Best Coloured Pencils in Australia (2026)

Coloured pencils look like the easiest thing in the art aisle to buy, right up until you own two sets and only one of them works. The cheap tin scratches the paper and leaves a pale streak no matter how hard you press. The good tin lays colour down like butter, and suddenly you understand why people pay for pigment.

The split that actually matters is the binder holding the pigment together. Oil-based leads hold a fine point and stay crisp through hours of detail work. Wax-based leads are softer, cover paper faster and blend with almost no pressure. Student pencils use less pigment and more filler, which is why they look chalky next to artist grade. We pulled the Australian Amazon pool in September 2026, checked live stock, buy-box pricing and review data on every candidate, and kept eight sets covering artist grade through to the school list.

The short answer on coloured pencils in Australia

Buy the Faber-Castell Polychromos Tin of 36 if you want one set you will still be using in fifteen years. The oil-based 3.8 mm lead holds a point, the colour is waterproof and smudge-proof once down, and it is what Australian art shops point professionals towards. It is the dearest of our eight picks and the only one we would call a genuine long-term purchase.

If you mostly fill in adult colouring books, buy the Prismacolor Premier Set of 48. The soft wax core covers paper in one pass, blends without a blender and includes metallic silver and gold, and it shares the highest star rating of our eight picks with the Polychromos.

If you just need decent pencils in the house this week, the Faber-Castell Vibrant Classic 48 is the cheapest of our picks and carries more ratings than anything else here. It is a student pencil, but a good one, made by a company pressing leads since 1761.

Compare our coloured pencil picks at a glance

Eight sets, sorted by who they suit rather than by price.

How we chose these coloured pencils

• Every set was checked live on Amazon Australia for stock and price on the day this guide was written, so nothing here is a listing that quietly went dark.
• Star ratings and review counts came from a fresh pull. The smallest review base of our picks is the Derwent Academy Watercolour set at 1,139 ratings.
• We read the four specs that actually predict how a pencil feels: lead diameter, binder type, barrel shape and water solubility. Those explain almost every complaint in the reviews.
• We kept both artist grade and student grade, because a guide that only recommends the expensive tin is useless to a parent filling a school list in January.

Best coloured pencils overall: Faber-Castell Polychromos Tin of 36

The Polychromos is the set Australian art retailers name first when someone asks what professionals use, and the specification explains why. The lead is oil-based rather than wax-based, 3.8 mm thick, and bonded to the timber down its whole length using Faber-Castell's SV process so it survives being dropped. That gives you something unusual: a pencil soft enough to lay rich colour and hard enough to hold a sharpened point through an afternoon of fine work.

Faber-Castell rate the pigments as acid-free with what they call unsurpassed lightfastness, which in plain terms means a piece hung in a bright Queensland lounge room will not fade to pastel in two years. The laydown is water-resistant and smudge-proof once down, so you can work over it with a wet brush without the underlayer lifting. At 3.8 mm the core is noticeably wider than the 3.3 mm cores in our Vibrant Classic and Derwent Academy picks.

Thirty-six colours sounds modest next to the 174-colour boxes below, deliberately so. Oil-based artist pencils are built to be layered, so you mix a skin tone by putting three colours on top of each other rather than hunting for a ready-made one, and the range extends to 120 singles if you want to top up later. It carries 4.8 stars across 15,896 ratings, tying the Prismacolor Premier for the highest rating of our eight picks.

Flaws but not dealbreakers

Oil-based leads take more layers to reach full saturation than wax ones, so the first hour feels like hard work if you are used to something soft. The tin is a plain hinged box with a foam insert, so pencils rattle in transit. And the colour range skews traditional, with far more earth and portrait tones than neons.

Best for blending and adult colouring: Prismacolor Premier Set of 48

If the Polychromos is a drawing pencil, the Prismacolor Premier is a colouring pencil, and the binder is the difference. Prismacolor use a thick soft wax core they describe as creamy, and it shows the moment you touch paper. One pass covers. Two colours laid over each other merge into a third without a blending pencil, a stump or any technique at all.

That is exactly what you want in an adult colouring book, where the paper is thin and you want saturated colour without pressing hard enough to emboss the page. It is also why illustrators reach for Prismacolor to burnish, the technique of pushing wax colours together until the paper tooth disappears and the surface goes glossy. Oil-based pencils cannot really do that. The 48-colour assortment includes metallic silver and gold plus a white for lifting highlights, and Prismacolor list the pencils as pre-sharpened, lightfast and not water-soluble.

The set shares the top rating of our picks at 4.8 stars, across 15,788 ratings, which is a very large body of feedback for an art product. The famous caveat is breakage: soft cores are fragile, and a set dropped in transit can arrive with internal cracks that only show up as tips snapping during sharpening. Check yours on arrival, and use a sharp twin-hole or hand-crank sharpener.

Flaws but not dealbreakers

The soft cores wear down fast, so you sharpen constantly and the pencils get short quicker than a harder set. Wax bloom, a faint white haze, can appear on heavily burnished areas after a few weeks and needs wiping off. And the cardboard tray offers no protection once opened, so a pencil roll is close to compulsory.

Best cheap coloured pencils: Faber-Castell Vibrant Classic 48

This is the set to buy when you want something better than the supermarket tin without thinking about it. Forty-eight colours, hexagonal barrels that will not roll off the kitchen table, and SV bonding holding a 3.3 mm lead into the timber so the tips survive a child pressing far too hard. It is the cheapest of our eight picks and carries more ratings than any other set here, at 18,063.

The laydown is genuinely soft for a student pencil. Faber-Castell describe these as covering larger areas with brilliant colour, and that is fair: they are not the chalky, scratchy thing you get at the bottom of the market. The barrels are 100 percent FSC-certified timber and plastic-free, the age rating is 4 and up, the leads are non-toxic, and the range extends to 60 colours if you want to add singles later.

Where it sits is worth being honest about. This is student pigment loading, so layering hits a ceiling much sooner than an artist set and you will not burnish it to a gloss. In a colouring book with heavy black outlines you will barely notice. Building a portrait skin tone through six layers, you will. For a family house it is still the right answer at about $18.

Flaws but not dealbreakers

The pigment is not lightfast in the artist sense, so work you want to keep should live in a folder rather than a sunny window. The cardboard box is flimsy and will collapse within a term. And the darker colours need real pressure to reach full depth.

Best for dark and coloured paper: Faber-Castell Black Edition 36

The Black Edition solves a specific and annoying problem: most coloured pencils vanish on black card. Faber-Castell built this range around a SuperSoft lead with high enough pigment loading that the colours read properly on light, coloured and dark paper, which makes it the set to own if you like kraft-brown sketchbooks or black art card.

The barrel is black-stained timber with a triangular profile, which is a real ergonomic help rather than a styling choice. A triangular barrel stops the pencil rotating in your fingers and gives a fixed three-point grip, so your hand tires less over a long session. Faber-Castell rate the leads as soft, break-resistant and flake-resistant, the combination you need when a soft core is pushed hard into a textured dark surface.

The colour selection leans brighter than the traditional Polychromos range, with neons and pastels included, which makes sense because pale and fluorescent colours are the ones that show up on black. It costs about $24, remarkable for a Faber-Castell soft-core set. It sits at 4.5 stars across 4,987 ratings, the lowest star rating of our eight picks, and the recurring complaint is what you would expect from a very soft lead: tips break if you sharpen aggressively.

Flaws but not dealbreakers

The soft lead wears down quickly and does not hold a fine point, so this is a colouring and shading set rather than a detail set. Faber-Castell do not publish lightfastness ratings for this range the way they do for Polychromos. And the black barrels make it hard to see which colour you are holding in dim light.

Best 72-colour set for adult colouring books: KALOUR Set of 72

KALOUR sits between the school tin and the artist tin, and it is the set we would hand to someone who has just discovered colouring books and does not want to spend artist money finding out whether the hobby sticks. Seventy-two colours, soft cores, pre-sharpened, in a flat case measuring 27.9 by 18.8 by 1.6 cm that opens out on a coffee table.

The listing calls the leads blendable, dust-free and non-toxic, and the dust-free part is worth pausing on. Cheap soft pencils shed pigment crumbs that smear across the page when your hand passes over them, which ruins clean work in a colouring book. A core formulated to hold together is a meaningful upgrade for exactly this use.

Seventy-two is also the number that makes colouring books enjoyable rather than frustrating. Most published designs assume you have a spread of related shades so you can grade a petal or a feather without mixing. Below about 48 colours you spend your evening compromising; at 72 you pick the right one and keep going. It rates 4.7 stars across 11,761 ratings, the third highest star rating of our picks, and costs about $28.

Flaws but not dealbreakers

KALOUR do not publish a lead diameter or lightfastness rating, so you are buying on reviews rather than specification. The round barrels roll off any sloped surface. And the plastic case hinge is the weak point people mention most.

Best for the widest colour range: Shuttle Art 174 Colours

One hundred and seventy-four colours is the largest set of our eight picks by a wide margin, and Shuttle Art bundle it with a colouring book, a sharpener and a case in a box weighing 2.29 kg. If your complaint has always been that you cannot find the exact shade, this removes it entirely.

The leads are soft-core, listed at 2 mm and above, non-toxic, in round barrels. Practically, a set this large is about convenience rather than capability: you are not layering to reach a colour, you are selecting it. That is a legitimate way to work, and it is why very large sets suit people who colour to relax. The included case holds all 174 in tiers, which matters more than it sounds.

The honest trade-off is per-pencil quality. Spread across 174 pencils, the pigment budget cannot match a 36-colour artist tin, so the individual pencils sit closer to good student grade. It rates 4.6 stars across 3,679 ratings and costs about $60. Judge it as an enormous, well-organised student set and it is excellent value; judge it against the Polychromos and it will disappoint you.

Flaws but not dealbreakers

With this many colours, several pairs are close enough to be hard to tell apart on paper. The box is heavy and bulky, so this lives on a shelf rather than in a bag. And soft round barrels across a large set make sharpening a regular chore.

Best water-soluble coloured pencils: Derwent Academy Watercolour 24

This is the only water-soluble set among our eight picks, and it does something none of the others can: draw the shape dry, then wet it with a brush and watch the marks dissolve into a watercolour wash. Derwent describe it as combining the control of a pencil with the beauty of the watercolour medium, which is an accurate description of what the tool does.

The core is a soft, wax-based, water-soluble formulation at 3.3 mm in a hexagonal barrel Derwent specify as anti-roll and slim enough for accurate detail. Because the colour is not permanent once dry, you can re-wet an area and move the pigment again later, which is a forgiving way to learn. Beginners ruin far fewer pieces with water-soluble pencils than with watercolour pans, because you never have to commit a loaded brush to a blank page.

Twenty-four colours is the smallest set of our picks, which suits the medium: watercolour work is built by dilution and overlay, so a huge palette matters much less than it does with dry colouring. The tin weighs 290 grams so it travels well, and the Academy line extends to 72 colours if you expand later. Academy is Derwent's student range rather than their professional lines, and the pigment strength reflects that. It rates 4.6 stars across 1,139 ratings at about $25.

Flaws but not dealbreakers

Ordinary paper buckles the moment you add water, so you need watercolour or mixed-media paper, which is a hidden extra cost. Student-grade pigment washes out paler than the dry mark suggests. And because the colour stays re-wettable, a damp hand can lift finished work.

Best for school lists and shared family use: Staedtler Colouring Pencils Tin of 72

Staedtler build these from WOPEX, a composite barrel material rather than conventional cased timber, and the practical result is a pencil that is genuinely hard to break. If your set is going to live in a classroom tub, a shared craft drawer or a car, that durability is worth more than any pigment upgrade.

The barrels are classic hexagonal with a soft, non-slip surface that gives small hands something to grip, and Staedtler state they sharpen cleanly in any quality sharpener. Seventy-two colours arrive in a metal tin rather than cardboard, which is the single feature that decides whether a family set survives a year. Cardboard boxes collapse; tins get put back on the shelf.

Rated 4.6 stars across 5,491 ratings at about $20, this is the most colours per dollar of the sets here we would trust with a child. It suits a household that needs one large set everybody can use, and it pairs naturally with the rest of a craft cupboard if you are also assembling a kids art set. What you give up is refinement: the pigment is squarely student grade, so this is not the set for subtle layered work.

Flaws but not dealbreakers

The WOPEX barrel feels heavier and denser than timber, which some people dislike immediately. Colour laydown is firmer than the soft-core sets here, so filling large areas takes more passes. And the tin is a plain tray rather than tiered.

Which coloured pencil set should you buy?

Match the row that sounds most like you and stop reading.

What should you look for in coloured pencils?

Five things explain almost everything about how a coloured pencil behaves, and each one is on the listing if you know to look.

• Binder type. Oil-based leads hold a point, resist smudging and suit detail. Wax-based leads are softer, cover faster and burnish easily. Neither is better, and serious hobbyists end up owning both.
• Lead diameter. Artist sets typically run 3.3 mm to 4 mm, student sets narrower. A wider core covers more paper per stroke and survives more pressure, which is why a 3.8 mm core feels so different to a 2.9 mm school pencil.
• Lightfastness. Whether the colour fades in daylight. Manufacturers only publish ratings on artist ranges, and in Australian light it matters more than it does in Europe. If work is going on a wall, buy a set with a stated rating.
• Barrel shape. Hexagonal barrels do not roll off tables. Triangular barrels enforce a three-point grip and reduce hand fatigue. Round barrels are common on large budget sets.
• Set size versus set quality. A 36-colour artist set beats a 150-colour student set for drawing, because you build colours by layering. For colouring books the logic reverses.

One more thing: coloured pencils and paint pens are not interchangeable, even though shops shelve them together. Pens sit on top of a surface in opaque ink and suit lettering, rocks and glass. If that is what you wanted, our guide to the best paint pens in Australia is the right page.

How do you look after coloured pencils?

• Sharpen slowly with a sharp blade. Most breakage blamed on the pencil is caused by a blunt sharpener twisting the core. A hand-crank or fresh twin-hole sharpener solves it.
• Do not drop the tin. A soft wax core can crack inside the timber with no external sign, and every crack becomes a snapped tip later.
• Store flat and out of heat. A car boot in an Australian summer softens wax binders and can warp barrels. A drawer, tin or pencil roll indoors is all they need.
• Watch for wax bloom. A faint white haze on heavily coloured areas is wax rising to the surface. Wipe it with a soft cloth or seal the piece with a workable fixative.

You'll also want these with your coloured pencils

• Derwent Manual Twin Hole Sharpener, sized for standard and thicker artist barrels, and the single best upgrade for soft-core pencils.
• Staedtler Paper Blending Stumps, 4 pieces, for pushing colour into paper tooth and softening edges without adding pigment.
• Faber-Castell Kneadable Erasers, 4 pack, which lift colour gently to make highlights instead of scrubbing the paper raw.
• BTSKY Canvas Pencil Roll, 72 slots, so a large set stays sorted and the tips stop knocking together.
• Mindfulness Colouring Book for Adults, an easy starting point if you bought the pencils for the wind-down.
• Staedtler Double-Hole Tub Sharpener, the cheap one for the kids' craft box.

The competition: sets we looked at and passed on

• Faber-Castell Polychromos Tin of 60. Identical quality to our top pick, but the jump to a 60-colour tin pushes the price well past what a first set should cost. Buy the 36 and add singles.
• Prismacolor Premier Set of 150. The complete range in one box, priced accordingly. Given how fragile soft cores are, we would rather someone start at 48 and learn how they treat their pencils.
• Derwent Coloursoft, Set of 24. A lovely velvety pencil and a fair alternative to Prismacolor, but a similar outlay for half the colours is a harder sell for a first proper set.
• Derwent Lightfast, Set of 24. The best lightfastness ratings you can buy and the right answer if you sell your work. For everyone else it is a specialist purchase at a specialist price.

Coloured pencil questions Australians ask

Which brand of coloured pencils is best?

Faber-Castell and Prismacolor are the two brands Australian artists come back to, and they share the highest star rating of our eight picks at 4.8. Polychromos use an oil-based lead that holds a sharp point for detail work, while Prismacolor Premier use a soft wax core that blends and burnishes faster. Buy Polychromos for drawing and Prismacolor for colouring.

Is Prismacolor or Faber-Castell better?

Neither is better outright, because they fail in opposite directions. Prismacolor Premier lay colour down faster and blend with almost no effort, but the soft cores crumble if you drop the tin or sharpen carelessly. Faber-Castell Polychromos take more layers to reach the same saturation, and in return they keep a point through hours of fine work.

What are the smoothest coloured pencils?

Wax-based soft-core pencils are the smoothest, because the binder releases pigment under very little pressure. Among our picks, the Prismacolor Premier and the Faber-Castell Black Edition both use that kind of core and both feel creamy straight out of the box. The trade-off is that soft cores wear down faster and need sharpening more often.

How many coloured pencils do you actually need?

For adult colouring books, somewhere between 48 and 72 colours is the sweet spot, because you spend more time colouring and less time mixing. For drawing from life, 24 to 36 good pencils beat 150 cheap ones, since you build shades by layering rather than by hunting for a ready-made colour.

Are oil-based or wax-based coloured pencils better?

Oil-based leads such as Faber-Castell Polychromos hold a fine point longer, resist the waxy bloom that can haze finished work, and suit detailed line drawing. Wax-based leads such as Prismacolor Premier are softer, cover paper faster and burnish to a glossy finish, which is why colourists prefer them.

More guides for your creative corner

• Best easel in Australia, for when drawing on the kitchen table stops being comfortable.
• Best paint by numbers kits in Australia, the other great wind-down hobby with a low entry price.
• Best diamond painting kits in Australia, if you like the meditative side of colouring.
• Best pencil cases in Australia, because a 72-colour set needs somewhere to live.
• Best notebooks in Australia, including paper stocks that take colour without ghosting.
• Best kids art sets in Australia, the full craft-cupboard version of this page.
• Home office setup guide, for the desk and storage the whole lot sits on.

About the author

Anish Puri founded NestPath in 2026 after going through the Australian first-home-buyer process himself. NestPath focuses on Australian first-home buyers because the existing review sites are American, generic, or both. Anish handles editorial selection across the homeowner hub. Reach out: hello@nestpath.com.au