KingArt Gel Sticks Swatch & Comparison With Gelatos, Tempera Paint Sticks, Neocolor II's & Woodys

First!

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Right now on Canada's Amazon Faber-Castell has the Dolce ll 28 colours on sale (limited deal) for $72.15 if you're interested and Shuttle Art also has the pastel paint sticks.

Thank you! Very helpful.

Helen Wonderful Thankyou. I did not know FC Gelatos were not being manufactured any more. 🪷🪷

Thank you so much, this is a really helpful comparison. Quite a question from the sideline but what do you use to sharpen the holbein soft white pencil? I go for a knife 'cause I found mine too soft and slippery to get sharpened in my pencil sharpeners.
I'd say the stabilo woodys are quite expensive for what they are but I just love the junkiness. I use the woodys with the neocolors quite often together. If I'll ever get my hands on the pastell set of the shuttlearts I will definitely try them. For me personally the gelsticks and gelatos are just too smudgy and transparent.

The woodies have the lightfast rating on the side

Really love your comparison videos. Well thought out and thorough. Keep up the great work!!

Thank you for this great comparison. I have a small set of the Neocolor and I love them; they are so much fun to use. I was wondering about the others.

US folks: Online, Blick has the Shuttle Art tempera paint sticks and also their "Thin Stix" which look more like the King Arts. Also, they have a ton of Gelato sets and a few open stock. Run, don't walk haha.

Thank you for the comparison testing. I have all except the gelatos. I held off buying the woodys for a long time but they have edged carandache neo 2 colours off top spot. So much fun to use and hold but pretty pricey in Australia for what is meant to be for kids. And i was just reading in your comment section how short the actual centre is compared to the outside. Oh well.

What a great comparison test,I’ve been looking at the Kingart set over the gelatos for quite a while now,this has really been useful,I do have the shuttle classic set tho so maybe I should behave myself! Do feel I need a treat tho,after dodging Covid for four years (vulnerable husband) it finally got us somehow! Have been laid really low with it…..on a positive note I do have quite a few of yr video to catch up with 😊

Nice comparison, very informative. But why do you say Gelatos are not being produced anymore? They're still on Faber-Castell's website and are still avaible for sale all over.

Wow, this is interesting. You are so thorough! It is interesting to hear that the Gelatos are no longer being produced. Are you sure they are not manufactured for any market now? The Faber Castell USA website still shows a wide variety of them for sale, and Blick in the US also seems to have the full array with none marked as “limited quantities” as they typically are when an item has been discontinued. Maybe they just still have plenty of stock. I wonder if they have discontinued their Gel Crayons, which are made for kids, but are virtually identical to the Gelatos. They are supposedly less pigmented, but I have seen no difference. They could certainly be less lightfast, and the range of colors is much more limited. The KingArt crayons are intriguing.

Thanks so much for doing this comparison! I have the Kingart gel sticks and I haven't been using them, and now I will be using them more! I just purchased the full set of Neocolor IIs (Yay!😄) and I can't wait to start using them. I haven't swatched them out yet. I still have to swatch out the Kingart gel sticks too! Now to get some stabilo woodys and tempura paint sticks on my Dick Blick wish list! Thanks again Helen for reminding me to use what I have and enjoy my own stash! I really enjoy your videos so much! I reorganized my Kingart gel sticks too and put all the metallics in one container. It just made sense. Have a lovely week, and I look forward to your next video of comparisons, art supplies, reviews, a painting sesh with whatever medium you are enjoying at the moment, a splodge and scribble or whatever you have planned for us! It's always enjoyable!

This is a great comparison, Helen.
I just purchased the pastel set of gelatos as well as some open stock colors I bought directly from the Faber Castello site. Although , they were pricey when buying direct. The gelatos were so nice on my watercolor sketch so I’m disappointed to hear they are no longer making them .
I also have a few neocolor II’s so will compare them.

I've found that if you use the tempera sticks on wet or damp paper, they're very bendable/smudgable. ❤

I have the Kingart Tempera sticks and like them. I don't feel particularly skilled with them as they are way more transparent than I expected. I've added them over parts of watercolor and liked them. I enjoyed your comparison.

Good morning, perfect timing for me. I just bought my very first NeoColor2 crayons and getting ready to take on a little road trip to see fall foliage😁😅❤

Thank you for sharing. I have Kwik Stix which are another brand of tempura paint sticks. Cannot purchase individual sticks, but did see on US Amazon that I may purchase individual colors in sets of 12. They have white which I use quite a bit because of opacity. I also like the KingArt Gel Sticks. Help me keep my drawings loose in my sketchbook. Peace.

Lovely comparison video-thank you so much! I enjoyed seeing some examples of the ways you use them towards the end there. I’ve tried all of these products as well, and found that the Gelatos and the Stabilo Woody’s were not a great fit for me. Tempera sticks are quite new to me and have been a really fun addition to my mixed media works! I often use them for loose sketching when I’m working out an idea.

This was a great comparison, but I feel like the shuttle art tempera sticks were mismatched to the other products. You should have compared them to the King Art tempera paint sticks to be apples to apples, rather than the gel sticks (which are more like gelatos).

Very thorough testing! I have the King art in my cart and already have the rest. I liked the Shuttle art for colored pencils over the top, and Neocolor and Stabilo Woody for re-wetting.

This video comes just at the perfect time. I'm totally obsessed with what I classify as "pigment sticks:" Gelatos, Neocolor I and II, gel crayons, paint sticks (though not the oil paint sticks nor the Daniel Smith water color sticks), silky crayons, Kwik Stix, KingArt, Shuttle Arts etc.. Tempera and Gouache. And there's some that are made specifically for bible highlighting (I never knew this was a thing) - they use gel highlighters because regular highlighters would bleed through the thin bible pages. Well, they come in some very nice muted tones and there's several companies that put them out. I'm enjoying just playing around. I'm less interested in using water with them. Seems like everybody wants to turn everything into a watercolor and while I love using the Neocolor II that way (and regular watercolor pencils), doing so with the gel sticks is less interesting than using them more like pastels or crayons. I like the way you had used the Gelatos in the past in you sketch books. Kwik Stix has a set of world skin tones that's really nice - lots of lovely complex browns, grays, neutrals, taupes etc...I think it was your Shuttle Arts pastel paint sticks video that kicked off my craze. ETA: your testing was really interesting. Showed the pros/cons of each medium. Your tests further solidified in my lack of interest in using the gel/paint sticks with water as it just seems like too much work to get the color to move and not leave streaks. Though maybe using water over them to create effects or use a stencil with a baby wipe would be interesting.

Great job Thank you😍👏👏👏

Interesting comparisons! Out of these products, I only have the Neocolor II’s (and love them), but it’s interesting to see how they compare with other products. I use them on top of watercolour, so they work well for how I use them. Although the other products are quite intriguing, I like the small amount of space that my neocolors occupy 😅.

Thank you so much for making this comparision video. I was waiting for it. :) This has cemented my decision to buy the Shuttleart tempera sticks. The fact that they cannot be blended (i.e. accidentally blended/blurred on the page, with the side of your hand) is a big plus, for me. A shame that the pastel range is no longer available - but I am just now going to buy thru your link the regular 32 piece set - and treat myself! From this video, it looks like their vibrancy is comparable to Caran d'Ache, but for a fraction of the price. I won't be so "precious" about actually using them because of that! Many, many thanks!

As well as these, I use Distress Crayons which are readily available here. They are not cheap. The colours are really nice. They are very soft, a bit like the kingart ones, and mostly transparent to semi-transparent.

Ottimo lavoro. Grazie per la comparazione. Molto interessante. 👍

That was interesting. I love the size of the neocolors and with them being easily available here compared to the others, I'll probably only buy them. Looks like I might need to invest in some kind of fixative though because keeping bits of paper between the pages will drive me nuts over time lol. Jess Karp had a video about how she stops her pages rubbing off on each other a little while back. I can't remember much from it so I'll need to look again and take notes (perimenopause brain strikes again 😵‍💫)

Wonderful comparison. I was thinking you didn’t have the Marabu art crayons to add to your comparison

Thank you for this video. I had owned the Gelatos before, and was wondering about the Kings Art. Thank you. All of the sticks seem lovely for their purposes.. I'm presently obsessed with oil pastels. I went to buy the water soluble type but instead ended up with Paul Rubens artist grade oil pastels, and a MIgyu? (can't recall the spelling) metallic set. I love both. So creamy. Thank you again for this lovely video. Have a great week.

Morning Helen x I have had this set of Kingart gel sticks in my amazon basket for ages now...i havent brought them as i didnt know how they compare to the other similar mediums that u r comparing them to......got my cuppa and ready for your thoughts....u r always so truthful and through.....thank u Helen x love Alli XXX

Very interesting and very useful, Helen. Thank you so much for putting in so much work with so much thought for our benefit.

Such a good comparison video! Thank you so much, Helen!

Thank you for this incredible comprehensive review of these products. WOW

I just wanted to say you have beautiful hands ! And thanks for the comparison testing .

I needed this I was trying to see if I wanted to grab neocolor 2, I just bought king art!

A note on the Gelatos: Fingers crossed that I'm wrong, and that they're still being produced!! Their not being produced any more was something I'd read elsewhere, and it seemed to be backed up by the lack of them in the UK, except for a few specific sets on Amazon and Ebay. They are still shown on the Faber Castell UK site, but are not for sale on there. The same few limited sets keep doing the rounds on UK sites - it doesn't seem like we've had any new stock for years.
So far I've heard of greater availability in the US and Canada.
If anyone knows any more, it would be good to hear!