"Printing your own decals" Topic

Recently I bought the Testors Decal Kit with clear lables.

I made up some decals for my Bretonnians and printed them out per instructions. The problem I have is the ink is too translucent.

I printed blue fleur de lis and attached them to a yellow shield. It came out Brown.

Others have similar experiences? Or helpful advice?

Xin/Jeff

The trouble is that all printer ink is somewhat translucent (barring specialist industrial printers, of course).

If you're using a decent home printer then you have 2 options: (1) use white decal paper and trim the design very precisely or (2) only apply your self-made decals over a white background.

Of course, it's possible to use transparent decal sheets and print a thick yellow border around your blue fleur-de-lis. Then you blend this in when you paint the surrounding shield with yellow. I've done this with a number of my own decals.

Hugh

I'd largely agree with the white background idea. I'd paint the shield gloss white* and do a decal that covers the whole shield.

Then I would make sure it fitted curves with micro sol/micro set.

John T

* or matt white which is gloss varnished before I put the decals down to avoid 'silvering'

Further to my previous comment, you might find this article useful: link . In it, I demonstrate the "blending into the edges of the decal" technique.

To prevent silvering, I've had some success by applying the decal carefully over a thin, but still *wet* coat of acrylic varnish (i.e. a water-based varnish). As it dries, it helps to stick the decal down without any underlying air bubbles.

Hope this is helpful,

Hugh

colgar6 gives good advice. I also read his article in the link and it all makes perfect sense.
I would like to add the following : I use Windows office picture manager to trim the pictures and adjust the colors and import them into "Word", because there you can adjust the size of the "to be" decal to the mm (and make side by side copies if needed).
When applying the decal I use Air Sol setting solution(before and after), this will take care of sculpted folds and ridges and air bubles. The decal will flow perfectly with the folds.
I also found out that after applying matt varnish (sprayed or by hand)the decal borders dissapear.

colgar6 – excellent article, thank you

+1 on white background. shields are easiest in this respect

Hugh put the T shirt decal on before painting the rest – that's a really good idea, thank you. I think I might move over to that approach with the Samurai mons ….

The problem I have with the white background paper is that it is very thick and so it is hard to make it not stand out, so white background with transparent decal works much better. Because it is thick, it also does not conform well to a curved surface

To blend, I have been adding a coloured edge to the decal (when creating it) the same colour as my shade colour where I am putting the decal. It is then easy to blend into the figure and using the darker colour acts a bit like a black line, and when it is dark, it's easiest to match the colour

I have a cheap Epson printer ($50 ?). On best photo mode it matches laser printer output (I compared with a copy shop). I use only Epson inks as they are highly pigmented, and 3rd party inks are not.

John

another option is to buy the decal sheets for use in LASER printers. Print your original on high quality WHITE paper and take that and the decal paper to a printshop that uses a laser for color copies. the laser printed images are less translucent and hold their color. Most places will print a laser sheet for under a dollar.