These are the colors I work down to tiny nibs and have to purchase frequently, in fact, I find that almost all of the colors I use most fall into the more or less "neutral" category. The key colors that are absolutely essential are almost the same as the colors I most rely on in oil painting: white, black, indian reds, and ochres. Favorites: light peach, peach, pink rose, french greys (ALL the various percents), cool greys (various percents), clay rose, creme, salmon pink, peach beige, ginger root, sepia, light umber, burnt ochre, sand, deco pink, beige, bronze (NOT the matallic one), sandbar brown, not all of these can be found at the local art store, but generally I can find enough neutrals and skin tones to get the job done. Best!

Here and there people have asked about techniques for building flesh tones, colors used etc. I don't have one particular technique, it's mostly a slow building up of colors, like weaving a blue rug, say, but you don't have the exact blue thread that you need, you only have a selection of blue threads to make a match to the exact color blue that you want. It is possible to achieve the exact hue you would like, but only through a blending of the various hues. I'll post one more tip with a list of all of my most used skin colors which is use for this sort of extensive blending.

I liked the tip about about super gluing short pencils, I figured out that some strong tape also does the trick if you don't want to mess with glue.I tape my favorite stubs to my most garish colors (the ones I use rarely and are nice and long), the bright colors help me spot my favorite itty bitty hues that are tacked onto their ends.

thanks for the tip on fixatives. I held the can farther away and am happy to say it turned out ok. Still not sure if I want to go with matte or gloss, I'm planning on displaying my drawings as paintings (that is, not under glass) which is why I went with gloss...but not sold on it yet.

I like the look of the gloss fixative, but it severely darkened my last colored pencil drawing, does anyone know if the matte is less likely to do this? Or maybe I'm just holding the spray can too close?

This is not a tip, but a question. Which is the best surface for drawing with soft core colored pencils? I have tried mat board (ended in disaster). Some papers are ok, but I am a looking for a heavy, sturdy board surface. I have tried Ampersands boards, but the claybord (which works well) also eats up the pencils like crazy, it's so rough. Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated!