Stabilo CarbOthello vs Faber-Castell Pitt Pastel Pencils (and more!)

My first pastel purchase back in August 2020 was a 24-pastel pencil set of Stabilo CarbOthellos, after being inspired by wildlife artist Jason Morgan's videos. I loved it so much I regretted not getting a larger set. Very quickly, I collected more singles - mostly CarbOthellos, but also a few Faber-Castell Pitt, Koh-i-Noor and Derwent pastel pencils.

For Christmas, I received a box of Faber-Castell 36 Pitt Pastel Pencils from my thoughtful sister, and drew a dog with it. Then Madz Art from the Monet Cafe art group asked how they compared with the CarbOthellos which made me curious. So I decided to put them to the test and do a detailed comparison. In the end, this comparison looked at so much more than just these two big brand names, so do read on!

Pigment

When I use the Pitt pencils, I notice that they are firmer than the CarbOthellos, but otherwise, there didn't seem to be much difference between the two. I found the pigment levels to be quite comparable and both of them went on smoothly, and created a similar amount of dust. This is a colour chart I did of all my pastel pencils. If you compare the CarbOthello with the Pitt, both appear to be equally vibrant. Incidentally, Der PP refers to Derwent pastel pencil, Der (Ch) refers to Derwent tinted charcoal pencils and Koh refers to Koh-i-Noor pastel pencils. More about those later.

I picked 3 colours each of the CarbOthello and Pitt that were closest in shades to compare their pigment. The paper is regular Strathmore Grey Scale Paper with some tooth as I wanted to compare their abilities on unsanded paper. 

From here, you can see that there really isn't much difference. The CarbOthello yellow appears slightly brighter but I think that's due to the difference in pencil colour more than the pigment. What's clearer is that the Pitt pencils definitely go on harder and I can draw sharper lines with them. With the Pitt pencils, I can sharpen them to a fine point and draw thin wisps of fur. The CarbOthellos go on slightly creamier and hence, thicker.

Layering and Texture

However, it was when I did the layering test that the results completely caught me by surprise. What I did was paint a thick layer of dark blue PanPastel and attempt to draw on top of it with the pastel pencils (the second row). As you can see, the CarbOthellos performed miles better. I could barely make any marks with the Pitt pencils, which explains why I had so much trouble attempting to draw the dog on top of PanPastels.

I thought, perhaps it's just PanPastels that the Pitt pencils can't layer on top of? What if it's using just their products? So I coloured a layer of each brand's red and drew the corresponding yellow on top (ie CarbOthello yellow on top of CarbOthello red, and Pitt yellow on top of Pitt red). As you can see (the third row), the result is the same - Pitt pencils don't layer as well as CarbOthellos.

This then got me curious about the other pastel pencils I owned - Derwent and Koh-i-Noor. I don't have many of those, so couldn't choose the same colours, but here are the results:

I found that Derwent's ability to layer is similar to CarbOthello (it just appears brighter because the pencil is a lighter colour). But Koh-i-Noor pastel pencils layer best of all! They draw on with absolutely no problem. Do note though that this paper could have affected the layering properties. All these pencils layer reasonably well on Canson Mi-Teintes and definitely very well on sanded paper. The tests just demonstrate the relative layering abilities of each pastel pencil brand in comparison.

Softness-wise, I find Koh-i-Noor pastel pencils very similar to CarbOthello. If I can't see which pencil I'm holding, I wouldn't be able to tell the difference between the two. Derwent is the scratchiest and chalkiest among the four brands. Their colours are also the least vibrant.

And then, a final test - I decided to test out the whites (image below). Both the CarbOthello (left) and the Pitt (middle) have a similar level of whiteness, but the brightest white goes to Koh-i-Noor's White Coal pencil. This I found early on when doing research - no other pastel pencil comes close to the Koh-i-Noor. Please note this is the White Coal pencil, not the pastel pencil. It comes in three grades - 2 (soft), 3 (medium) and 4 (hard). Get the Grade 2 pencil. It's what I use to draw the brightest highlights in animal eyes, nothing else compares.

However, the surprise came when I tried to layer the white on top of PanPastel. This time, the CarbOthello and the Koh-i-Noor wouldn't go on well, but the Pitt white pencil did! Why? I have no idea. I'm as puzzled as you, as to why the Pitt would perform so miserably on top of PanPastels for all other colours except the white. Perhaps the white is especially opaque? 🤷‍♀️ One of life's mysteries.

Which brings me to a side note: if you like using pastel pencils, consider getting a set of Derwent tinted charcoal pencils. I bought this small blister pack of 6 early on and they are a revelation. One of the things I find with pastel pencils is that it's often difficult to find colours that are muted or deep enough. Because they're on the harder spectrum of soft pastels, their pigment levels can never compare with that of soft pastel sticks. Hence, their lights are not as light and their darks are not as dark. You can read my post explaining the softness of pastels.

These charcoal pencils are a wonderful complement - they work perfectly with pastel pencils, and they're darker than anything I have in my pastel pencil collection (you can see the swatches in the colour chart I posted above). Derwent's Ocean Deep charcoal pencil is one of my favourites - a very deep blue-black which is perfect for shadows and when you want to avoid using black.

Conclusion

Coming back to CarbOthello vs Pitt, I still believe you can't go wrong with either. Both are high quality products and you can create beautiful artwork with either.

This was the first pastel pencil drawing I created in August 2020 with CarbOthellos:

And the latest one I did in December 2020 using Pitt:

Both were done on unsanded paper, which is one of the advantages of pastel pencils - they're hard enough not to fill the tooth of the paper too quickly, unlike soft pastel sticks, and hence don't require expensive sanded paper.

Both brands are great, but if I had to choose only one, since CarbOthello layers better and is cheaper in price, I have to give the edge to CarbOthello. Where I live, Pitt pencils are more than double the price of an equivalent set of CarbOthellos, so unless you can find a discounted price or are looking to expand your range of pastel pencils, I would recommend CarbOthellos instead. 

And do consider Koh-i-Noor as well! They're such an underrated brand. They are soft, creamy and perform beautifully, practically like the CarbOthellos, at an even cheaper price (depending on where you live). If you're a pastel pencil newbie on a budget, that's what I would go for. The only drawback is that they only come in 48 colours, but I guess if you can supplement with other brands.

You can buy all the pastel pencil brands I mentioned in this post, including Derwent tinted charcoal pencils, from Jackson's Art. If you use this referral link, I'll get a few points.