Too much choice

Anyone who does not just want to scribble a bit on paper, but wants to seriously start drawing, faces a first challenge when it comes to one sign set goes. In the meantime, so many character sets are offered in the trade that you feel totally overwhelmed as a newbie. The selection is so high that you can not see the proverbial „forest for the trees“. Often they therefore stay with cheap pencils and thin ones copy paper, and resent that the paper is too thin, the pencildoes not draw properly and the shades are not feasible. Among the numerous inferior offers, there are also a few who offer good character sets that are suitable for entry.

On what must be respected

Many character sets are bulging with sometimes unnecessary materials. Important at one sign set are a few pencils that are ideal for drawing and sketching, with different degrees of hardness, an eraser, possibly charcoal pencils, one sharpenerand a mannequin, The mannequin is a small to life-size doll made of wood, or other materials that represents the human body highly abstracted. The doll has moving limbs and is mainly used in drawing to represent the proportions of the human body in different poses, gestures and movements, in order to better bring them to the paper. The pencils in the set should have different degrees of hardness. As a result, very fine lines can be drawn, which is not possible with charcoal pencils. Unlike the name suggests, the pencil lead is not lead, but a graphite-clay mixture. A distinction is made between the mean degrees of hardness 1H, 2H, HB, 1B and 2B, which can be sharpened and eroded well. They are particularly suitable for brightness gradation. The pencils 3H to 8H are hard pencils and are suitable for graphic and technical drawings. With them you can draw accurate but bright strokes. The 3B to 8B pencils are soft and produce high-contrast thick strokes. With them you can achieve almost black tones. The color of the soft pencils can not be easily erased, because they give a fat color abrasion that can never be completely erased!

Erasmus is better than erasers

An eraser is nothing more than a plastically deformable eraser. It consists of oil. Salt, flour, or other starch, color pigments, and water. To avoid hardening, eraser often contains kaolin, potato starch and different waxes. The advantages of an eraser are that it is easily malleable, less erased, but erased evenly. It is often used in drawing, as it can be brightened up with it. In addition, the eraser takes the eraser directly. The eraser will therefore darken after each use. The clay rubber is not only used for etching pencil drawings, but can also be used in charcoal drawings.

A good beginner set

As already described above, there are many character sets. A cheap but high quality sign set is the Royal & Langnickel sketching and sign set for beginners. It is not only suitable for beginners, but is also ideal for advanced draftsmen.
The delivery includes 12 colored pencils, a sharpener, a ruler, a beginner’s drawing instruction, an eraser that might need to be replaced with an eraser, a drawing pad, a sandpaper block, six graphite pencils, three wiping sticks, three charcoal pencils and a 11cm manikin. The set is clear and contains everything important, what is needed for drawing. When the set is delivered, care should be taken to ensure that the carton and goods are undamaged, as the lead mines may be damaged by improper handling.