Decal sheets

I wonder if I can replace the black cartrige in my printer with a whtie one... I planned on doing the name plates on my crusade era ships in white, I want to do their hulls in a rather dark gray/black and black type wont show up well :(

I hope my printer can print small enough as well!
 
I would need clear decal paper to print white text on it so I have a transparent with white text decal :P

The white decal paper is going to be all white, thus not transparent. And I can't cut out letters that small

unless I missed something
 
Once someone gets some of these in, they will have to post how well it works. I'm curious if the ink from an inkjet printer will run or such when you wet the decal to pull it off.
 
The Griffin decals were not printed on inkjet or laser printers, they were printed with an ALPS printer which uses a ribbon of dry waxy ink, which come in the basic colors plus special white ribbons are available along with silver, gold, etc. The ALPS printers have not been produced in years and are getting harder and harder to find.
 
l33tpenguin said:
Once someone gets some of these in, they will have to post how well it works. I'm curious if the ink from an inkjet printer will run or such when you wet the decal to pull it off.
Click to expand...
As Star Ranger says, you wait until the ink is fully dried, then spray some sort of lacquer over the sheet to seal it.

I haven't used these decals on wargaming miniatures, but here is my flying model of a prototype A4 rocket (better known to most people as the V2); the tail art is one of these decals.

One way to get white details is to paint the area where the decal will go in gloss white, and make most of the decal the same shade of grey or black as the ship's hull. The "white" bits of a clear decal will show the underlying white. You can then paint around the decal to cover any white background that isn't covered by the decal. That's how I got the white Roman numerals on the black fins of that A4, as well as the sharp border around the tail art.
 
Ah, I thought that lacquer stuff was for after you applied the decal...

If I can get white ink, I'll have to try that inverse with painting white and leaving the outline, AdrianH, thanks!
 
I bought some of the decal papers and after a little photoshopping and printing got a very nice result (the decals is at least of the same quality as those you get from GW for example).

The pictures are sadly a bit out of focus. :/

Hyperion_1.jpg


Hyperion_2.jpg
 
Very nice, two things though:

Prometheus doesn't have an "i" in it.

The name goes along the nose between the front two bands normally. Nonetheless, where you've put them looks good.
 
Scuzzlebutt142 said:
Very nice, two things though:

Prometheus doesn't have an "i" in it.

The name goes along the nose between the front two bands normally. Nonetheless, where you've put them looks good.
Click to expand...

Typos suck :( hopefully it either wont bother you or is easily fixable.

The name actually goes in two places, in two different colors. On the top of the nose in white and on the 'tower' blue the blue stripe and above the EA logo in blue.
See: http://www.shipschematics.net/b5/images/earthforce/heavycruiser_hyperion.jpg

Also, if you are going to redo the names, I recommend using all uppercase lettering. it looks sharper (and is how they do it on the show)

The Macro setting (the little flower) is what you want when taking pictures of small things, like minis.
 
Thanks for the comments.

The typo: Doh! Where is the spelling checker in Photoshop! Well at least its easy to fix. :)

The positioning: I have decided to change the position for both the Novas and Hyperions because the original place would make them smaller than I liked as I want them as readeble as possible.
I printed versions for the hyperions for the tower but they had to be to small I thought.
 
Scipio said:
Thanks for the comments.

The typo: Doh! Where is the spelling checker in Photoshop! Well at least its easy to fix. :)

The positioning: I have decided to change the position for both the Novas and Hyperions because the original place would make them smaller than I liked as I want them as readeble as possible.
I printed versions for the hyperions for the tower but they had to be to small I thought.
Click to expand...

I figured it was something like that :P I'm hoping my printer is high enough of a resolution to print that small and still be legable when I get back home and get my minis finished.

Got pics of your Novas? Remember, macro setting! And, if you decide to fix up the one name, or both, I HIGHLY recommend capital lettering. It just has a look about it on the side of a ship that is better. I think it makes the letters easier to read as well because you don't have smaller lowercase characters mixed together of different heigths.
 
l33tpenguin said:
Got pics of your Novas? Remember, macro setting! And, if you decide to fix up the one name, or both, I HIGHLY recommend capital lettering. It just has a look about it on the side of a ship that is better. I think it makes the letters easier to read as well because you don't have smaller lowercase characters mixed together of different heigths.
Click to expand...
Got no better Nova pics at the moment. I will post some later when I've charged the camera and get the correct setting configured...

I will print a sheet with capitals to make sure but I think your right. :)
 
Scipio said:
l33tpenguin said:
Got pics of your Novas? Remember, macro setting! And, if you decide to fix up the one name, or both, I HIGHLY recommend capital lettering. It just has a look about it on the side of a ship that is better. I think it makes the letters easier to read as well because you don't have smaller lowercase characters mixed together of different heigths.
Click to expand...
Got no better Nova pics at the moment. I will post some later when I've charged the camera and get the correct setting configured...

I will print a sheet with capitals to make sure but I think your right. :)
Click to expand...

Can't wait to see the Novas. I love looking at other peoples minis. I can't wait to show off my own as well.

The capital lettering I figured out while I was modding a 3d model of an Omega destroyer as a Shadow Omega back in in '99. I was changing the nameplate and it just didn't look right. It took me several renderings playing with the font until I realized it wasn't all caps. Wish the images were still on the net, they turned out well. I was making up 'screen caps' for a group that was doing an online B5 RPG
 
And awesome Novi!
(yes, I'm trying to start a trend...)

I am still of the opinion that those front guns should be in the middle and both sets of small ones should be up front. Every mini I've seen has that long pair up front and they are always sticking out at an angle and just look funny to me. But everyone seems to put the long barrels up front. The only good reference image I could find was off b5tech, and it shows ALL the barrels the same lenght :(

http://www.b5tech.com/earthalliance/earthallianceshipsandvessels/earthcapships/nova/novaglory.jpg

Anyway, Great looking models! and very good pics ;) those came out very well. Another tid bit of advice, if you can get your hands on one of those mini tripods (they are cheap and about 2-3 inches tall) they work wonderful at steadying the camera. And, especially with macro, either use a manual focus or ensure the camera is focusing on what you want it to.

Oh! beautiful asteroids in the back ground! How did you make those? they look very nice!
 
Well I kind of like the big cannons in front. It gives it a look of an ant head with antennas. :)

I have a tripod but seldom use it as I often want pictures from higher hight than the tripod extends to.
The focus seems to be off on the camera. Instead of focusing on center as it is configured it seems to focus in the upper left for some reason. I'm playing around with it the configuration to see if I can find a better one.

The asteroids is made of chunks of polystyrene foam put on a base.
I then spray it the with GWs Roughcoat spray that melts the the chunk and gives it the astroid like form.
Then I spray it with black paint and after that it's just to drybrush it into the color you like.
 
Scipio said:
I have a tripod but seldom use it as I often want pictures from higher hight than the tripod extends to.
The focus seems to be off on the camera. Instead of focusing on center as it is configured it seems to focus in the upper left for some reason. I'm playing around with it the configuration to see if I can find a better one.
Click to expand...
Just because the game is played on a tabletop doesn't mean you have to take the photos there. :) Given that you have a nice starfield playing surface, and assuming that it isn't the actual surface of the table, could you put the starfield on the floor while you take your photos?

What type of camera do you have? There's probably a limit to how close its macro setting can focus. Set the camera a bit further back and to highest resolution, take a photo which extends a lot further round than the ships and asteroids, then use your choice of photo editing software to crop it down to the interesting bit.

And ithe camera may have "intelligent focus", meaning it will try to pick focus from a range of positions around the frame. You should be able to disable this to force the camera to focus on the centre.
 
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