Gabrielle L.
The pan pastels work different than the sticks. Now for application, there are the sponges that are included that provide thick layers. But I also use Q-tips and paint brushes which provide another method of spreading the surface and for blending. And then there are the fingers. Each applicator behaves differently so you work with many styles to get different effects.
These pan pastels also work great for toning paper that you then use with colored pencils. Can also be done with toning for paintings (watercolor and gouache can be affected by their color). The colors are quite bright and stood up on the black paper. The beige works better than white on the black paper since white would be too harsh but the beige was just right. The green background came from the Bright Yellow Green pan pastel that they previously offered. The colors can be blended to get shades beyond the 4 basic colors that I started with.
Since one tub screws into the underside of the other storage works really well.