The Tin of 30 is for people who have stopped dabbling. Thirty Neocolor II colours means real choice: warm and cool versions, proper earths, greys for shadows, and enough brights to make a page sing. Use them dry like a pastel, wet like a watercolour, or both at once, and you have a whole mixed media studio in one flat tin.

What You Get in the Tin of 30

At 30 colours, Neocolor II becomes a serious working palette. You get both warm and cool versions of the key colours, which is what lets you build believable light and shadow without muddy mixing.

Same professional Neocolor II quality: high pigment, excellent lightfastness and a soft, velvety wax that leaves no dust. It is the tin we see most often in art students' kits and illustrators' bags, because it does almost everything.

Colours in the Tin of 30

All 30 colours by number and name, as published for this set. Every colour is also sold on its own, so note the numbers of your favourites for top ups.

Caran d'Ache occasionally updates set assortments, so the colours in your box may vary slightly from this list.

The Caran d'Ache Difference: Swiss Made Since 1915

Here is the thing about Caran d'Ache. They have been making drawing tools in Geneva for more than a century, and they still do it the slow way, in their own Swiss workshops at Thônex just outside the city. Not outsourced, not rebadged, not made wherever is cheapest this year. When the tin says Swiss Made, it means the pigment, the wax and the stick were all made by people who have been perfecting this exact thing for generations.

It is still a family company too. The Hübscher family has been at the helm since the 1930s, and today Carole Hübscher leads as the fourth generation. That is why the quality does not wobble from one batch to the next. A Neocolor II stick you buy today behaves exactly like the one your art teacher handed you years ago.

Caran d'Ache also has form for inventing the things the rest of the art world copies. They launched Prismalo in 1931, the world's first watercolour pencil, and turned their Neocolor wax pastel water soluble in 1972. Neocolor II is the original, which is why so many imitations get compared to it and so few come close. We have stocked Caran d'Ache at Art Shed Brisbane for years, and it is one of those brands our team actually buys for themselves.

Why Artists Keep Coming Back to Neocolor II

• Two mediums in one stick. A bold, creamy pastel when dry and a luminous watercolour the moment water touches it. Fewer tools to carry, more ways to work.
• No dust, no mess. Wax based, so nothing to breathe in, nothing to fix, nothing smudging across your desk.
• Works on almost anything. Paper, cardboard, wood, glass, fabric, leather and stone. Journals, rocks, windows, mixed media.
• Pigment that pulls its weight. High pigment content means real covering power, so light colours sit over dark and washes stay bright.
• The original water soluble wax pastel. Neocolor II has been on art school kit lists since 1972. Everything else is the copy.
• Made to last. Excellent lightfastness and a stick tough enough to survive a school pencil case, so your work and your tin both go the distance.

Getting the Most Out of the Tin of 30

Use warm and cool versions side by side. Warm colours forward, cool colours back. Brush water through to soften distances and keep foreground marks dry and textured.

Try sgraffito: lay a light colour, cover with a dark one, and scratch a design back through with a skewer. The thick wax makes it crisp.

Wet work wants a watercolour paper of 300gsm or more, and a water brush from our aqua brush range keeps it all tidy.

Browse the rest of our pastel sets, everything in pastels, or the full Caran d'Ache range.

Questions About the Caran d'Ache Neocolor II Tin of 30