Home made decals

As there has been quite a few posts recently about making your own decals,I thought I would share what I have been doing today with you all.As I had the day off work and nothing to do I decided to have a play around to see what I could produce in the way of home made decals.The main reasoning behind this is the fact that I want to produce the Elonex sponsored Subaru Legacy of Richard Burns for the Tribute build and as no decals are available commercially in order to do this particular car I will have to make my own.
I used Adobe Illustrator CS2 to create the artwork.All the decals I made today were printed on clear decal paper from Crafty Computer Paper (an online webstore) I used my Canon Pixma 5200 Inkjet printer set to glossy photo paper and highest quality.I also coated the decals with Microscale liquid decal film to seal the inks and after they were applied I coated them with clear laquer (Hiroboy's pre mixed stuff)
The first one I made was the number board for the doors.This was relatively easy and consisted of a black square with a line across it,a blue rectangle with the words 'Manx International' written in it and the number 4 in the white square.This took about 5 mins to make.

This is the decal.

http://i17.photobucket.com/albums/b61/stevenoble/Tamiyacan007.jpg

The 2nd was the Elonex logo consisting of a black square,a smaller grey square,6 small red squares and the Elonex typed in white with the text tool.I stretched the L and the X of Elonex to create the logo shown here.Took about 30 mins to create.

http://i17.photobucket.com/albums/b61/stevenoble/Tamiyacan001.jpg

I also did a Q8 logo just to see how it printed with the different colours.The artwork for this came from the brands of the world website as an encapsulated post script file,so needed no designing at all.Just downloaded re sized and printed.

http://i17.photobucket.com/albums/b61/stevenoble/Tamiyacan004.jpg

And an Audi logo as well (Brands of the World site again)

http://i17.photobucket.com/albums/b61/stevenoble/Tamiyacan005.jpg

All in all I was very pleased with the results.I hope it may have given some of you enough information to be able to have a go at your own decals.They are not as good or as tough as the decals you buy or that come in kits.But they are very usable if you treat them gently.One thing is they are very see through which is no problem on white cars but would be a big problem on dark cars.I made a spare Elonex logo and put it on a dark background and you couldn't even see it.I am also thinking of investing in a laser printer which won't solve the 'see through' issue but at least they may be a little tougher and not need to be sealed.
Let me know what you think of the decals and in the meantime I may just be spurred on to build that Subaru of Richard Burns.

I see Richard Burn's early Legacy drive coming down the WIP road....

does that mean though, that you'll need to mask off and paint the white areas under that decal? Or is it white paper to begin with?

how is the decal detail (using inkjet) with small decal designs such as oil filter labels, battery labels, etc?
what's the print resolution of your printer?

does that mean though, that you'll need to mask off and paint the white areas under that decal? Or is it white paper to begin with?

how is the decal detail (using inkjet) with small decal designs such as oil filter labels, battery labels, etc?
what's the print resolution of your printer?

The ones that are shown here I printed on clear decal paper so obviously the white portions of the decals,the letters in Elonex,Manx International and Audi are all clear.The reason they appear white is because they are on a white background (Tamiya TS26 paint cap) If the background you are placing the decals onto is white then this takes care of the white portions (as the background colour shows through) So there's no problem using the clear paper.
You can also get white paper as well,so if you are placing the decal on a darker background you can use the white paper.The only problem is you would either have to be very good with the scissors when you cut the decals out or white will show around the edge of the design,or you can print a border of your background colour around your design so that whilst cutting it out you need not be so precise.
I've not made any battery or oil filter labels etc yet,but I have made a very small Bilstein Shock Absorber logo and the writing on it is tiny,but it shows up perfectly and is very neat and readable (example shown below) so I think it would be possible to make labels for batteries and oil filters and the like.
The printers resolution is 9600 X 2400 DPI.

The Bilstein logo.(it's about 8-10mm wide) Looks a bit blurred but thats just me with the camera it is perfect in reality.

http://i17.photobucket.com/albums/b61/stevenoble/Tamiyacan001-1.jpg

Great job on the decals Steve they look real good. How are you going to know what size to make each one?

GREAT! I've been waiting to see someone make decals with Illustrator. Noob question: Did you use Microscale before you placed the decal? Thanks.

Great job on the decals Steve they look real good. How are you going to know what size to make each one?

The honest answer is I'll have to print them out onto plain paper,trial and error until I get the sizes right,trying them against the model.Once I know how much to scale them up or down it's easy to do with the scale tool on Illustrator.Then I'm going to try to get them all onto one sheet together so I can print them off in one hit and save having to put the sheet through the printer multiple times or use lots of sheets of paper.But having said that the paper is not really that expensive at £1:85p per A4 sheet (about $3 ish)

GREAT! I've been waiting to see someone make decals with Illustrator. Noob question: Did you use Microscale before you placed the decal? Thanks.

I printed them off and let them dry for an hour or so.Then whilst they were still on the sheet brushed the Microscale Liquid Decal film onto them to seal the inks (the Microscale drys with no brush marks at all) Then I left this to dry for an hour (it says 15 mins on the bottle but I wanted to be sure) Then cut the decals out,but not too close to the design,if you break the sealer when you put them into the water the ink will run.You can then apply them like a normal decal,although as I said earlier they are not as tough and can't be rough handled as much.If you treat them gently though they are fine and perfectly usable.The ones above I didn't use any Microsol or Microset setting solutions on them as they conformed easily on the lid of the aerosol i used as a background.I don't see why you couldn't use the setting solutions on them though,they should be fine with them.Maybe try a spare one first to be sure though.

Thanks Steve for the store info: I also use a Pixma (6600D) on Bare Metal decal paper, I felt good but I want to try this new media, also it seems it cost a bit less. The most problem I have is the coating before use with water: the printer has waterproof inks (as also the Stylus 2100 I use too) but they needs a coating on decals...

Thanks Steve for the store info: I also use a Pixma (6600D) on Bare Metal decal paper, I felt good but I want to try this new media, also it seems it cost a bit less. The most problem I have is the coating before use with water: the printer has waterproof inks (as also the Stylus 2100 I use too) but they needs a coating on decals...

You should try the Microscale Liquid Decal film.Just brush it on and it drys perfect with no brush marks,it really is so easy to use and it protects the inks very well when you place the decals into the water.