You cannot make Vantablack paint. Vantablack is not a paint at all. It is a coating of vertically aligned carbon nanotubes grown directly onto a surface using specialized reactor equipment, vacuum chambers, and temperatures around 280°C. No DIY process can replicate it. But several ultra-black paints exist that get remarkably close to Vantablack’s light-absorbing effect, and some of them are available to anyone.
Why Vantablack Cannot Be Made as Paint
Vantablack works because billions of carbon nanotubes stand upright on a surface like a microscopic forest. When light enters this forest, it bounces between the tubes and converts to heat instead of reflecting back out. The original version absorbs about 99.965% of visible light. A material developed at MIT pushed that even further, capturing at least 99.995% of incoming light. These numbers are possible only because of the precise physical structure of the nanotube arrays, not because of any pigment or chemical formula you could mix in a jar.
Even the sprayable version, called Vantablack S-VIS, is not something you can buy or replicate at home. It requires a polyimide base layer, spray deposition of carbon nanotube films, and then post-processing inside a vacuum reactor at up to 280°C. Surrey NanoSystems, the company that makes it, applies coatings in-house for aerospace and defense clients. On top of the technical barriers, the artist Anish Kapoor holds an exclusive license to use Vantablack in painting and sculpture, meaning no other artist can legally use the real thing.
Health Risks of Carbon Nanotubes
Even if you could somehow source raw carbon nanotubes, working with them outside a controlled lab is dangerous. Inhaled carbon nanotubes cause sustained lung inflammation and fibrosis in animal studies. Long-term inhalation exposure has induced lung cancer and malignant mesothelioma, the same cancer associated with asbestos. At the cellular level, carbon nanotubes cause DNA strand breaks and mutations in a dose-dependent manner, meaning more exposure means more damage. These are not theoretical risks. They are consistent findings across multiple studies using different types of nanotubes.
Ultra-Black Paints You Can Actually Use
Several products were developed specifically to give artists and makers access to extremely black coatings without industrial equipment. None match Vantablack’s numbers exactly, but several absorb well over 99% of visible light, which is black enough to create the striking “void” effect most people are after.
Musou Black
Musou Black is a water-based acrylic paint made by Koyo Orient Japan. It absorbs up to 99.4% of visible light and is widely considered the blackest paint available to consumers. You can brush it on, roll it on, or spray it with an airbrush or HVLP gun. It works on most surfaces including wood, plastic, metal, and foam. Two to three thin coats typically produce the best results, with drying time of about 30 minutes between coats. The finish is extremely matte and fragile, so it scratches easily and should not be touched or handled roughly.
Black 3.0 by Stuart Semple
Stuart Semple created Black 3.0 partly as a response to Kapoor’s exclusive Vantablack deal. It absorbs around 99% of visible light and is sold as an acrylic paint that anyone can buy, with one notable exception: the purchase agreement humorously bans Anish Kapoor from buying it. Black 3.0 is easier to work with than Musou Black. It flows more like a conventional acrylic, can be applied with a brush or roller, and is slightly more durable once dry. It is less black than Musou Black in side-by-side comparisons, but the difference is subtle in most lighting conditions.
Singularity Black
For more technical applications, NanoLab’s Singularity Black is a sprayable coating that contains actual (unaligned) carbon nanotubes suspended in a matrix. It can be applied by spray, dip, or brush. However, it requires heat activation at 250 to 300°C, which puts it out of reach for casual use on most substrates. It is thermally stable up to 300°C and leaves very little residue if burned off, making it suited for optical instruments and aerospace hardware rather than art projects.
Getting the Best Results With Consumer Paints
The blackest possible finish from Musou Black or Black 3.0 depends more on application technique than on the paint itself. Start with a surface that is already dark. A black primer or base coat prevents any lighter substrate from showing through thin spots. Sand the primer lightly so the ultra-black layer has something to grip.
Apply thin, even coats rather than one thick layer. Thick coats develop a slight sheen as they dry, which defeats the purpose. Three thin coats with adequate drying time between each will look far blacker than one heavy coat. If you are spraying, keep the nozzle 15 to 20 centimeters from the surface and use overlapping passes.
Avoid touching the finished surface. Both Musou Black and Black 3.0 lose their ultra-matte quality wherever skin oils or abrasion hit them. For display pieces, consider housing them behind glass or in a location where contact is unlikely. If the piece will be handled, a protective clear coat is an option, but any clear coat adds reflectivity and makes the surface noticeably less black.
How Close Do These Paints Get to Vantablack?
Vantablack S-VIS absorbs about 99.8% of visible light. Musou Black absorbs roughly 99.4%. That gap sounds tiny, but it is perceptible in controlled conditions: Vantablack appears to erase three-dimensional contours entirely, while Musou Black still shows faint surface detail under bright, directed light. In normal room lighting, though, both create a convincing “black hole” effect where depth and shape seem to vanish.
For context, the blackest material ever measured, a touchproof microcavity-textured sheet published in Science Advances, absorbs over 99.98% of visible light. That is a research material, not a product. The practical ceiling for anything you can buy and apply yourself remains around 99.4%, which is still extraordinarily black compared to conventional black paint (which typically reflects 5 to 10% of light).
If your goal is to coat an object so it looks like a flat shadow with no visible texture, Musou Black or Black 3.0 will get you there for under $30. The real Vantablack effect requires millions of dollars in equipment and a relationship with Surrey NanoSystems, and it is functionally identical to the consumer options for any purpose outside precision optics.