ItemsOct 9, 20264 min readCS2Sell

The Printstream skins: JTPNZ's black-and-white design on four CS2 guns

The Printstream family on the Desert Eagle, M4A1-S, USP-S and AWP: the Workshop artist behind it, the cases and dates, the pearlescent finish and the code-style flavour text.

Printstream is a black-and-white design family by the Workshop artist JTPNZ, finished with a pearlescent sheen that shifts colour as you turn the gun. Valve has put it on four weapons since 2020, each time as the Covert, the top weapon grade, of a new case.

Where the design came from

JTPNZ explained the idea on the Steam Workshop page for the Desert Eagle version, posted on June 3, 2020. He was aiming for "graphic shapes" such as crosses and rectangles in a bold black-and-white scheme, and named the artist Felipe Pantone as an inspiration. Dashed lines on the back of the gun reminded him of ASCII art, and while researching that he came across PrintStream, a class in the Java language, which gave the design its name.

Two details from that page are easy to miss. He hid the words "try again" on the magazine, "just in case when you waste a mag hitting nothing". And he described the Desert Eagle as the first project in which he tried a normal map and a pearlescent effect, writing as an art student who learned both from tutorials. Pearlescent coatings were still new at the time: Valve had added support for them in November 2019, describing ceramic crystals that split light into different colours as the viewing angle changes.

The in-game description is the same for all four: "custom painted with a stark black and white design and finished with pearlescent highlights". The flavour text reads like code. The Desert Eagle's is "WHITE_1; BLACK_1; PEARLESCENT_1;", and each later gun adds a term of its own: SILENCED_1 for the M4A1-S, SILENCED_1 and PISTOL_1 for the USP-S, and BOLTACTION_1 for the AWP.

Four guns, four cases

Skin	Case	Released	Float range
Desert Eagle Printstream	Fracture Case	Aug 6, 2020	0.00–0.80
M4A1-S Printstream	Operation Broken Fang Case	Dec 3, 2020	0.00–0.80
USP-S Printstream	Recoil Case	Jul 1, 2022	0.00–0.85
AWP Printstream	Fever Case	Mar 31, 2025	0.00–1.00

All four are Covert, and because all four came from cases, every one exists in StatTrak as well as normal quality. Every wear from Factory New to Battle-Scarred is possible on each, though the Desert Eagle and M4A1-S stop at 0.80 and the USP-S at 0.85.

The AWP differs in one technical way. Valve's files list the first three as custom paint jobs and the AWP as a gunsmith finish, a style Valve's Weapon Finishes Guide describes as a mix of patina and custom paint. It is also the only Printstream that covers the full float range. The Fever Case article covers the rest of that case.

The four cases that introduced a Printstream, from 2020 to 2025

The cases behind each Printstream

Each case brought different special items, which now matters for trade-ups:

Fracture Case: 17 community finishes, with the four Shattered Web knives (Paracord, Survival, Skeleton and Nomad) in their standard finishes.
Operation Broken Fang Case: 17 community finishes, with gloves instead of knives as the rare special items.
Recoil Case: 17 community finishes and the same glove pool as Broken Fang.
Fever Case: 17 community finishes, with the Shattered Web knives in Chroma finishes such as Marble Fade, Doppler and Tiger Tooth.

Since October 22, 2025, five Covert skins can be traded up for a knife or gloves from the collection of one of the inputs. Normal Desert Eagle and AWP Printstreams point to Shattered Web knives, while normal M4A1-S and USP-S Printstreams point to gloves. The StatTrak version of the contract returns only StatTrak knives, so StatTrak M4A1-S and USP-S Printstreams have no knife of their own to aim at. Our article on the update covers the rules, and the trade-up guide covers the float formula.

The Printstream that never shipped

JTPNZ's Workshop work did not stop with the four guns in the game. On June 3, 2026 he published a collection marking "Over 6 Years of The Printstream Collection", signed off as a finale. It includes an AK-47 | PRINTSTREAM //END+, which he introduced as a return to "where it began, the AK-47 | Printstream", along with new AWP, Desert Eagle and USP-S entries.

That AK-47 is a Workshop submission, not an item. As of October 2026, Valve's item files contain exactly four Printstream finishes, the ones in the table above. Our collections and cases guide explains how Workshop designs end up in containers.

The M4A1-S Printstream at three wear levels

Buying a Printstream

Pick the wear with the paint in mind. On the three custom-paint versions the design wears straight through to the bare gun, so worn copies lose some of the clean black-and-white contrast.
Check the quality. StatTrak and normal copies are separate items. Since May 2026 normal copies can also be converted into Souvenirs with the Souvenir-O-Matic, while StatTrak copies cannot.
Look at it in game. The pearlescent highlights change with the viewing angle and lighting, so screenshots only tell part of the story.

On CS2Sell, the weapon, wear and StatTrak filters on Buy list all four Printstreams side by side.