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Making your own transfers


GuildAero

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Hi all, as you older members know, I do all sorts of models, but my main things are slot cars and model aircraft.  Both these require transfers or decals if you will.  These days, with no apparent stocks of neg materials or chemistry, silk screen is now ridiculously expensive or more or less non-existant and we are no longer able to do our own artwork with a black pen, like I always used to, with complete success (it's the same for p/e a/w).

So, my question is for anyone without the necessary PC skills at hand, how do you get decals made these days even if you have your own half decent printer?

 

All I'm getting from the slot racers is that particular brand of snobbishness that computer users practice at the least, going right up to swearing nastiness.

 

I'd rather like to avoid the latter.

 

Any help would be much appreciated, but please....don't tell me to learn pootah drawing, I've tried, but I can't get a line on screen, yet I can do pen a/w like a rocket.  If that is the only way, bar none, just say so and I'll get the fine brushes out of hibernation.

 

Cheers,

Martin

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I think you really only have three options;

 

1) Learn 'pootah drawing' (sorry!).

2) Get someone to create the artwork on a computer for you - you might get lucky and find someone who will do it for free but more than likely you'll have to pay someone, especially if you're talking about more than a couple of pieces or something complicated (like nose art). There are loads of freelance graphics artists out there online who will create artwork for a small fee.

3) It sounds like you can draw the artwork yourself by hand. If so, then your best option is to create it yourself on paper, then scan it into a computer and print it out from there. If you're unsure of how to do the latter part, I'm willing to bet that someone will do it for you (and it's probably best to do so, as they can then manipulate your artwork to get it looking better as a decal).

 

You can try companies like Fantasy Printshop, who will probably do the whole thing for you, but they're very unlikely to do one-off custom decals and so then you're looking at having a minimum print run (which could be a couple of hundred sheets - fine if you want to sell them on).

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I do my own decals but I use an ALPS printer I've got two, they work in a different way to ordinary printers. The 'ink' is a bit like a miniature audio cassette tape and the printer picks up and drops off the different cartridges and heat is used in the process. I mainly use it for my 16mm scale garden railway trains as the text on them usually has gold,white and silver in the colours which of course the ALPS will do.The artwork is created in CorelDraw and you can either print out a solid colour or a normal tone which is made up from dots the same as a normal printer.The results are the equal to screen printing, the printer reloads the paper in perfect registration if you are using spot ( solid) colours.

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I do my own decals but I use an ALPS printer I've got two, they work in a different way to ordinary printers. The 'ink' is a bit like a miniature audio cassette tape and the printer picks up and drops off the different cartridges and heat is used in the process. I mainly use it for my 16mm scale garden railway trains as the text on them usually has gold,white and silver in the colours which of course the ALPS will do.The artwork is created in CorelDraw and you can either print out a solid colour or a normal tone which is made up from dots the same as a normal printer.The results are the equal to screen printing, the printer reloads the paper in perfect registration if you are using spot ( solid) colours.

 

Sounds like what I will need to sort all the writing on my Cirrus Moth. 

 

94376_1152259515.jpg

 

The registration letters are fine, it's all that small stuff that has me stumped ATM

 

Richard

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Vince 14,

the slot car snobs tell me that anything scanned in from existing stuff gets all pixelated as it changes from one thing to another. I don't see the point in passing on terms that I have no idea about.  Obviously I want it as smooth as I draw it with a pen.

 

I can't get any instruction in pootah drawing locally. The college, if that's not too grand a term for it, seems obsessed with accounting and make-up, so there should be a lot of very fancy looking book-keepers around the Fens soon.  They do nothing actually useful.

 

So what it comes down to is that I can draw as well as anyone with a pencil and a pen and quickly, but there is no facility any more for transferring that skill to a sheet of decals.

 

BTW, Fantasy print shop are VERY expensive.  Silk screen is almost a thing of the past.

 

As ever, everything is skewed towards computers and the Hell with the guys with real skills, skills that don't need hours of precious power and expensive software to do anything.

 

I'll just paint em.  I used to get decals made for peanuts.  Not playing their game any more.

 

Cheers,

Martin

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Just to set the record straight, silkscreen is nowhere near «  a thing of the past Â», even though direct printing makes inroads into silk-screen printing technology.

What is becoming increasingly scarce is the photo-film technology that was the step before producing a silk screen.

It is now essentially replaced by « computer-to-screen Â» or « computer-to-plate Â» (for « offset Â» printing).

But remember that a screen, or plate, is still the best way to obtain white.

 

Hubert

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This is a white transfer I made after screwing up the original from a ELF Tyrell 6 wheeler racing car kit [ Tamiya 1:12 Scale ]

I had to get the Gravinar logo off the web and luckily the text was just about legible on a fire extinguisher picture so recreating the transfer in white on clear.

 

39906855964_b3fb82780c_k.jpgWhite Decal using ALPS Printer by uniquenarrowgauge, on Flickr

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No not me, I've never been to that venue. I'll be at Peterborough for the 16mm AGM next month.

 

Ahh. There was an E type on the PECO stand. I wondered if it was a Slater's one, only they don't do the E type

 

My NG modelling has been somewhat smaller

 

complete-7.jpg

 

Richard

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That's nice I've got an article on those the Fowlers for the Andaman Islands. I started scratchbuilding in 009.

 

She's a Backwoods Miniatures kit. I did loads of research on the Fowlers (of course)

 

Anyway, enough thread drift..

 

Richard

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Hubert! Nice to know you're still around.

Believe me, over here, where I used to get silk screen decals done for peanuts a few years ago, it is almost entirely a thing of the past.

 

I was about top PM you on another topic.

 

Cheers,

Martin

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