DECAL HEEEELLLLPPPPP !!!!

ChrisF · August 01, 2012, 02:10:12 PM

Out of all the decals on the model i go screw up the most important

Im building the Legato Hurricane IIc as in particular DR-B "Jessie"

And putting the "Jessie" nametag in the water it shrivelled up and tied itself into a knot...

any ideas or help please !!?

Unfortunately leaving it off is not an option

pyro-manic · August 01, 2012, 03:35:22 PM

Two pairs of tweezers (or tweezers and a scalpel or whatever you prefer) and tease it open again. Keep it in the water, and be very gentle. Not much else you can do, unless you can get another copy of the sheet? OR use a very fine white pen/pencil/brush and hand-paint the script?

EDIT: Here's a profile of that Hurricane - you may well be able to copy the script from that, or use it to print (or get someone else to print) a new marking for you?

PR19_Kit · August 02, 2012, 12:18:59 AM

The script is in white which rather prevents home printing it.

It may be possible to print it on white decal paper with an area around that that's the same colour as the base camo, but it would need some serious work on colour matching to get it to look right.

Gondor · August 02, 2012, 10:33:11 AM

Why not make the decal in reverse.

Ok I know that sounds kind of stupid, but why worry about printing in white when you can print the surrounding area in grey on clear decal and paint a white patch on the airframe then apply the clear word with grey surround onto the white airframe?

Gondor

PR19_Kit · August 02, 2012, 03:40:28 PM

I've done that in the past Alastair and it works well too.

You're still left with the colour matching issue though, which can be a real pain at times.

wagnersm · August 02, 2012, 05:55:41 PM

Quote from: ChrisF on August 01, 2012, 02:10:12 PM
Out of all the decals on the model i go screw up the most important

Im building the Legato Hurricane IIc as in particular DR-B "Jessie"

And putting the "Jessie" nametag in the water it shrivelled up and tied itself into a knot...

any ideas or help please !!?

Unfortunately leaving it off is not an option

Can you get another set of decals from the kit manufacturer?

Steve

ChrisF · August 03, 2012, 04:07:00 PM

Im going to try im just not sure if them being all the way in the Czech Republic they'll be able to help :/

You guys have given me some ideas though and im sure that profile will come in handy

Thanks again

PR19_Kit · May 01, 2013, 06:44:54 AM

Sort of on a similar topic..........

As I've said here quite a few times I print quite a lot of my own decals using my laptop with PaintShoPro and an H-P inkjet printer and Crazy Computer Co. decal paper, both white and clear types. I'm running into a colour matching problem on one particlar job as I had the devil's own job getting the decal colour to print out corectly.

I scanned the artwork into my laptop, changed the shape and size to suit the model and laid up the decal sheet but when I printed it the colours didn't match up at all. Even if I printed the sheet out on plain paper first the colours there didn't match up with the colours on the decal paper!

So is there any way of calibrating the Scanner/PC/Printer/paper so that they all match?

I ended up by printing out a test sheet with maybe 12 different sample blocks complete with their RGB codes and comparing it to the original sheet. Then I used the nearest colour to the correct one and 'flooding' my new sheet with that shade. It's OK but it took me EIGHT different test sheets to get there!

Hobbes · May 01, 2013, 07:42:03 AM

In the printing industry, they use color profiles to match colors between devices. In this case, you'd need color profiles for your scanner, laptop screen, your printer and the decal paper, plus software that uses these profiles.

Getting a profile for the decal paper is going to be the difficult part.
I don't know if Paintshop Pro can use color profiles.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Color_management

PR19_Kit · May 01, 2013, 08:19:45 AM

Blimey, that sounds complicated!

Now do I know anyone in the printing industry that's on here? Hmm, I think I may do, someone who's just had a birthday perhaps......

pyro-manic · May 01, 2013, 10:13:37 AM

Complicated and not cheap. Calibration tools are rather expensive (at least a couple of hundred pounds), so beg/borrow/steal. If you know a pro photographer, they may very well have the right gear.

Hobbes · May 01, 2013, 10:36:35 AM

Quote from: PR19_Kit on May 01, 2013, 08:19:45 AM
Blimey, that sounds complicated!

Doesn't have to be, depending on the company that built your devices. If they have their act together, they should have color profiles available for each device. Color profiles are files that need to be installed once, after that operation should be transparent.
You can get close enough using the company-supplied profiles. Calibration tools are a last resort, used only when color matching needs to be exact (for high-quality printing, e.g. production of art books).