The John Blanche paint set range will stop at volume 5, as The Army Painter says it won’t add any paints the late artist didn’t help make.
The Army Painter could’ve left the future of the range vague. Instead, its update put a hard line under the whole thing: Volume 5 arrives in early 2027 as the final set Blanche worked on, and that’s where the range ends.
We weren’t sure how direct they would be with the whole thing, but this feels like the right choice overall. With four volumes already out, the easy move would’ve been to keep finding reasons for another box.
Instead, they’ve decided the Blanche range gets an actual finish to the line. Best of all, Blanche’s family gave its blessing for the range to stay on shelves and continues to benefit from sales, and The Army Painter says it wouldn’t have carried on without that approval.
The Army Painter Decided to Stop at 50 Colors
- Volume 5: the final set Blanche worked on, landing early 2027 and taking the range to 50 colors total.
- Store racks: a dedicated Blanche paint rack goes into friendly local game stores worldwide starting this fall.
- No reformulation: The Army Painter says the colors stay exactly as they were developed with him.
“Without John’s contribution and guidance, we don’t think there are more paints to make. We think the range is complete.”
The range is already four volumes deep, Blanche is a name hobbyists know immediately, and anyone who picked up Volumes 1 and 2 came back for Volumes 3 and 4. but they aren’t trying to stretch things out here.
They could have easily brought in somebody else, picked another batch of colors “in the spirit of” the range, put Volume 6 on the box, and kept it moving. Plenty of licensed lines have carried on long after the person whose name is on them stopped being part of the actual work.
The Army Painter says that’s not what this range is. These paints came out of the back-and-forth with Blanche himself, and without that contribution, they don’t think there’s another set to make.
Volume 5 Is the Last Thing He Mixed With Them
The way The Army Painter describes working with Blanche makes that decision a lot easier to understand, too. They went in expecting a few pointers, maybe three or four colors pulled from decades of his artwork, and enough direction to build a set around them.
Instead, Blanche started pushing them just as hard. He had demands, he wanted the best product they could make, and by The Army Painter’s telling, once he started turning their questions back on them, they understood what kind of collaboration this was going to be.
Blanche’s art and work ethic shaped the entirety of 40k for decades, and that shows in the paints he helped develop as well that may just end up being some of the best paints for miniatures ever.
Blanche Singles Are Finally Coming to Your Local Store
For painters who actually want to buy new (or old) colors, the retail change is probably the most important part. Starting this fall, a dedicated Blanche rack rolls into local game stores worldwide, so the singles stop being something you have to chase down at conventions.
The rack carries Volumes 1 through 4 as singles, with a fifth row of 10 empty slots waiting for Volume 5. Blanche got to see the rack before he passed and approved the design, so even the retail setup was something he had a hand in.
For paints built around the visual language Blanche brought to the hobby, that keeps the range tied to what he built over those decades instead of leaving his name on the bottles while everything behind it changes.
Nobody Is Reformulating These Colors, Ever
Anyone who’s tried to paint the same model months later knows how irritating a recipe change can be. The new color doesn’t quite sit over the old one, the pigment load feels different, and suddenly the vehicle you started in March doesn’t match the one you’re finishing in July.
The Army Painter went out of its way to say that won’t happen here. The Blanche colors stay exactly as they were developed, with no tweaks and no quiet reformulation later because a different recipe would be cheaper or easier to make. And while “we won’t reformulate it” sounds simple, they’re giving up one of the normal ways a paint line can change over time.
Final Thoughts on the John Blanche Paint Set Range
Now, there’s still one loose end left as soemthing limited tied to the range is coming in 2027, and Blanche saw it before he passed and was apparently thrilled about it. The Army Painter isn’t saying what it is yet, only that we’ll hear more between now and its Founders’ Day celebration this fall, and that people should be quick when it lands.
So until The Army Painter shows it off, the only real question left is what that limited item actually is and why Blanche was so excited to see it.
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What do you think about The Army Painter closing the John Blanche paint set range at 50 colors instead of keeping it going?
