I love them, for many reasons.

I'm new to figure drawing, and have tried many (most?) of the options for drawing. I hate graphite, shiny and bland. I love charcoal, dark or light or gray or black, but finding the right one for what I am doing has been a challenge. But so many options are ultra messy, or they are square so are hard to get a point I like, or they aren't black enough, or the paper is too hard to rip down to new charcoal, or the break when you look at them.... First: A note to people who complain that they dropped them and they broke. Yes, and so do eggs. Do you give eggs a thumbs down, or one star for breaking when you drop them? Just curious. Back to topic: They can be tough/challenging to sharpen, but when you do you do get them pointy, you can soon apply very wide shading, or narrow. Your fingers don't turn black (nor does the cat get black streaks when he gets pet without thinking about the state of your pinkies) If it has a pretty sharp point, you can use it until the point is flat on one side, but still sharp, so by rotating it, you can get wider or very fine marks. I love that. They will break if you drop them, but I find them satisfactorily robust unless it rolls off my desk, which happened. They are round after all.... As some have mentioned, there is very little difference between the 3 grades, but they are all fine with me. And as far as I'm concerned, they are as black as most of the other options I have experimented with, so I'm happy. The one downside is that it is not black black. It's dark, blackish, but not soft-compressed, or vine black. But I'm happy to practice/learn with these, and splash a little real black on when needed. I may stop using them when I am much more experienced, but for now, they are a good compromise for me. Back to my practice!

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