Wonderful and I ordered 2 more and will order even more, here is why:

1) This lead is a wonderful deep blue, not a coloring book blue, a pretty serious looking shade of blue.
2) It has the tactile scratchiness of an H level lead
3) it has the smoothness of a B level, it has great paper interaction, but not too hard and not too soft, but has some nice tooth on vellum.
4) It erases somewhat ok depending on how hard you pressed
5) Also has a slight very mild wax texture, so it is like the best of all words, colored pencil, graphite,
6) It never broke one time and in a technical mechanical sharpener gets a great point but it doesnt last a long time. Has a great price to quantity point...great value.
7) Is very fluid right out of the pencil holder , so great motion for sketching, actually wonderful for sketching at 2mm flat out blunt, at first I was always going for a point but it is great for concepts without any point at all. Nice on a harder backing surface , you can get a good tight scratch or go ice skating, somehow it can do both.
8) Is not a brittle as Pentel which I still like as well, but this with a point outdoes a .05 and .07 but does not hold the point as long to keep below .05.
9) Great purchase and price , this is an objective review , I did not get free samples and I am not associated with the company.
10) It has become my first choice goto blue lead for drawing , I do not use any black for sketches or drawings, I like the neutrality of blue, this will go dark with pressure but not extreme dark. In other words, no attempt at grayscale levels with an exact H or B match.
11) If you like Mechanical, like blue, like a good not too hard , not too soft material , love the price of this, then you should try it. I would not consider this a material for very very dark shadows...but my paper choice is translucent vellum ...that way I dont need a mirror check at all for concepts, I just flip it over and start drawing on the back, so I actually work a drawing on both sides, at the same time. if I need a total redo, I dont need a light table at all, just put the two sheets on a cheap piece of styrofoam 1/4 inch poster board
12) I will still use the Pentel .05 and .07 if I need a consistent area without needing a really sharp point. Extra tight details are done on the back of the drawing with UNI .05 blue. It is deeper and darker.
13) I like this material with either Borden and Riley 90 Vellum and or the 11 x 17 translucent white vellum from Paperandmore, however that paper is expensive so I get 200 sheets for 99 dollars at one time. This drawing material works fine on both. I do not use any drawing shield under my hand because I like to work the blue smudge and smear into the drawing as it happens randomly and evolves. This does not overly smear but when mixed with the Uni, gives a nice foggy tone to the paper as it develops in real time as opposed to a pre toned paper.
14) I am not a photorealist, so I cannot comment on the exact shading range for ultra realistic rendering, or illustration board. I dont really care , I am a line person, not a value person.
15) I use this more for the equivalent in blue of the shading drawing style types in the Italian Renaissance except in blue not red chalk, nut still more linear.

In conclusion this material, a good mechanical holder, mechanical type sharpener , Good vellum , Uni and Pentel .05 and .07 as sidekick leads, .... and actually the rest of the world can go ahead and blow itself up if it wants too ....., I will go live in a cave with a skylight.

Sorry if I used the word "I" too much , just trying to give you an example of a very specific example of how this material is used, and for the price , it is worth trying.

Nothing beats drawing!!!!

I can only compare these to the original Pentel colored leads, but these are much smoother and less waxy. Important note: free leads like these CANNOT be as soft as wood-clad, normal colored pencils. You wouldn't want them to be, they'd break constantly. So these are about as soft as you could want in an unsupported lead, but they are smooooth so they still lay down color nicely. I bought these years ago and I still have plenty of lead left after using them in my planner.

I actually just wanted to revamp my color palette in my multi-8 so I trialed all the colors and chose the 8 you can see in the picture for a rainbow and grayscale. They're good leads overall, and great when paired with the multi-8 for maximum portability, which is what I wanted most. I'll buy them again, when I run out someday!

These are an amazing value. Think of them like a harder black Prismacolor colored pencil but in a 2mm lead form, much easier to sharpen. They don't go quite as dark black as a Prismacolor, but still go very dark. No unpleasant slick shine of soft graphite.

I was not sure how this lead would look on paper, although there are some nice images provided by other reviewers that match what I experienced. This lead comes in a small plastic tube which is very handy for storage and works well in my field bag. Despite being shipped with two large bottles of detergent (each weighing about 5lbs) not one of my leads was broken upon arrival.

Shading is easily accomplished with these leads - I was able to get good values along the scale with minimal effort. The lead seems sturdy (I often sketch with more than an inch of lead showing) although for darker values I would suggest shortening the exposed lead to prevent breakage, which is not really any different than any other lead. I was able to obtain a fine point using a trash can pointer as well as a the built-in cap pointer from the lead holder I was using. I rarely point to a needle sharp tip, but that can be achieved with this lead without undue breakage.

A couple of preliminary sketches showed me that this is a very good lead for general sketching, and gives a color that is quite similar to traditional sanguine, but not quite. It does erase somewhat, but best results are achieved from erasing lighter values. Dark values tend to leave ghosting, but that's not uncommon - you should really be laying in light lines if you are not sure and think you might need to erase, so it's no problem.

These are shorter leads than what you get from someone like Staedtler, but they work quite well in lead holders like the Mars 780 as well as holders that are shorter like the OHTO Sharp Pencil, which is nice - no waste!. I'm ordering another tube of these with my next art supply order!

Nice 2mm leads, to bad my pencil was 3mm lead holder. Was going to use it for metal lay out. Colors not as vivid as anticipated.