Make your own decals

As requested on the Accurate Armour thread, a quick 'how to' on making your own decals....

What I tend to do is create a new picture file in Photoshop using the dimensions of another set of decals - this ensures the decals will be in scale with the model. If you are using Windows, you can have a play around in 'Paint' which has many of the basic tools, albeit with more basic means of manipulating shapes text and images

Another cheat (for things like VRN's etc.) is to scan a set of decals then tweak them by replacing letters, or making a whole new VRN using the paintbrush and text tools in Photoshop.

Safe to say the most common tools are the paintbrush, clone stamp, layers (to create more complex designs where individual elements are overlayed) eye dropper, paint bucket and text tools. Easiest thing to do is have a play around with the different tools and see what happens - can't be more technical than that I'm afraid as there are so many tools to try in photoshop and to list them all here and how to use them would make for a VERY long post!

The font I tend to use for VRN's is 'Lutz Headline' as this is the standard font for British vehicles (civvy and military) but I also have fonts for stencils and for things like roadsigns - I especially use the german standard fonts such as Mittleschrift DIN 1451 as these are very commonly used throughout Europe for warning placards etc.

The most important items you need are a printer (obviously!), waterslide decal paper (clear and white backed depending on if your decal has white elements in it), and acrylic spray to waterproof the decals when they've been printed.

The decal paper and spray can be bought on e-bay - I use this chap though other makes and brands are available

http://www.ebay.co.uk/sch/richardr2824/m.html?_nkw=&_armrs=1&_from=&_ipg=&_trksid=p3686

I usually buy a mix of white and clear waterslide decal paper.

The big difficulty of creating your own decals is this - inkjets can't print white. As a result, it is sometimes necessary to put white text on a coloured background using the white decal paper for the white elements.

To get a close match to the background paint colour, I find a picture of the colour swatch (Humbrol, Tamiya, Valejo etc do these) and use the eye dropper to get the correct background colour from the swatch. I rarely mix paint colours so I can do this without fear of the background colour being too far off the colour of the model. What results is a decal sheet that looks something like this....

Before I even commit to putting some of the precious decal paper in the printer I print the decal sheet off on glossy photo paper to ensure the designs are in the correct scale, have the correct colours, and that there are no problems with fuzzing or bleeding of the ink. I also print a copy that I can cut up and hold against the model to make sure they are right.

I then cut a piece of the decal paper and stick it to the photo paper directly over the printed decal, as a decal sheet is rarely the size of a piece of A4 paper and it's pointless using 1 sheet of paper costing a couple of quid just to print on 1/8 of its surface!

Once the decal is finally printed on the decal sheet, leave it to dry for about 20 minutes.

When the decal sheet is dry, I spray it with Clear Acrylic spray - I tend to use either Car Plan clear glossy spray if the surface of the model is glossy, or Humbrol Matt Varnish of the surface is Matt - it just helps them blend in better.

I leave the decal to dry a full 24 hours

When the decal is ready for use, it can be applied just like a normal waterslide decal using tepid water until it separates from the backing paper but remember, if using white decal paper, you need to trim as close around the decal as possible so no white background shows

Any questions - or clarifications - let me know

Thanks for that! I didn't know decal paper existed.

I normally go direct to http://www.craftycomputerpaper.co.uk

Useful! Thanks.

There used to be a fairly reasonably priced printer (by OKI) that could print in white, sadly this model was discontinued and often command a premium price in eBay.

In the UK Hobbycraft stock decal paper in A4 and suitable sealing sprays.

jh

There used to be a fairly reasonably priced printer (by OKI) that could print in white, sadly this model was discontinued and often command a premium price in eBay.

 

In the UK Hobbycraft stock decal paper in A4 and suitable sealing sprays.

 

jh

Better still, got a Hobbycraft five minutes walk away.

I wonder if any of you have experience the problem I get when trying to print on decal sheet. That is the ink seems to lie on the surface and start breaking up and or bleeding before it dries. I reasoned that the amount of ink laid down would depend on the printer setting with more ink for porous surfaces such as paper and less for glossy surfaces such as glossy papers, transparencies etc.. So I have tried various settings but doesn't seem to make any difference. I use am using an Epson Stylus photo printer, not cheap, that does photos well. Where am I going wrong?

I haven't had problems with the craftycomputerpaper.co.uk decal paper, but I have on some normal photo papers. Sometimes I've had to use the printer on draft settings or others to reduce the amount of ink deposited. Some photo papers I've have just wouldn't work whtever I did.