I was asked for advice about the differences of Luminance and Polychromos coloured pencils. First of all, I would like to say, if you have the chance to try both out, do it and see what fits your needs best.
They have both great lightfastness, the Polychromos range is bigger with 120 pencils. The Polychromos are a harder coloured pencil and they are oil based. The Luminance coloured pencils are wax based, of a creamy consistancy. You also have to check for exceptions with the Luminance range, not all are free of animal derivatives ( exceptions ).
Generally, what I found was:
for Luminance (Caran d’Ache):
- creamy consistancy
- very vibrant
- practically able to burnish and layer infinitely
- the white Luminance coloured pencil and other light colours are great for highlights
- effortless dense burnishing with not much pressure
- 76 colours available
- wax based
- great lightfastness
for Polychromos (Faber-Castell):
- harder coloured pencil
- oil based
- 120 colours
- 3 metallics in the 120 colour range – gold, silver and copper – that do not apply well to not at all
- allows to sharpen into very pointy tip
- great for very fine details
- soft colouring and blending
- are limited in layering /burnishing layers
- great lightfastness
Luminance and Polychromos apply both well on top of watercolour, with gentle touch on top of gouache (with more pressure the gouache gets grated off) and on top of matte acrylics.
It is truly up to your own preference, what colour shades you need and the purpose you need them for. I use both.
For pencil dust removal, I mostly use a vegan baby kabuki make-up brush , which is great to get the pencil dust off of small areas. For larger areas I use a brush with handle, which is called “Zeichenbesen” in German. It looks like the brush you use with a dustpan (or a short handled toothbrush). If you dust with your hand, you risk smudging.
Another option are the watercolour pencil ranges (Albrecht Dürer and Supracolour Soft are my examples), which apply creamier compared to e.g. the Polychromos.
You find my latest Caran d’Ache blog post here ; and my compendium entry. Remember, not all Luminance coloured pencils are free of animal derivatives, there are exceptions.
My latest blog post about Faber-Castell is over here , and there is also my compendium entry.
