by Diwimiki ($13.99):

I figured, even if these aren't good replacements fro the non-photo blue, I can still edit the color out of linework.

Testing

Prismacolor Turquoise was the softest and lightest, the og, my sweet baboo, my beloved and discontinued favorite.

The Baile set followed, but these are hard and a bit scratchy. I don't really like them.

Jun Gold was soft but darker than I wanted it to be.

Diwimiki was the soft and buttery, still darker than non-photo. It was so soft, in fact, that the lead doesn't drop down, but has to be pulled forward manually. (Though, now I'm thinking that it's the included lead holder having an enthusiastically firm grip)

Conclusion

While no lead truly replaced all that I love about Prismacolor's non-photo blue lead, the Dimiwiki set was soft and fun to use, really gliding on the page and will be the one I'm most happy to use moving forward.

I also tested the other colors: the brown was a little scratchier than the rest, but generally they were all pretty soft. This image was edited for white and black blance, as I would for any scanned artwork.

With image editing software, all of the colors can be removed with little issue. A note, this set came with a small shapener which is just ass. Use a different sharpener.

Best dollar value is the Jun Gold Sky Blue, it's soft but more a light blue than a non-photo blue, if that makes sense.