Need a quick help on AdMec houses

[Obeliske]

So I'm building my first Imperial Knight and I am NOT a good painter so I was planning on making some custom slide transfers in order to do up the shoulders pennant and shield on him. I'm having a bit of trouble finding some different houses to snag pictures to make transfers out of and was wondering if anybody had some different examples and maybe a good tutorial on how to make transfers :P I picked up some transfer paper to give it a go but I figure I should ask in case anybody has any tips :P

Any help would be greatly appreciated thanks guys and gals!
Obeliske

[Vel'Cona]

Welcome to the AdMech, brother Techpriest!  For your homemade slide transfer needs look no further than the B&C's Downloads section!  Our own revered Fabricator-General Carlson793 has been hard at work producing a myriad of transfers, and some unique options are available for your perusal.  In particular, the Freeblade transfer sheet is excellent quality with a ton of cool options.

 

As for using the paper itself, depending on the kind you pick up you'll want to follow the printing instructions included with the product.  I also recommend getting a can of clear acrylic lacquer to make your transfers rugged.

 

I'm somewhat of a newbie with transfer-making myself, but I'll be happy to send along any tips from my experiences if you're interested!

[Obeliske]

I picked up a set of Testors decal paper it comes with 6 sheets 3 white 3 clear all of them roughly half a page. It's the only thing I could find and I'm thinking I can tape them to a full size sheet of paper before sending them through the machine :P Any tips you could give would be greatly appreciated.

 

I will most assuredly check the downloads section thank you.

[Carlson793]

Our own revered Fabricator-General Carlson793 has been hard at work producing a myriad of transfers, and some unique options are available for your perusal.

Hmm... Maybe my Frater Domus status should become Fabricator-General

I'm thinking I can tape them to a full size sheet of paper before sending them through the machine

Don't. Just don't. You stand chance of mucking up your printer, and your decal sheets. Hit eBay and do a search for decal paper. You'll find tons of sources with full Letter/A4 sheets running about $1 USD per sheet.

Make sure you have the right paper for your printer. A laser printer will melt the decal medium of inkjet paper and ruin the sheets (possibly your printer as well). Laser paper run through an inkjet printer will result in ink that doesn't set/runs off the paper.

Know the limitations of your paper. Clear paper does not produce opaque decals unless you have a white underprinting printer (which run about $3,000 without ink/toner). While it'll produce black decals that look great, any color decal will blend with your background color (i.e. a blue decal will blend with a yellow background to make green). The trick here is to only print black decals on clear (since any color added to black will be black), or set the color of the decal so when it lays on your color background it produces the color you want (and unless you're very up on your color theory/modeling, that ain't happening).

An alternative to make sure a decal appears as the correct color on the model is best described by a tutorial by BKZer0 on Making a banner with custom waterslide decals. The simple explanation is create two decals for every logo: one the full color version and the second a black outline of that logo. Place the outline version on your model, then fill in the areas that are to be color with white paint. When you place the color version over this, the white will help your color decal retain its correct color.

Can you find the clear paper yellow decal on this model?

White paper, on the other hand, will produce a decal true to your original color...but unless you trim it very closely, will have white around the image. The trick to get around this limitation is, when preparing your sheet, put a color background on your sheet that matches the color of the model it's going on. After it's printed, you can then take some of your background paint and blend the decal into the model. If you download one of my sheets, there's usually layers in the PDF you can toggle on/off for different color backgrounds.

The logo on the missile pod is on white paper with a green background, with background paint used to blend it in.

Prepping your images is a lesson too detailed to truly get into. It requires knowledge of the software you're going to use, how the software handles images, and what types of images reproduce best on your printer. In general, vector images (Adobe Illustrator, Inkscape, true EPSs, some PDFs) will produce better results than raster images (JPG, TIFF, GIF, PNG, etc.). You can see the difference if you go to one of my files in the download section. The thumbnail/sample on the page tends to be a bit blurry, but when you download the actual file, it looks crisp and clean.

[Obeliske]

Thanks Carlson that's fantastic to hear though it makes me sad I wont be able to finish my project for a few weeks, I will heed your advice. I have an inkjet printer and I'm not sure what the testers brand ("Custom Decal System 9198") is. I'd rather not wreck my printer :P

Guess ebay here I come :P any other suggestions of places to look? I've gone through the downloads page but didn't really find anything for an imperial knight of an adeptus mechanics house. Also SO many of those sheets I came across said they were yours :P Hard at work aren't you :P

[Carlson793]

All the information I'm seeing says the Testers kit/paper is designed for inkjet. Also note that running laser paper through your inkjet shouldn't devastate your printer; just waste a sheet of decal paper.

 

Also, make sure to mark your clear and white sheets as such. I learned about that the hard way. Simply putting a 'W' or 'C' on a back corner is sufficient to avoid wasted paper.

 

I've slacked off a great deal lately. At my height, I was churning out a sheet or so a week. That's gone down to one every month or two.

 

There are a couple more Knight sheets I produced during my Private Commission days (so not available for download, sorry). There's also the generics that came about due to needing them for Knights: checkerboards, chess pieces, 'chain blade' and 'Charlie Brown' borders... And still have my Knight template that has scaled pieces for most Imperial, Questoris, and Cerastus Knight chassis.

 

If you have something specific in mind, we may be able to work it out. Just PM me with any details. I only handle public commissions any more (too much stress to get results on the private ones).

[Ammonius]

I can confirm that the Testors paper works in inkjet printers.

 

Be very careful when handling the paper after printing, and make sure the ink has fully dried before applying the top coat of sealant.

 

I recommend that you 1) Print your designs on plain paper to validate that everything is the size and orientation that you want 2) commit to using a sheet for practice and make and apply decals to scrap plastic, or your palette lid, or whatever.

 

Check out my signature and gallery for examples of the things I have managed to accomplish with home-made decals.

[Carlson793]

Check out my signature and gallery for examples of the things I have managed to accomplish with home-made decals.

...or just check the two images I spoilered above, which have a grand total of 1 non-home-printed decal between the two of them (the '3' on the right thigh of the Deredeo).

[Obeliske]

Much appreciated guys I really mean it :) I just need to find some designs I like and I'll give it a go :)

[Vel'Cona]

I've slacked off a great deal lately. At my height, I was churning out a sheet or so a week. That's gone down to one every month or two.

Don't think we don't appreciate them though! And all the advice to make them look shiny is highly regarded as well.

Our own revered Fabricator-General Carlson793 has been hard at work producing a myriad of transfers, and some unique options are available for your perusal.

Hmm... Maybe my Frater Domus status should become Fabricator-General

Well I'm the New Guy in the mod sector at the moment but I'll throw it out there. Who knows, maybe someone else that's benefited from your work will second the notion, eh?

@Obeliske, make sure to upload pics of your results! I for one love seeing the custom transfers "live" on a model

[Carlson793]

Well I'm the New Guy in the mod sector at the moment but I'll throw it out there. Who knows, maybe someone else that's benefited from your work will second the notion, eh?

You're still that upset with me for not using one of my own forge world sheets for ETL V?..

[Subtle Discord]

OK, I can't help myself and I have to say it; that most misleading thread title I've seen in a while. :) I'm sure it wasn't on purpose, but I would never have guessed that this was going to be a (quite good) discussion about making decals.

 

You might want to consider a thread in the PCA section, but most of the pertinent information is already on the table.

[Obeliske]

While I can understand the confusion Subtle my issue lay more with being unable to find any house insignia then anything else. My OT got derailed a bit with advice on the second issue :P No biggie to me as I'm happy with any help I can get :)

[Vel'Cona]

You're still that upset with me for not using one of my own forge world sheets for ETL V?..

I guess it just surprised me, is all. I suppose by the time you're done making the sheets you never want to see them again, eh?

Oh man, Brother DIscord is right though; I'm supposed to be the one keeping these things in line, and here I am derailing a thread. My first month on the job is not going as planned . . .

In either case, we'll try to keep the noise down until Obeliske is ready to post his results.