You’ve probably seen the photos. A 3D object—maybe a statue or a luxury car—looks like a jagged, Photoshop-error hole in reality. It’s not a camera trick. It’s the result of a high-stakes arms race to create the blackest black paint known to physics.
But here is the thing. Most of what you see on social media regarding these "void" materials is either outdated or wrapped in a massive layer of petty art-world drama. We aren't just talking about dark charcoal here. We are talking about materials that swallow 99% of light. It's weird stuff. When you look at it, your brain literally struggles to interpret the depth. You see a flat, infinite nothingness.
The Vantablack controversy that started it all
In 2014, a British company called Surrey NanoSystems announced Vantablack. It wasn't actually a "paint" in the way you’d buy a gallon of Sherwin-Williams. It was a forest of vertical carbon nanotubes. Imagine a field of tall grass, but the grass is microscopic and made of carbon. When light hits it, it gets trapped between the "blades" and bounces around until it turns into heat. It absorbed 99.965% of visible light.
Then things got weird.
The artist Anish Kapoor—the guy who designed the "Bean" in Chicago—bought the exclusive rights to use Vantablack in art. He basically told every other artist on Earth they weren't allowed to play with the darkest material ever made. People were livid. This sparked a bizarre, years-long feud involving Stuart Semple, another artist who started creating his own "blackest" pigments just to spite Kapoor.
Semple released "Black 2.0" and "Black 3.0," making them available to everyone except Anish Kapoor. You actually have to check a box at checkout confirming you aren't Anish Kapoor and aren't affiliated with him. It’s hilarious, but it also highlights a real divide: the difference between lab-grown coatings and actual paint you can use with a brush.
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Why Vantablack isn't really paint
Honestly, you can't even buy Vantablack. It’s a "grown" material. You have to put the object in a high-temperature reactor and use chemical vapor deposition to apply it. It’s fragile. If you touch it, the nanotubes crush like a dry sponge, and the effect is ruined. It’s also incredibly toxic if you inhale the particles.
For 99% of people, Vantablack is a tech demo, not a tool. It belongs on satellite components and star trackers to prevent light glares, not on your living room wall.
Enter Musou Black: The king of reachable darkness
If Vantablack is the unreachable trophy, Musou Black is the people's champion. Developed by Koyo Orient Japan, this is an actual water-based acrylic paint. You can buy it on Amazon. You can put it in an airbrush.
It absorbs about 99.4% of visible light.
Is it as dark as Vantablack? No. Can you tell the difference with your naked eye? Barely. When you spray Musou Black on a figured object, like a pomegranate or a skull, the shadows disappear. The highlights disappear. You are left with a silhouette that looks like a sticker.
The secret is the surface structure. Even without nanotubes, Musou Black is engineered to be incredibly porous. It creates a landscape of "pits" that swallow photons. But because it’s an acrylic, it has the same weaknesses as any ultra-matte paint. It shows fingerprints instantly. If you buff it or rub it, it becomes shiny, and the effect is gone. It's basically a layer of soot held together by a prayer and a thin binder.
The engineering hurdle: Why is it so hard to go darker?
Light is stubborn. To get the blackest black paint, you have to fight physics on three fronts:
- Specular reflection (the "glint")
- Diffuse reflection (the "glow")
- Durability (the "don't touch it" factor)
Most "black" paints we use daily, like those in a car or on a fridge, reflect about 5% to 10% of light. That sounds small, but in the world of optics, that’s a lighthouse. When you get down to the 0.5% range of Musou Black, you're hitting a wall. To go even darker, you need materials like the one MIT engineers stumbled upon in 2019—a carbon nanotube coating that was 10 times blacker than Vantablack, absorbing 99.995% of light.
The MIT team wasn't even trying to make an art material. They were experimenting with ways to grow carbon nanotubes on aluminum to improve its thermal properties. They realized the resulting "fuzz" was so dark it made a 16.78-carat yellow diamond look like a flat black rock.
The practical reality of using these paints
Don't paint your car with this stuff. Seriously.
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BMW actually did it with a X6 "Vantablack" VBX2 show car. It looked incredible—like a 3D shadow moving through the streets. But it’s a safety nightmare. Cars need to be seen. A car that absorbs all light is basically invisible at night except for its headlights. Plus, the moment a bird poops on it or it rains, the "void" effect is ruined by the residue.
If you are a hobbyist or a photographer, here is how you actually use this technology:
- Macro Photography: Using a Musou Black backdrop allows you to take photos of jewelry or miniatures where the background is a perfect digital zero. No post-processing required.
- Internal Scopes: Scientists use these paints inside telescopes to stop stray light from bouncing around and blurring the images of distant stars.
- Shadow Boxes: If you’re a collector, lining a display case with ultra-matte black makes the items look like they are floating in space.
Comparing the contenders
Let’s look at the actual numbers because "black" is a spectrum.
Standard acrylic black paint usually hits around 94% to 95% absorption.
Stuart Semple’s Black 4.0 (the latest version) claims to hit 99.7%. It’s a huge improvement over 3.0 because it’s much more durable and doesn't require a specific primer. It feels like real paint.
Musou Black sits at 99.4%. It’s slightly less dark but has a very "flat" look that is hard to beat for large surfaces.
Vantablack (S-VIS) is the "sprayable" version of the nanotube tech, hitting 99.8%. But again, it’s a commercial-only product. You can't just buy a can for your DIY project.
What most people get wrong about "the void"
The biggest misconception is that these paints are "blacker" because they have more pigment. That’s not it. You can only put so much carbon black pigment in a binder before the paint turns into a thick, unusable paste.
The "blackness" comes from surface geometry.
Think of a mirror. It’s flat. Light hits it and bounces straight back. Now think of a deep, dark cave filled with jagged rocks. Light goes in, bounces off a rock, hits another rock deeper in, and eventually loses all its energy. The blackest black paint is just a microscopic version of that cave.
This is why "DIY" versions often fail. If you mix the blackest pigment in the world with a glossy resin, you just get a shiny black marble. The binder—the "glue" that holds the paint together—is the enemy. It fills in the caves and makes the surface flat.
Actionable insights for using ultra-black materials
If you want to experiment with the void, you need to change your workflow. You can't treat Musou Black or Black 4.0 like normal hobby paint.
First, surface preparation is everything. Any bump or dust particle on your model will be magnified. Since the paint kills shadows, the only thing the eye can catch is the physical texture of a stray hair or a fingerprint.
Second, use an airbrush. Brushing these paints on often "flattens" the microscopic structures needed to trap light. Atomizing the paint through a nozzle creates a more chaotic, porous surface.
Third, seal it at your own risk. Putting a clear coat over the world's blackest paint is like putting a glass window over a hole in the ground. You'll see the reflection of the glass, and the "blackness" will drop from 99% to about 90% immediately. These materials are meant to be the final layer.
Finally, understand the limits of your environment. In a brightly lit room, Musou Black looks like a hole in the world. In a dimly lit room, it looks... just like black paint. The "magic" only happens when there is enough ambient light for your brain to realize it should be seeing a reflection, but it isn't.
If you are looking for the absolute best balance of "scary dark" and "actually usable," Black 4.0 or Musou Black are your only real options. Leave the nanotubes to the astrophysicists and billionaires. For the rest of us, the quest for the void is finally affordable, even if it is a little bit fragile.
Next Steps for the Aspiring Void-Maker
- Test the "fringe" blacks: Start with a small bottle of Musou Black and a cheap plastic skull. See how the geometry disappears under a single coat.
- Avoid the "Vantablack" scams: You will see many "Vantablack" knockoffs on auction sites. If it’s cheap and doesn't require a lab contract, it’s just regular matte paint.
- Mind the dust: These paints are literal dust magnets due to their porous nature. Keep your finished pieces in a glass-fronted case to preserve the effect.
The tech is still evolving. We are getting closer to a "durable" black that can survive a car wash, but we aren't there yet. For now, the darkest corners of the world remain beautiful, expensive, and incredibly delicate.