Ye Olde Decal Project

[ItsPug]

 

Its an alternative marking. I'm working on an armoured company in desert camo with black unit markings etc, and dont want to add a single white chapter symbol. There wasnt a standard ultramarine transfer sheet I could download and change to black.

 

Thanks

Loaded and awaiting admin approval.

 

Thank you very much

[Carlson793]

I'm not sure what I'm doing wrong, but I'm trying to use the Black letter Numerals file, and it only prints as a large black block. Help, please?

I just looked at the Roman Numeral PDF and it does the same thing. Both these are PDF's and when I pull up the preview, it looks fine, black letters or numbers on a white background, but when I download them, then pull up the PDFs on the pc, its all black. And it prints that way. Do I have something set incorrectly?

Most likely, the file has background color layers (most of my file nowadays do). What you need to do is turn on Layers in your PDF reader (if you go to this post, you'll see how to do it in Adobe Reader/Acrobat), then turn off all layers except the ones you want to print. To help trouble shoot, which particular PDF reader are you using?

Layers in Action

Also, because of the way PDF layers are printed, only have the layers you want to print turned on. In the example below, the Blue Text on Red background you wanted printed will be Black Text on Blue background, because of the ordering of the layers. A layer higher in the list will always overprint any layers below it.

Edited September 6, 2017 by Carlson793

[valhalla130]

That's what it is. The reader I was using was on my dad's computer, which is connected to the printer. I got on my PC with Acrobat, and could see the layers.

[Ryno]

Potentially a ridiculous question:

Has anyone tried to make custom banner decals, and apply to the plastic banners on their marines? I'm talking like a full size banner, not just a logo in the middle of the plastic. I know there are various Micro-Sol type products to soften decals and allow them to conform to shapes, but are the molded plastic banners too complex? Has anyone tried? 

 

I feel like this might work because the ripples in the banners tend to be more or less in one direction (vertical), so the curves are mostly 2D, not complex 3D curves.

As a designer I'm quite adept at creating the graphics digitally, but I'm a horrendous freehand painter. Being able to make custom decals for this purpose would be excellent.

[Carlson793]

Potentially a ridiculous question:

 

Has anyone tried to make custom banner decals, and apply to the plastic banners on their marines? 

 

Yes, they have.

[Ryno]

 

Potentially a ridiculous question:

 

Has anyone tried to make custom banner decals, and apply to the plastic banners on their marines? 

 

Yes, they have.

 

 

Awesome, thanks! My search-fu must be weak. Glad to see it works. :)

[StormLion]

Hi everyone, would anyone be willing to do a decal sheet of a skull with 6 wings coming off of it? If the skull could be blue (dark-ish, around a macragge blue color) and the wings black that would be even better. Something similar to this, but less tribal tattoo-y and more WH40k. Also, if possible, an angel with 6 wings holding a sword or scythe would be great too (for vehicles/storm shields/banners).

 

I can provide more description if you are completely lost. Thank you in advance.

Edited November 15, 2017 by StormLion

[StormLion]

Hi everyone, would anyone be willing to do a decal sheet of a skull with 6 wings coming off of it? If the skull could be blue (dark-ish, around a macragge blue color) and the wings black that would be even better. Something similar to this, but less tribal tattoo-y and more WH40k. Also, if possible, an angel with 6 wings holding a sword or scythe would be great too (for vehicles/storm shields/banners).

 

I can provide more description if you are completely lost. Thank you in advance.

 

Just a quick question, does anyone think they can do this or should I look for alternatives?

[Olis]

Just a quick question, does anyone think they can do this or should I look for alternatives?

 

I suggest sending a PM to Carlson793 about it. If anyone here could help you, it'd be him.

[Daimyo-Phaeron Lenoch]

Decal request:

 

I have not been able to find and Adeptus Astartes: Black Guard transfers. Is any artist here willing to make a sheet of them?

 

Much appreciated, 

D-P Lenoch.

[Rob P]

Does anyone have an Astral Hawks set?

 

Thanks

[Carlson793]

Since I've got a few minutes of down time before starting my next terrain project, and as I'm getting rusty with Illustrator, I whipped up Daimyo-Phaeron Lenoch's Black Guard and Rob P's Astral Hawks. See the Downloads section.

[Rob P]

You're a star - thanks!

[Daimyo-Phaeron Lenoch]

Thank you much, Carlson793! I will be sure to use these as soon as I figure out how to print them! :P

[Carlson793]

Thank you much, Carlson793! I will be sure to use these as soon as I figure out how to print them!

Part of the decision process is easy - use White Decal Paper. Buy the paper for your specific type of printer - Inkjet or Laser. Put the paper in the printer, open the file, and print.

If using an inkjet printer, after the sheet has printed, allow it some time to dry (15-30 minutes), then spray a light coat of clear gloss paint over the sheet. allow this to dry fully, then spray a second coat. This will seal the sheet so the ink doesn't run. (This step isn't necessary when using a laser printer.)

Application is the same as for any other decals (I recommend Winterdyne's tutorial in my sig). Note, however, that as your using white paper, when you cut out the decals, you will have a white edge to them. To fix this, cut the decal a bit wide before applying. Once the decal has fully set, use some of your background paint (black in this case), and use that to cover/blend the decal edges into the model background. That was the technique used on the Imperial Raptor on the missile pod on my Deredeo below.

[StormLion]

Would/Could anyone be willing to put  the top left corner, top row one in from the left, middle row far left, and bottom right together for me? Thanks

 

[Axineton]

I know this is an old thread so first I apologise for bringing it back up but I have a request. It’s not urgent but could any of the decal makers do a Sons of the Phoenix decal template. I really fancy giving them a go as a paint scheme and the decal would look excellent I reckon. Thanks in advance. 

[Dez]

I’m also looking for help designing a decal sheet. I’m happy to do it myself, I’m just not sure what size things need to be.

 

I’d also be happy to tip anyone willing to design for me. I’m looking for the bloody hand off this coat of arms seen here http://burkeseastgalway.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/08/MacWilliam-Iochtar-1.jpg

Edited July 30, 2020 by Dez

[Evil Eye]

Sorry to commit 3-year Threadromancy, but I'm getting a laser printer, some decal paper and something rather interesting- a white toner cartridge! I'm intending to do some decals of my own, and once I've run some tests I will give feedback on how it goes.

[Evil Eye]

My printer (an HP 150nw) came in! Haven't gotten the white toner just yet, but I had a go with the decal paper- Gecko Paper's clear for laser printers to be exact.

 

So obviously, without the white toner there are limits to what I can do at the moment, but I've had a go and I'm pleasantly surprised. My first attempt was minorly botched as I forgot to set the printer paper settings to "heavy gloss" (which I can confirm is best for decal paper) so a few decals got smeared. Also I don't know if my toner is duff (it was pre-installed and I have it on good authority that pre-installed toner cartridges have often been sitting around for ages and can act funny) but the quality wasn't quite what I was hoping for; there were some odd bits where it seemed like the print had almost been misaligned, with ghosting/artifacting on some parts. I tested this on normal paper and got the same result so it's clearly not a problem with decal printing- either I need to adjust the settings or the toner's shot.

 

That being said, it DOES work, and it's not like the results were awful, just not quite "Wow, it's like a GW transfer sheet!" quality which may be user error anyway. Also, the paper itself is great; the decals are very thin but extremely durable, and survived my hamhanding without tearing at all.

Here's the decals I printed off (one is obviously borked)...

And here's a test of one of the smallest ones on a metal Techmarine, still WIP. I had to paint a white circle under the decal as otherwise the yellow wouldn't have been visible.

I'll definitely keep doing this (I've got a different brand of paper coming in too, so I can compare how it performs and also, you know, so I have more paper!) and can definitely recommend the process. Gecko Paper is absolutely 100% a recommend, it works great. Jury's out on the printer itself, I hope it's just me doing something wrong or needing replacement toner, because I will be disappointed if the printer just can't get that good results. And then there's that white toner, which I'm hoping is easy enough to install...

(If anyone's interested I can share the Inkscape file for the decals!)

 

[Firedrake Cordova]

That's disappointing to hear about the printer!  If you set the settings to plain paper and do a normal print (or make it do a test sheet), do you get reasonable quality? If so, it sounds like a settings issue. I can't say I've heard that the supplied toner is old and can act up - all I'd heard was that they were "short fills" (certainly, the installed toner in my Brother laser was rated for fewer pages than the standard cartridge).

 

It looks like you're off to a good start, and getting good results, anyway  

[Evil Eye]

So as it turns out, the white toner I bought is a bit of a wash. It works...but you have to swap the black cartridge in the printer out with white, and I'm not sure how to configure images to print any kind of decal which uses light and dark colours, if that's even possible. I'm starting to wonder if decal printing is something you need a fancy £1000+ printer to do with any real quality.

[Firedrake Cordova]

Urgh ... that sounds frustrating  

[NovemberIX]

On 10/10/2023 at 8:41 PM, Evil Eye said:

So as it turns out, the white toner I bought is a bit of a wash. It works...but you have to swap the black cartridge in the printer out with white, and I'm not sure how to configure images to print any kind of decal which uses light and dark colours, if that's even possible. I'm starting to wonder if decal printing is something you need a fancy £1000+ printer to do with any real quality.

 I've also looked into getting printers for decals and what not and the lesson I learned is that yeah, it's expensive. Most printers that use white ink natively are commercial in nature and price, think 6K usd for a "basic" white ink printer from what I've found. Though honestly, there are more options these days than there used to be, for a while there was only one company I could think of that made a printer that used a white cartridge, and now Oki has a full set of printers, I think Epson does as well, though I'd probably steer well clear of an HP offerings you may find.

 

A Solution that may not work, maybe run it though a second time? In most print processes the colors are layered one by one with black going down first as the "key" color that all the rest then printed to match.  My process would be

 

• Print white layer first as a mask base
• Print Color layers over the mask
• Print Black to finish off

All of this is contingent on the printer actually holding alignment, but in theory it is semi plausible 

[Firedrake Cordova]

Thinking about it, I remember ALPS made inkjets which had a white ink tank. Unfortunately, they went out of production in 2010, and looking at it, refurbished ones are quite pricey ($500+).