Reaper Miniatures is revising and relaunching their entire paint line. I’ve collected available information about the new paints here. Scroll down to the second half of this page for my personal experiences with the paints, miniatures I’ve painted with them, and swatches that I’ve made of the colours I have.

 

RMS Remastered Resources

This section is a collection of links to videos and additional information about the MSP Remastered paints and the Kickstarter for them.

 

KICKSTARTER: The Reaper Master Series Paint Remastered Kickstarter

This is where you can pick up the paint and add-ons.

 

SPREADSHEET: The Paint List

Complete list of the new paints; which pledge level includes which paint; paint origin (core line, Kickstarter, seasonal); notes from paint mixers Anne Foerster and Bonita Riolo

 

VIDEO: What and Why of RMS Remastered

Anne Foerster explains why the current paint line needs condensing; what’s in the new line; what is different about the new paint; why Kickstarter; what makes MSP paint unique

 

VIDEO: RMS Remastered Consistency and Coverage Philophophy

 

VIDEO: Pigments, Paint Chemistry, and Reaper Remastered

Anne Foerster outlines the various components that make up a paint; lists the exact pigments used to mix Reaper paints.

 

VIDEO: The RMS Additives

What they are and how to use them

 

VIDEO: Opacity/Coverage Philosophy of RMS Remastered

 

VIDEO: Brief Comparison of Original to RMS Remastered

An overview of my swatches of original vs new paints with comments from paint mixer Bonita Riolo

 

VIDEO: Long Version Comparison of Original to RMS Remastered

Painting out my swatches of original vs new paints with comments from paint mixer Bonita Riolo

 

VIDEO REVIEW: From Zombie Sashimi

A review of the 12 paints available at ReaperCon 2025

 

Paint Notes and FAQs

This information is collected from conversation with Reaper representatives and comments they’ve made on the Kickstarter.

 

Which paints are in the new line?

This spreadsheet lists the paints in the new line. It also indicates the origin of a paint – from the original MSP line, from a holiday or other special event, from previous Kickstarters, or a brand new colour. I believe there are around 25 completely new colours.

 

If the name is the same, is the colour the same?

If a paint has the same name as an existing colour, it is very similar to that colour, but may not be identical! Most remastered paints have a larger proportion of pigment than did their original versions, and that can change the appearance of the hue slightly. Some have had the colour recipes slightly shifted to create a better colour spread throughout the 200 Remastered colours. 

 

I did a video of test swatches with a selection of original vs remastered colours, and spoke with Bonita about the colours I selected. My observations of these paints appear to verify Bonita’s statements: some paints exhibit no difference in hue, or only a very subtle difference; some are a little more pronounced. (A long version video of the swatching is also available.) Below are scans of the colours I compared. The original MSP colour is on the left, the Remastered version is on the right.

 

Colours: Blood Red; Fire Orange; Lemon Yellow; Sun Yellow; Blush Pink; Cats-Eye Green

 

Colours: Brilliant Green; Pine Green; Blue Flame; Snow Shadow; Ashen Blue; Glacier Blue; Dragon Blue

 

Colours: Cyan Blue; Imperial Purple; Nighsky Indigo; Phantom Glow; Siren’s Song

 

Colours: Surf Aqua; Marine Teal; Driftwood Brown; Saddle Brown; Stone Grey; Linen White

 

If you use any current RMS paint colours that are essential to your painting style or an army colour scheme, you may want to check whether or not these are being carried over to the new set to see whether you wish to purchase a few backup bottles now. (Paint keeps well provided you do some maintenance on it now and again.)

 

How different are these paints to the original Reaper Master Series?

If you already like Reaper paints you’ll be relieved to know that the reformulating process is being guided by the same principles and types of ingredients. The remastered paints are rich in hue, creamy in texture, and continue to excel at techniques that involve dilution, including layering and glazing. You can read more about my personal opinion of the new paints below.

 

If you didn’t like the original line or are unfamiliar with Reaper paints, you may want to check out some of the videos linked above to determine whether they might work with how you prefer to paint.

 

There already exist several paint lines whose overarching priority is opacity. Some pigments are inherently transparent. Creating more opaque paints with these requires mixing in more opaque pigments. Usually this is white and/or black, both of which reduce the saturation of a colour. Reaper’s approach is to formulate each hue to be the best version of itself that it can be. Many remastered paints do have increased opacity due to increased pigment load, however many high chroma paints remain transparent.

 

What is new is an indicator on the bottle that indicates opacity on a scale of one to three, so consumers will be able to select only the more opaque colours if that is their preference.

 

Can you use original and remastered together?

Yes! You can use original and remastered MSP paints and additives together, including directly mixing them together.

 

As a general rule, you can mix any line of acrylics that are thinned with water with any other. This includes art store brands like Golden and Liquitex, as well as miniature specific brands like Games Workshop and The Army Painter. If a paint line has its own special thinner non-water thinner, like Tamiya, then it is unlikely to mix well with others.

Any changes in the labels?

The new labels provide helpful information for the painter. They include an opacity meter that indicates the opacity/transparency of that particular colour. Each paint has a thematic name, but also a plain language colour descriptor. These are based on the ISCC-NBS colour system.

 

My person opinion about MSP Remastered

First, some context. I have been using Reaper paints almost exclusively the entire twenty or so years I’ve been painting miniatures. I started with Reaper’s original Pro Paints. I was working in a game store at the time Reaper Master Series released, and bought them all as soon as they hit the shelf. I’ve done commission work for Reaper Miniatures, but I am not an employee. I’ve received free samples of the remastered paints, but I am under no obligation to advertise them or speak only positively about them.

 

I’ve been using MSP Remastered paints since last August, both the 12 pack set released at ReaperCon, and additional colours that Reaper has been sending me. One of the first things I painted with the Remastered paints was this vignette, the Oath. I used classic RMS as well, because my initial Remastered colour selection was limited. The oranges, blues, and the Queen’s skin tones were painted with Remastered paints.

 

 

I started to use the paints on my Reaper Miniatures’ stream, Beyond the Kit, to give others the opportunity to see them in action. These three characters were painted on stream with Remastered paints, with a focus on the layering technique. I find the paints to have a lovely creamy consistency that lays down smoothly and flows off of the brush well, which is an advantage for both base-coating and layering. The Remastered paints have the same soft matte finish of original RMS. I have a strong preference for matte paints, and they meet my needs perfectly. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I painted this rock troll to practice techniques I had studied in a bust workshop with James Rice. The techniques included both opaque and transparent applications of RMS Remastered paint. You can read more about how I painted the rock troll, including WIP pictures.

 

 

 

 

This 75mm figure was painted with a mixture of original and Remastered MSP paints as I did not have all the colours I wanted to use available in Remastered at the time. I had only two skin tones and wished for a different look for this character than those provided. The purple areas are all Remastered paints, and were painted in a texture painting style. Every other section features Remastered Kobold Scale mixed with grey. I used this for colour for texture painting the leather areas, and as a glaze on the fur, among other things. I used only water for the glazes, which were thinned down considerably.  The coverage was smooth and I did not notice any separation on the palette.

 

 

 

Close up of textured areas painted predominately with RMS Remastered paints – the leather and purple sleeves.

 

After receiving some additional colours, I painted these wolves and a warg using some different techniques. The foundation was wet-blended. Detail was added to the fur with drybrushing, and then a little colour variation added via glazes. I found the paints performed well with all of these techniques. The colours I chose for wet-blending were fairly opaque. The more transparent paints in the line might not be as suitable for that technique.

 

 

 

I used these paints on some additional projects which are not yet finished. After using them for months, I can say that the Remastered paints are definitely an improvement over the original RMS. I think of them as RMS Plus – more of everything I liked about the original paint line – more opacity, more creaminess, richer colour. If opaque coverage is your only priority, this is not the paint line for you, though you may want to check out some of the paints designated as high opacity once they hit retail. If you use or would like to use techniques that involve thinning paint like layering and glazing, they’re definitely worth checking out.

Colour Swatches

Note that I do not have all the colours! So this doesn’t represent the complete colour spread over the 200 paints. If you’d like to see the complete colour spread, scroll down to the bottom of the Kickstarter page to look at the Chromatic Crusaders in all their glory! This may also include a few colours that are NOT in the 200 general release colours but were fulfilled in the Dungeon Dwellers Kickstarter.

 

It is also important to note that the reformulation is an on-going process. Some of the paints I have may have between tweaked a little after I received them. These samples were painted onto watercolour paper, and then scanned on my Epson. I do not have the capacity to colour correct these samples, and every monitor differs, so these probably do not reflect the exact colours of the paints!

 

My process for painting the swatches is to paint at out of the bottle strength on the left, and then thin down the colour with some water on the right. This allows you to see both the masstone (out of the bottle) and undertone (thinned down) of the paint. The undertone can appear quite differerent than you would expect on darker paints.

 

 

 

I placed a piece of paper on top of this before Sharkbite had finished drying so a bit of the swatch ripped off when I pulled the papers apart.

 

 

If anyone has any questions about my experiences with the paint, I’ll be happy to try to answer them here in the comments.