Soft Pastels : Oh So Messy And How I love you

I found a new love affair in art mediums that has made me abandon using pencils (not totally of course!). In fact working with Soft Pastels so much has made drawing with a pencil feel very alien and abstract to me, however I intend to go back to using one to get outline work done. But I figured I would open up a thread to discuss the medium, and the best supplies.

Conversation start:

I finally bought Fixative that says it should be workable with Soft Pastels, but when I used it on the piece the colors got thinned out. Is it because the color in that spot isn't thick enough? The grade of the pastels (I'm start with Artist Loft's brand soft pastels)? Or maybe it's the paper? Does anyone have any input? Tips? Tricks?

Or maybe you just want to gush over how fun soft pastels are?

I ahve this wierd infatuation with mediums that make my hands messy, and Soft Pastels do just that. I normally draw birds and other small animals in cartoon like fashions.

I tried to get into Oil Pastels, but I didn't like them as much as soft. Soft just over all feels easier to use, and the blending is so great. I normally use my fingers for the blending, but someone once suggested the blending sticks, but when I tried those it would just take the pastel up off the paper. Same goes for attempt to use tissue.

The paper I use is Mi-Teintes, Strathmore's textured art paper (I can't remember the exact name), and their Artagain (sp?) paper. I prefer Mi-Teintes to be honest, but it's a bit pricey on the limited budget I have. The texture paper from Strathmore is about the same price, but Artagain (sp?) is cheaper by almost a whole dollar, and on my budget, I tend to love that.