Paint

This article is about a substance found in the Paper Mario series. For the item in Mario's Time Machine, see Paint (Mario's Time Machine). For the object found in various Mario games, see Painting.

Paint
First appearance	Paper Mario: Sticker Star (2012)
Latest appearance	Paper Mario: Color Splash (2016)

“Paint adds beauty and life to the world!”

—Huey, Paper Mario: Color Splash

Paint is a colorful substance which acts as the source of life and energy in Paper Mario: Color Splash. It is mainly produced in the Prisma Fountain by the Big Paint Stars, bringing color to all of Prism Island. Mario must harness paint to restore colorless areas, similar to his use of Confetti to repair Not-Bottomless Holes in Paper Mario: The Origami King.

History

Paper Mario: Sticker Star

Paint appears in Paper Mario: Sticker Star, carried in buckets by Paint Guys. It has a yellow and orange color resembling Goop. If the Paint Guy successfully attacks Mario, paint spills out of the bucket and obscures the screen, including the health bars of Mario and the enemies.

Paper Mario: Color Splash

Mario first sees the effects of paint being drained when Princess Peach and Toad visit his house with the blank Prisma Postal Toad. Upon investigating Port Prisma, the town is seen faded with many colorless spots, causing affected objects to become unreactive and for characters to be drained of life or memory. Once Huey is awakened, he serves as Mario's paint supply and transforms his hammer into the Paint Hammer so that Mario can repaint the island. Notably Mario cannot splash paint from his hammer without Huey, as seen in Mustard Café.

Paint Meters

Huey's capacity is indicated with a paint meter, featuring three columns for each primary color of red, blue, and yellow. Secondary colors are used by combining these paint reserves (e.g. green paint requires both blue and yellow paint). The meters can be filled by blobs of paint acquired from environmental objects, dropped from defeated enemies, wrung out from squeezing Things, or simply found on the ground, while paint capacity can be increased by collecting Hammer Scraps. Paint blobs vary in size and color, shimmering every 1.5 seconds. Using a 1-Up Mushroom card in battle or drinking either Prisma Juice or Mustard Juice will fully restore Mario's paint, whilst stepping into the rainbow paint of Prisma Fountain restores both Mario's paint and HP.

Black paint coating a section of Sunglow Ridge.

Paint, when handled haphazardly, can also pollute and corrupt through the formation of Black paint. This toxic substance formed when Bowser mixed the paint of Prism Fountain, possessing and transforming him into Black Bowser with plans to coat the world with mass-produced Black paint bombs. When found on the ground it deals 30 damage on contact, similar to Splotchy goop. Black Lava Bubbles can form from puddles of the paint while fighting Black Bowser.

In battles, paint increases the strength of Battle Cards, similar to using Flower Points for stronger attacks. Each card requires specific amounts and colors of paint to be used at full strength, but an unfinished or even uncolored card still has minimal effect in battle. Paint also indicates the amount of HP each enemy has left, where more damage results in the enemy being further drained of color starting at their feet. This replaces the typical health-bar indicator used in previous Paper Mario entries. Roy Koopa uses paint stolen from Mario in his battle to inflict status effects:

Color	Effect
Red	Inflicts Rage for one turn; Mario is enraged, while the music and gameplay speed up.
Orange	Inflicts Self-conscious for one turn; Mario can only use fully-painted cards in this state.
Yellow	Inflicts Rhythm for one turn; Mario begins to dance, and cannot play blue cards.
Green	Inflicts Unmotivated for one turn; Mario has little energy, and the music and gameplay slow down.
Blue	Inflicts Blue for one turn. Mario sits sadly and can only paint his Battle Cards with blue.
Purple	Inflicts Poison for one turn; Mario will take 10 damage for every Battle Card used.
Black	Heavily obscures the area/screen, causing all of Mario's attacks to miss. Can be removed using the Washing Machine.

The Big Paint Stars reveal that paint has the power to communicate thoughts and memories between individuals telepathically, as demonstrated when Mario and Huey are shown the events that resulted in Port Prisma's attack. Paint is also consumed when pressing to Flip, a technique used inside the Green Energy Plant monitor to navigate the Super Mario Bros. 3-inspired locations with a 3D, isometric view. Additionally, the map used to navigate between areas of the island is initially devoid of color. As Mini Paint Stars are collected, more areas are filled in with paint both to indicate that new levels are accessible and serve as a visual aide towards the progress of repainting Prisma Island.

Gallery

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  Mario splashing paint out of his Paint Hammer.

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  A Slurp Guy sucking the paint out of a Toad.

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  A Paint Guy holding a bucket of red paint.

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  A Paint Guy holding a bucket of blue paint.

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  The purple Big Paint Star

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  a yellow Mini Paint Star

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  A colorless map of Prism Island

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  A restored map of Prism Island

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  A Rainbow Road formed from the Big Paint Stars' paint.

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  Bowser mixes the paint in Prisma Fountain.

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  Paint obscuring the screen in Paper Mario: Sticker Star.

Names in other languages

Language	Name	Meaning	Notes
Japanese	ペンキ[?] penki	paint
Dutch	verf[?]	paint
French	peinture[?]	paint
German	Farbe[?]	Color
Italian	colore[?]	color
Portuguese	tinta[?]	paint
Russian	краска[?] kraska	paint
Spanish	pintura[?]	paint