Ah, my art degree is finally... well, it's not necessarily useful but still...

Most of your sharpeners suck balls, which is why you're here asking. Unless it's a know golden sharpener, throw it the fuck out because I'm about to tell you what you need to do.

Go to any store that caters to artists. AC Moore, Hobby Lobby, Michaels are all good examples.

Waltz over to the drawing supplies. You're going to pick up two things: a sharpener and a sandpaper board

Now you're not going to get just any sharpener because we artists are a tricky lot. We have charcoal pencils which are thicker but pretend to be regular pencils. So pay attention, sport. You want the one with the smaller of the two holes. This shows you exactly what I mean.

Next, the sandpaper board... see, when you sharpen a pencil, you'll grind it down to nothing trying to get it perfect. Don't worry about it. Just get it "almost there" and then grind the tip against the sandpaper at an angle. This video will tell you all about it, just start at about 1:30.

But wait, there's more. If you look around while you're there, you'll see all kinds of pencils. Don't let that overwhelm you! If you need to get a pencil while you're there, just get a 2B because that's what you use normally. If you're brave, you can pick up a solid graphite pencil. They're a joy to work with but if you drop it, you'll shatter it.

Or you can be really smart and get a mechanical pencil an never worry about it again.