Help with creating custom decals

[kawalski]

Hi,

I've finally become frustrated enough to try making my own decals. I have ordered some decal paper through ebay which I hope is as advertised easy to use. So my question isn't so much on where or how to use the paper but more on how & where to get decent designs & or images that can be used to make custom decals. I've got Word & Paintnet which should be software enough to suit my needs. In particular I'd like to get numbers & letters that can be used as generic squadron/flight/identifiers as well as serial numbers. While I realize that word can provide these, does anybody have a recommended font or size that they use? I have British roundels & German crosses covered via Dom's decals excellent range. If anybody can offer their experiences it would be greatly appreciated, links to useful images would also be a great help.

Regards

Noel

[Womble]

Paint.net and Word is exactly what I use and its all you need. Here's some numbers and letters I used for my FE8s (print on white paper)



I usually find an image of the plane online and take things like serial numbers and personal insignia from the image. Also you can often find scans of decals for larger scale planes online and resize them to 1:144. This is really helpful as someone else has done the tricky work for you.

I hope the decals go well.

Ian

[Boney10]

I have some Austro- Hungarian files for Albatross and a few others, let me know if they of interest

[kawalski]

Paint.net and Word is exactly what I use and its all you need. Here's some numbers and letters I used for my FE8s (print on white paper)



I usually find an image of the plane online and take things like serial numbers and personal insignia from the image. Also you can often find scans of decals for larger scale planes online and resize them to 1:144. This is really helpful as someone else has done the tricky work for you.

I hope the decals go well.

Ian

Those decals are fantastic Ian! How did you go about creating them? I assuming it requires white paper as white won't print on regular decal paper.

[kawalski]

I have some Austro- Hungarian files for Albatross and a few others, let me know if they of interest

Thanks Chris, yes anything would help. While I'm more interested in RFC & the Germans, you can never know what will be useful or not.

[Womble]

Those decals are fantastic Ian! How did you go about creating them? I assuming it requires white paper as white won't print on regular decal paper.

Yes I used white decal paper. I just put the image in a word document and resize it to the size I need and print on decal paper. The clear paper works best for darker images over lighter backgrounds and is ideal for things like black numbers and insignia. White decal paper often needs accurate cutting or painting to the edge of an image. It can be tricky to get an accurate background colour printed that matches your paint exactly. You slowly build up the colours that match your paints but it takes a while and is different for different printers. If you use an ink jet printer you'll need to seal the ink on the paper before you can use the decals. I hope this helps.

Ian

[kawalski]

To put my question in better context, I'll explain my latest painting project. I'm painting up a couple of Albatros DII's but I'm not that worried about painting them to match particular pilots or squadron's (yeah I know the Hun's don't have squadrons as such). So I'd like them to be fairly generic & easy to paint ( too match my meager painting skills) but at the same side I'd like them to be as accurate as I can make them without being too obsessive.

So I came across two images from "Rise of Flight" which I though would make excellent painting guides & would be within my painting ability.




Now I'm assuming that these are based on real aircraft schemes & if they're not I don't really care as they look the part anyway. I'm pretty sure I've heard of Josef Mai, never heard of Hermann Kleymann though.



So this is my painting effort, nothing great but serviceable enough. Not quiet finished yet, still have to finish the wheels, the prop & put a pilot in the cockpit but that shouldn't stop me putting decals on it. My problem is finding black number & letter decals to suit & if I'm going to make my own I might as well do the serial numbers as well.

I was thinking Franklin Gothic bold as the font on word not sure of what size though. Naturally I intend to experiment before using decal paper. I was hoping some else had gone through all this & could at least offer a starting point to work from. I'm sure most 1/144 aircraft are going to take vaguely similar sized decals. I'm sure once I've got it right once from then on it should be simple. Has anybody created a template from which to start from?

[Womble]

Here's a quick how to with Paint.NET.

First open the image and you want to select thepart you need:



then crop to the bit you need



Then use the paint bucket and fill in the areas not needed. Adjust the tolerance until it works as you want



When most of the background has gone I'd move the serial number so select it



Copy and paste then drag it to the number 9



Then crop the image to what you need



You should be close to a finished image now



I'd then use the pencil and tidy up the image.



Finally print on clear decal paper, probably between 0.45cm to 0.5cm high.

I hope this helps.

Ian

edit, here's the F:

[Jager]

To put my question in better context, I'll explain my latest painting project. I'm painting up a couple of Albatros DII's but I'm not that worried about painting them to match particular pilots or squadron's (yeah I know the Hun's don't have squadrons as such). So I'd like them to be fairly generic & easy to paint ( too match my meager painting skills) but at the same side I'd like them to be as accurate as I can make them without being too obsessive.

So I came across two images from "Rise of Flight" which I though would make excellent painting guides & would be within my painting ability.

Just my 2 cents; I would assume that they are a Rise in Flight graphic, esp. with the large number/letter on both the fuselage and lower wing. I had not seen such on German planes in WW1 (they show up in WW2,t least fuselage designators).
I am wondering why you think the Germans didn't have squadrons in WW1? They were called Staffeln (as in Jagdstaffeln for fighter squadrons), and were somewhat smaller than their Entente counterparts.
Karl

[kawalski]

Here's a quick how to with Paint.NET.

First open the image and you want to select thepart you need:



then crop to the bit you need



Then use the paint bucket and fill in the areas not needed. Adjust the tolerance until it works as you want



When most of the background has gone I'd move the serial number so select it



Copy and paste then drag it to the number 9



Then crop the image to what you need



You should be close to a finished image now



I'd then use the pencil and tidy up the image.



Finally print on clear decal paper, probably between 0.45cm to 0.5cm high.

I hope this helps.

Ian

edit, here's the F:

Thanks Ian, very helpful post.

[kawalski]

Just my 2 cents; I would assume that they are a Rise in Flight graphic, esp. with the large number/letter on both the fuselage and lower wing. I had not seen such on German planes in WW1 (they show up in WW2,t least fuselage designators).
I am wondering why you think the Germans didn't have squadrons in WW1? They were called Staffeln (as in Jagdstaffeln for fighter squadrons), and were somewhat smaller than their Entente counterparts.
Karl

So not actual ww1 paint schemes? That's a shame mind you I quite like them but I thought they where too good to be true. My comment about German squadrons was that they didn't call them squadrons not that they didn't squadrons but that's a conversation for another time.

[Dom S]

Umm, those *are* accurate schemes chaps. Individual letters or numbers (as opposed to more elaborate individual markings) were decidedly atypical for luftstreitkrafte Jastas, but a few did use them - obvious examples are Jasta 7's late 1918 Fokker D.VIIs, Jasta 37's Albatros D.Vs (although they used both - having numbers on the nose and wings, and individual markings on the rear fuselage) and Jasta 5's Halberstadts (white numbers on camo fuselages) and early Albatroses (black numbers or letters on lacquered wood fuselages), which those are two of. Definitely legit and historically accurate markings - just predating the much more extravagant Jasta 5 individual markings we're more familiar with, like the two Wings Of Glory Albatros D.Vs.

(If you have access to the excellent Windsock Specials on Jasta 5, those two and many others with similarly plain markings are in the flight line photos from March or April 1917, on page 14 of Volume 1.)

[PFactorDave]

So not actual ww1 paint schemes? That's a shame mind you I quite like them but I thought they where too good to be true. My comment about German squadrons was that they didn't call them squadrons not that they didn't squadrons but that's a conversation for another time.

Rise of Flight has both Historical and non-Historical skins. The historical skins are vetted by the community before they are accepted into the game.

[viper]

Has anybody tried dry transfer lettering?
They are available at most graphic, paint and art supplies stores.

[Flying Helmut]

Has anybody tried dry transfer lettering?
They are available at most graphic, paint and art supplies stores.

The black "Steffi" lettering is dry rub-down transfer by "Letraset"