Reaper HD Paints: Are they worth it?

[Sir Dibblet]

Thread title says it all: I have a nice yearly bonus from work and was thinking about treating myself to a full set of the reaper HD series paints as I love the MSP line. Has anyone worked with these? What is the main difference? From what I gather, these are just thicker paints and work best with the Bones line of minis as a base rather than priming. Any thoughts?

 

[Dsamuels]

I love the master series paints! The triad system is phenomenally easy to use and looks great! The paints are very opaque and have extremely high quality pigments so they thin well. I haven't tried painting any of the bone plastics but I am a strong proponent to always using primer. Now since bone is a flexible plastic you might try using an adhesion promoter like bulldog before spraying or adding paint. It really helps paint adhere to flexible plastic.

 

[Demihuman]

I have heard mixed reviews. I love my Reaper paint s but have yet to try the HD ones. A friend that is a competitive painter really likes them. I think they are just thicker.

 

[Splurch]

The HD line is basically their regular paints but just a little thicker. If you like their MSP you'll like their HD. That being said, I would recommend getting a single bottle and testing it out before you buy the entire line. On the off chance you hate the consistency change you won't regret spending so much.

 

[JohnLobster]

The HD are fine paints - I have several. They cover better than regular MSP and behave more like Vallejo paints.

However I do not recommend getting a set. They don't match triads and are not triads themselves so they simply don't fit. You would be better off getting psuedo triads of Vallejo colours

If you are getting all the coverage you want from MSP then no need for HD

You would be better off asking the question

"What I am not getting from MSP ?"

and then figuring out an answer from the wide variety of paints out there

Good luck

John

 

[Splurch]

"What I am not getting from MSP ?"

John

Well the easy answer to that is HD Dragon Blue, which is an absolutely gorgeous blue Otherwise JohnLobster has a good point and reminded me of some other things besides its lack of triad. I only have a few of them which I got through their kickstarter bundles, but some of the colors are very similar to the msp line. For example, HD Pale Saffron is identical to MSP Sun Yellow color wise, HD Turf Green is close enough to MSP Leaf Green that you could use them on the same mini and wouldn't notice, but if you stare long enough at a sample dot of them painted next to each other you can see the slightest difference.

Edit: just some naming stuff

 

[JohnLobster]

HD Dragon blue

Yes, yes - totally love that colour

I also really like the Caucasian flesh

John

 

[rican919]

I started with one of reaper's smaller kits, a learn to paint kit that came with a decent amount of MSPs, a couple HDs, a few Bones (flexible plastic) minis, a brush, and a nice paint case with foam inserts for your paint bottles. It was under $30 and gave me enough opportunity to test their paints out on the supplied minis and is packaged with a learn to paint guide. Personally, I loved them. I also buy from army painter, but tbh, I like reaper's triad system. Makes shading and highlighting super easy to plan out. If you aren't sure about the paint quality and want to try for yourself, get one of those stater kits. They're inexpensive but all inclusive for painting the included minis.

I do like the dragon blue, btw, the HD's have more pigment in them, and they look very very good.

 

[rican919]

I want to add that I've been noticing consistency issues with AP series of paints. Some are very very thick and have to be watered down to even be usable. I have not had any of those issues with reaper paints. I'm still new to the world of minis, so I'm learning as I go. Just thought I'd share.

 

[KruleBear]

I just opened a Reaper HD bottle I got in the last year called something like concrete grey. It was thicker...well actually the pigment was a solid clump with the liquid medium on top. I don't know if it had froze in shipment or what, but I checked a couple of the other paints from that shipment and they were fine.

 

[MrJim]

The HD can be interpreted as High Density. They are to their standard paints what GW base paints are to their layer paints. More pigment for quick base coating with less coats.

 

[simonsickboy]

sadly they leave that color out of the starter set (one with 3 minis brushes, book, and case)