Why do some Master Series Paints have black caps?

[Wolf Munroe]

I have three bottles of Reaper paints with black caps, all the others have white caps.

 

The first ones with black caps were a free sample (spruce green 29846 from the discontinued MSP-HD line) and a Pathfinder-branded adamantine 89556 metallic.

So I thought "OK, the black caps are on the other product lines, not the main MSP line"  That made sense enough to me, and I don't have any other sample paints or Pathfinder-branded paints to contradict that theory. 

 

But then I got the holiday paint set (09973) and of the ten colors in the set, one of them has a black cap.  It's Frosty Blue 09692.  It's a Master Series Paint that is like all the other paints in the set as far as I can tell, so why does it have a black cap while all the others in the set, and all my other MSP-branded paints have white caps? 

 

Sorry if this has been asked before.  I tried searching "black caps" on the forum but just saw a bunch of results about black paints.  (Maybe I didn't look deep enough.)

Edited August 17, 2021 by Wolf Munroe
missing word

[Inarah]

The availability of cap colors has changed over the years.  Reaper started with different colors for different lines, then couldn't get them consistently. Now they use whatever is available at the time they need them.  That's it. 

[Wolf Munroe]

So does that mean some of the sets had all white caps and some of them had a bigger mix of white/black caps, or would all of a color, such as frosty blue 09692...

 

I just noticed the label on the frosty blue included in the set says it's a Bones paint.  It's the only one in the set labeled as a Bones paint.  Its number does follow the numbering sequence of all the other paints in the set though, which is weird as none of them are labeled as Bones paints.  

OK, well apparently the one with the black cap is labeled as a Bones paint.  So that answers that.  

Kind of weird that one of the paints in the set is a Bones paint, but it is labeled as such.  

[Gadgetman!]

Core had White, HD had black. That was the important bit.   

Not only was it availability, but with their paint filling machine they would have had to empty it of caps every time they changed from one series of paint to another.    

 

I use heat-shrink tubing meant for 18650 Li-ion batteries to colour the caps of my paints.   

- Orange: Seasonal or otherwise difficult to find. assume pain if you touch without good reason.  

- Red: discontinued. DO NOT TOUCH. I will force you to eat your own brushes if you do.   

 

But there are many colours of tubing, and you can use it any which way you want. 

 

[Inarah]

16 hours ago, Wolf Munroe said:

 

I just noticed the label on the frosty blue included in the set says it's a Bones paint.  It's the only one in the set labeled as a Bones paint.  Its number does follow the numbering sequence of all the other paints in the set though, which is weird as none of them are labeled as Bones paints.  
 

 

They're all Bones paints in the sense that they are all acrylic and can be painted on all the varieties of Bones figures, straight out of the bottle.   There have been some label design changes too, and that might be what you're experiencing.  Not all the paints are mixed at once, there may be months between batches, where a box of old labels show up.  Nothing to get too concerned about. 

 

Packaging for the figures changes from time to time, too.  Sometimes a figure will come out on a plain green Reaper card, and show up in the store later on a Bones or Chronoscope card back, or vice versa. 

 

[willmontgomery]

As others have stated, it used to be:

white cap indicated MSP (also had a white label)

black cap indicated HD (also had a yellow label)

Even in those days, promo paints (limited edition) may have been exceptions (e.g., Deadrose Red identified as HD but bottled with a white label and/or a white cap).

 

Then along came Bones HD. Bones HD paints had black caps -- at least to begin with -- but a white label.

 

Then the Pathfinder paints appeared. I understood these to be HD (like Bones HD), and -- at least to begin with -- they did come with black caps (like Bones HD and the original HD). They come with a white label that says Pathfinder, but the label doesn't actually say HD.

 

Around this time (in retrospect), things were about to turn... weird.

The regular HD line was discontinued (with certain colors retained into the Bones line). At some point before production actually ceased, some HD paints were bottled with white labels (not yellow), and some of these also had white caps (not black). I even saw some grey caps around this time.

 

Some Fast Palette sets (High Seas) were produced where the box has the Bones Ultra-Coverage logo; the paints inside: 1) have white caps, 2) have white labels that say Bones HD, but 3) are not numbered consecutively with the Bones line (although they are close), and do not (yet?) appear on the Bones page on the Reaper website.

 

At least one other Fast Palette set (Cyber Gangs) was produced where the box does not have the Bones Ultra-Coverage logo and the paints inside: 1) have white caps, 2) have white labels that say Bones but do not say HD, and have a completely different numbering system (29xxx, extending the numbering from the newest paints at the bottom of the MSP Core Colors page on the Reaper website). But the box states "includes six... Reaper MSP Core Colors and Bones Ultra Coverage Paints", whereas all six bottles are labeled exactly the same way (all say Bones, none say HD). This matches bottles from the beginning of the 29xxx numbering line, suggesting that the Cyber Gangs paints are not HD, that the Bones umbrella label is being extended more broadly (to encompass paints that are not HD / Ultra-Coverage), and that the printing on the box is wrong.

 

Addendum:

On the other hand, the teaser imagery for the upcoming Dungeon Dwellers Adventure Colors set shows: 1) the Bones Ultra-Coverage logo, 2) "includes six... Reaper MSP Bones Ultra Coverage Paints", and 3) paints numbered in the 29xxx series. So this suggests that the 94xx / 95xx numbering series (associated with Bones HD) may not be the only place that HD / Ultra-Coverage paints will appear. On the other other hand, the bottles in this set do not display "Bones" anywhere on the label, and do not mention HD either. So maybe the box is wrong, and they aren't Bones / Ultra-Coverage after all, and that explains the paint numbering?

 

Bottom line:

It used to be true that one could tell at a glance whether a paint was Core Colors or HD / Ultra-Coverage. Now the distinction is not clear -- not from caps, but also not from numbering or even (seemingly) from labeling -- and it seems like that may be intentional on the part of Reaper. Until someone knowledgeable weighs in here -- or possible after the paints appear in the webstore and we can see on which page (Core Colors or Bones) they appear -- I guess I won't how to file about two dozen recently released paints (acquired in Fast Palette sets).

Edited June 17, 2022 by willmontgomery
add info about upcoming set

[willmontgomery]

Reaper Customer Service told me that the series 29xxx corresponds to:

1) Core Colors (not Bones or other HD)

2) paints that are not available outside of sets (like Fast Palette sets)

 

I conclude that all of Cyber Gangs, Darkreach, Gloom & Grave, and Dungeon Dwellers Adventure Colors consist entirely of Core Colors (and that the printing on the Adventure Colors box is not correct).