Reaper High Density Paint

I recently received a shipment of paints from Reaper, including a couple of bottles of their new line of high density paints.  Now that I've had the chance to try them out, I thought I'd share my impressions.

High density paints provide superior coverage due to high pigment density, and are ideal for basecoating miniatures, especially over black primer.  Games Workshop released a line of high density Foundation paints several years ago, which I have been using for quite some time.  So how do Reaper HD paints stack up against GW's Foundation line?

There are eighteen colours in the GW Foundation line, which comes in 0.4 oz. pots for $4.45 USD ($11.13 per oz).

Reaper HD has thirty-eight colours in its line, which come in 0.5 oz. dropper bottles for $3.29 USD ($6.58 per oz).

Foundation paints are extremely viscous and goopy.  Even thinned down I've always found them to be difficult to work with and unsuitable for blending, layering, or fine detail work.  Furthermore they tend to dry out even faster than normal Citadel paints so their life expectancy is low.

The Reaper HD's on the other hand, were absolutely a joy to paint with.  They have flow improver added to them and are therefore far more fluid and easier to work with than Foundation paints.  For basecoating over black, you can apply thin, even coats right out of the bottle, and if thinned down even further, they are great for layering and fine detail work.

After having worked with Foundation paints for so long, I was expecting something similar from Reaper.  Indeed I was anticipating a thick paint and was afraid that they would be too viscous for a dropper bottle.  On the contrary, the HD paints are of similar consistency to the regular Master Series paints, and rely upon their pigment density, not viscosity, for opaque coverage.

Suffice to say I am extremely impressed with Reaper HD and I don't see any reason to buy Foundation paint ever again.