Paint

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

Paint
Artwork from Paper Mario: Color Splash
First appearance	Paper Mario: Sticker Star (2012)
Latest appearance	Paper Mario: The Origami King (2020)
Comparable Confetti Flower Point Goop

“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

A Paint Guy obscuring the screen.

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 Toadmaster General. 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 Globs of Paint acquired from environmental objects, dropped from defeated enemies, wrung out from squeezing Things, or simply found on the ground, and paint capacity can be increased by collecting Hammer Scraps. Paint globs 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.

Paper Mario: The Origami King

Kamek convinces Bowser Jr. to soak into the Spring of Rainbows.

While paint does not appear physically in Paper Mario: The Origami King, characters can still be drained of color. This is seen when Bowser Jr., along with a nearby Shy Guy and Spike, soak for too long in the Spring of Jungle Mist at Shangri-Spa, and Olivia warns Mario to exit the water for this reason if he attempts to reenter the hot spring. Bowser Jr.'s colors are restored after soaking into the Spring of Rainbows, which looks and behaves similarly to the Prisma Fountain.

Paint sources

Paint globs can be found on the ground across Prism Island, such as a line of rainbow paint along the shore of Bloo Bay Beach. It can also be dropped from battling enemies, with their paint amounts documented in the Paper Mario: Color Splash bestiary.

In addition to being found on the ground and dropped from enemies, Prism Island contains paint in many objects which can be struck, wrung out, or otherwise interacted with to collect specific colors. Repeatedly striking an object may continue to drop paint, though at a reduced amount or size. Other objects may stay squished for a moment and are thus unable to produce more paint until their shape restores. Note that prior to wringing out Huey, these objects instead drop coins when struck. These details have been outlined below, with notes on extra conditions and commas denoting the reduced amounts from repeated hits:

Object	Paint	Amount	Locations
Big Paint Star	Red	8x	Port Prisma
Pink flower	Red	5-1x 1x (flipped/small) 0x (squished)	Common
Pink planter	Red	2-1x	Plum Park
Flower vase	Red	2-1x 0x (squished)	Dark Bloo Inn
Paint bucket	Red	8x, 1x 0x (squished/empty)	Ruddy Road
Red rocks	Red	3x 0x (flipped)	Indigo Underground, Bloo Bay Beach, Daffodil Peak, Sunglow Ridge, The Golden Coliseum, Vortex Island, Lighthouse Island, Fortune Island, Mustard Café, Redpepper Volcano, Redpepper Crater
Red Inn chair	Red	1x 0x (squished)	Dark Bloo Inn
Red fruit	Red	4-1x	Mondo Woods, Sacred Forest, Mossrock Theater
Rock cutout	Red Yellow	4-3x 0x (flipped)	Redpepper Crater
Big Paint Star	Orange	8x	Port Prisma
Barrel	Orange	4-3x	Common
Small bench	Orange	2-1x 0x (squished)	Port Prisma, Lighthouse Island
Pot	Orange	5-1x 0x (squished)	Kiwano Temple, Vortex Island
House chair	Orange	2-1x 0x (squished/flipped)	Port Prisma, Ruddy Road, Tangerino Grill
Bird food	Orange	2-1x	Dark Bloo Inn
Breakable wall	Orange	5-1x	Marmalade Valley
Big Paint Star	Yellow	8x	Port Prisma
Yellow flower	Yellow	5-1x 1x (flipped/small) 0x (squished)	Common
Yellow planter	Yellow	2-1x	Plum Park
Post	Yellow	5-3x 1x (small)	Ruddy Road, Daffodil Peak, Château Chanterelle, Sacred Forest, Vortex Island, Fortune Island
Crate	Yellow	5-1x 0x (Card)	Common
Big Crate	Yellow Orange	5-3x 0x (Card)	Common
Yellow rocks	Yellow	3x 0x (flipped)	Indigo Underground, Bloo Bay Beach, Daffodil Peak, Sunglow Ridge, The Golden Coliseum, Vortex Island, Lighthouse Island, Fortune Island, Mustard Café, Redpepper Volcano, Redpepper Crater
Coconut	Yellow	5-4x	Bloo Bay Beach
Sand hill	Yellow	5-4x	Bloo Bay Beach, Mustard Café
Yellow fruit	Yellow	4-1x	Mondo Woods, Sacred Forest, Mossrock Theater
Stool	Yellow	5-1x	Vortex Island
Drawer	Yellow Orange	2-0x 0x (opened)	Port Prisma, Dark Bloo Inn
Dresser	Yellow	2-0x 0x (opened)	Port Prisma, Dark Bloo Inn
Fancy dresser	Yellow	3x 0x (opened)	Daffodil Peak
Service Bell	Yellow	1-0x	Dark Bloo Inn
Big Paint Star	Green	8x	Port Prisma
Bush	Green	2x 5-4x (big/small) 3x (falling) 0x (squished/flipped)	Common
Cactus	Green	1-0x 0x (flipped)	Mustard Café
Weeds	Green	1x 0x (flipped)	Common
Tall grass	Green	1x 0x (squished)	Sunglow Ridge
Big leaf	Green	5x, 1x	Mondo Woods
Shutters	Green	4x 0x (opened)	Port Prisma
Telephone	Green	1-0x	Dark Bloo Inn
Tree	Green	2-1x	Port Prisma, Ruddy Road, Cherry Lake, Sunglow Ridge, Château Chanterelle
Potted Tree	Green	2-1x	Port Prisma, Ruddy Road, Château Chanterelle, Dark Bloo Inn, Vortex Island, Lighthouse Island
Forest Tree	Green	4-1x, 1x 6-5x, 1x (small) 0x (big)	Mondo Woods, Sacred Forest, Mossrock Theater, The Emerald Circus
Big Paint Star	Blue	8x	Port Prisma
Blue flower	Blue	5-1x 1x (flipped/small) 0x (squished)	Common
Blue planter	Blue	2-1x	Plum Park
Blue rocks	Blue	3x 0x (flipped)	Indigo Underground, Bloo Bay Beach, Daffodil Peak, Sunglow Ridge, The Golden Coliseum, Vortex Island, Lighthouse Island, Fortune Island, Mustard Café, Redpepper Volcano, Redpepper Crater
Metal Bucket	Blue	1x	Vortex Island
Spa Bucket	Blue	2-1x 0x (empty)	Redpepper Crater
Big Paint Star	Purple	8x	Port Prisma
Prisma Fountain	Rainbow	Full refill	Port Prisma
Thing	Rainbow	Full refill	Various Areas
1-Up Mushroom	Rainbow	120 paint	Green Energy Plant
Flower bucket	Rainbow	2-1x 0x (squished)	Plum Park, Tangerino Grill
Framed art	Rainbow	3-2x (Dark Bloo Inn) 0x (elsewhere)	Port Prisma, Ruddy Road, Dark Bloo Inn, Lighthouse Island, Tangerino Grill
Trash Can	Rainbow	3-1x 0x (Know-it All Toad)	Port Prisma
Parasol	Rainbow	5-1x 0x (opened)	Port Prisma, Ruddy Road, Bloo Bay Beach, Plum Park, Mustard Café, Roshambo Temples

Footnotes

Gallery

Artworks

• 

  Mario splashing paint out of his Paint Hammer.

• 

  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

Sprites and models

• 

  A restored map of Prism Island

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  Red paint

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  Orange paint

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  Yellow paint

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  Green paint

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  Blue paint

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  Purple paint

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  Rainbow paint

Screenshots

• 

  The giant coin in Mondo Woods being painted by the yellow Big Paint Star.

• 

  The Prisma Fountain being refilled.

• 

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

• 

  Bowser mixes the paint in Prisma Fountain.

Names in other languages

Language	Name	Meaning	Note(s)	Ref.
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		[?]