"making decals in 2020" Topic

Seems like this topic hasn't been much discussed lately [last several years] in the general area of painting as opposed to specific decals for various periods.

I am interested in making my own decals – lots of projects coming up where this would really help.

First, does anyone have some simple ways to print decals with a regular ink jet printer?

Second, what about "paper" products like this:
link

Finally, if nothing else will work, what are some printers that would be cost effective for printing decals.

I live in the USA if you can recommend products and / or stores from which to get them.

Thanks!

I have had very mixed success with printing decals on an inkjet. The decal paper I used was from Micromark. I think the paper was fine but I did not get the hang of it.

You can not print white on an inkjet. Those areas of the decal come out clear. I painted the area where a decal with white was supposed to go and applied the decal followed by painting around it with the appropriate color. The white showed through the areas of decal that were supposed to be white.

A problem with inkjet printing is that the inks are water soluble. To keep them from running you must overspray the decal with clear finish. Too much clear spray and the inks run. Too little and the inks run when you immerse the decal in water to separate it from the sheet of backing material the decal paper is affixed to. I rarely got this right. Creating the decals is not easy either. I found curved shapes difficult to draw. Then scaling the decal to the proper size for printing never seemed to work out exactly. Finally very small decals many time disintegrated when they were wet or during the process of apply the decal to the miniature. Lots of things can go wrong.

I had great success with decals bought from Dom's decals. I dont know if he is still in business. IIRC he used what is called an ALPS printer which I do not think are made any longer. Even at the time I bought from Dom there were supply problems for these printers. I also had some custom made decals from one of the companies on the internet. Sorry but I dont remember which one. While expensive they at least worked.

Needles to say, I gave up.

Al

I design my own decals but I have them professionally printed for me. Cost has ranged from very expensive to very reasonable depending on your supplier. A bit of time on Google should throw up some US suppliers of this type of service.

Some will do the whole process for you, others will check and modify your artwork and others will simply print what you send them.

Setting up artwork for ALPS printers gets quite technical because of the way they overprint to achieve opacity and particular colours. Suppliers also have their own particular preferences as to how best to set up the artwork so you need to work directly with them to ensure you give them exactly what they need.

If they have to create artwork for you it can get expensive quickly.

I design mine own decals as well using decal paper. You can buy decal paper that is transparent or white if you need white in your decal.

I have mine printed at a professional printing shop. I've found their printers prints colors that are brighter than my printer at home.

As for sealing them afterwards. I use a gloss sealer lightly dusted over the paper. After letting it dry, I'll do it again and finally I'll finish with a matte sealer. Building the sealer in layers will keep the ink from running. After that cut them and out and apply as normal.

I did this because I built an 10mm ACW armies using Old Glory 10s. The standards are cast onto the figures and since I don't want to paint ACW flags in 10mm I made my own decals that fit the cast standards perfectly!

I made some with Testor's Decals.

They turned out great!

You need to spray several coats very lightly to seal, after waiting for the ink to dry. I think I waited a full 24 hours for that, then sealed, then waited another 24 hours.

Put in a dust-free drawer, or cabinet, while waiting for them to dry.

Be careful to cut around the entire design when applying and sealing again to your models.

@ Thresher01

That's encouraging!
What did you use to seal them with? Testors dullcoat?

I have been meaning to do a write up of decal making, but somehow never got around to it – here's a summary, some of it learned through research, some of it through trial and error

Printer and ink

The only requirement is that you need ink that is fairly colourfast, any modern inkjet printer will be able to print at a high enough density. Canon and Epson are the best for longevity, but I have never looked at any of the other brands. The best ink is pigmented ink, but that only seems to be available in printers marketed for photo printing and they get very expensive, very quickly. I just bought a new $90 USD Epson XP-6100 printer (the old printer died), which is dye, not pigment. Epson says they have tested this dye and expect 100 year stability, which is as much as anyone can predict. They used to market colourfastness very heavily, but I had to dig into information really hard to find this. The most basic printer, which is what I bought last time, doesn't have the stable ink. You cannot use aftermarket ink, as it is most likely to have terrible colorfastness, and may gum up the heads so that original ink may not work afterwards. Epson/Canon ink is expensive, but I don't print out that much so it's not too bad.

Decal paper

There are two kinds, white background and transparent background. White background is on a thick sheet and so is visible on the figure as a transition, which I don't like. Transparent background is very thin, and can be melted onto the figure, which I like. The printed ink is very transparent, so the decal will not be visible unless it is on a white surface, which limits the usefulness. Great for shields, not so great for designs on fabric.

I used Testors paper first, and the other paper I have used looks as though it came from the same source. There are cheaper papers for craft, I have no idea whether they work as well as the model ones. With an inkjet printer, you don't have to print the whole sheet at once, just print decals at the top, cut them off and you can use the rest of the sheet at another time

I did try laser printing once, but there were a number of problems

The decal needs to be coated, as Allen57 says. I bought a can of the Testors decal coat and haven't yet finished it. I have read that any spray varnish will work, but it needs to go on thin

Artwork

Any drawing program can be used. How well you get on with the software depends a lot on how comfortable with software you are. My original motivation for making decals was that I am so bad at free-handing, that I can't consistently paint straight lines. A computer program then allows me to rework until I get it right. Good drawing programs have a steep learning curve, but will allow you to create all sorts of shapes. I use a free program called Inkscape, which is a vector drawing program. Normally I don't read documentation, but I had to follow tutorials to get much out of it. Come to think of it, it took me a long time to figure how to use photoshop (elements) as well.

I start by measuring the size and shape of the decal I want (a shield for instance) and using those dimensions in the artwork. I then print out on plain paper, cut one out and check that it is the right size. It is easy to grow or shrink the artwork to get it exact.

When printing on the decal paper you want to use the best resolution your printer has. Follow instructions in the drawing program and follow printer instructions. I treat the decal paper as high quality gloss photo paper

Other thoughts

• Decals are applied like commercial ones, there are lots of instructions on the web. A layer of gloss varnish over the white before applying decal helps a lot, particularly shifting the decal on the figure to align it
• Seal the decal after it is on the figure. It's fairly delicate so could easily be scratched off. I do decals as the last step and then matt varnish
• Large areas of black don't always print very well, with cracks in them. Not sure whether that was printer specific, but it was easy to fix with a little black paint
• Larger decals can often curl up so much they fold in on themselves and can't be rescued. Print extras. I suspect that this happens more if you get too much varnish on the decal, but haven't experimented

Commercial decals are printed on printers that can print a white back layer, so the transparent type can be used, and you will still get decals that can be used for uniform patches and so on. This is a very small market for printer manufacturers, so these printers are expensive and often go out of production

Company that supports ALPS printer and sells refurbished (and even one model new-in-box!) printer: alps-printer.com

I know nothing about them.

I have printed 'decals' on white, label paper, in my color laser printer. I buy full-sheet label paper from Amazon.com. These are used for larger decals, to apply to shields on 60mm Viking figures, which I use for 25mm, or 1/72 scale, Frost Giants, for my fantasy games.

I have also created custom shield emblems, for 25mm tall figures, which I used for Hobgoblins. Their shield design was a black field, with a simple, white, rune graphic element in the center. These turned out reasonably well, for their size, at arm's length, which is my standard of quality level.

The label paper is peel-n-stick, and white. I print the design on the label paper, cut to size, peel, and apply. Once I apply the decal, I burnish it with my thumb, after making certain my thumb is clean… It works reasonably well, for me, but the paper is much thicker than a true water-slide decal. After that, I seal them with a tinted Magic Wash, or just un-tinted Pledge Floor Polish (glossy acrylic medium, basically).

I arrived at this approach after using the peel-n-stick decals supplied with the old BattleMasters miniatures game. I applied a number of those paper decals to figures, which I then applied a black wash to, after painting, followed by a clear sealant. That worked reasonably well, at arm's length. It was a small step from there, to what I do now.

I create custom shield emblems using different programs. I insert them into a MS Publisher 98 program, scale them down, then print. It is far better than I could do with a thin brush, and painting them on, free-hand.

Since I use a laser printer, the ink does not run. You could use an inkjet printer, if you lightly apply a clear coat sealant, using several applications, at least 20 minutes apart, to avoid causing the ink to run. Cheers!