Creating Your Own Decal Images w/ Vector Software

Model Railroader General Discussion (Model Railroader)
1

I have had some success with MS Paint to create font decals for my rolling stock, but that is using scalable fonts and the sizes for HO are pretty small, so no blurring issues. Now, I have created a more complex logo design for my railroad on AutoCad, which I am very familiar with, but when I saved it as a jpeg version and placed it on an MS Paint drawing (one of Josh Moldover’s Paintshop images) to check it for positioning, it came in poorly. Has anyone been using AutoCad for their decals successfully? If so, clue me in. PS- I also have Abode Illustrator, but have not used it- would that CAD image transfer to Adobe? Cedarwoodron

2

Autocad can be used to create decals but is a bit clunky for doing so. However, if you are proficient with it and can get the results you want then use it to make the artwork you need. Once done don’t bother with paint. Save the autocad file and open it in Illustrator. It will open as a vector (which it is) and you can fine tune it from there. You may have to ungroup the image once it comes in and thicken up the lines to 1 pt as they come in thin. Tinkering in illustrator for a while to fine tune the art will have you learning the program faster. One bit of advise though when working in Illustrator…forget everything you know about autocad as it will only confuse things. Autocad is an engineering progran and Illustrator is an Arts program and they handle things differently in each. I am fairly proficient in both (more Illustrator) and sometimes I get confused when switching back and forth. Oh,and yes you can print from Illustrator

PS: Several people will be chiming in soon on using sketchup and a host of other free programs out there. Some are good, some are not. All a matter of personal preference

3

Thanks a lot- I have been using AutoCad for 20 years, for arch and engineering, but I created my logo with simple default lines and used my solid fill tool to provide colored areas. Jpegging the image left me with a goulash of pixels that was nowhere near my design. I will try the Illustrator approach- have had Adobe CS for a long time, but just used Photoshop to clean up photos with the clone tool. The learning curve is not getting steeper, there are just more lanes to the road! Cedarwoodron

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I have never imported filled autocad drawings into illustrator. I am not sure how it will handle it. I have always imported simple line drawings and did the fills in Illustrator. If you have any questions feel free to ask.

Dan