http://www.whatdetail.com
I don’t know if you folks have seen this or not. ( I’m not trying to pu***heir products). At the bottom of the home page , scroll down to the Free Signs for Model Makers section.All different kinds of signage. Pretty high resolution.
All free downloads. Just wanted to share.[:)]
Guy!
Most Excellent, Thanks!
Another source of signs comes in magazines. Ads in them often make excellent billboards by simply cliping the page and pasting into a billboard.
Equipment catalogs can also be a good source of safety signs, again by clipping and pasting to structures.
Instead of cutting out why not scan them? That said… has anyone got any 1980s back issues of mags that they could scan ads to make posters from…PLEASE?
I make my own billboards out of balsa and have used this site for signs. Great site!
RMax1
Works for me! Just bought a new HP Scanner / copeir / yada-yada-yada unit. Now I just have to learn how to use it!!
I’ve seen a lot of excellent ads in old National Geographic magazines. Many old issues can be found on eBay, I tried using their “advanced Search” feature and got 316 matches using the search pattern “national geographic magazine 198*” (the star is a wildcard character).
When I have printed sign images on plain paper using my (home-grade) ink jet printer, the image just looks poor (even with good quality paper) - the print quality is fine for regular documents, but not for supposedly realistic signs (heh, I’m complaining, when just a dozen years ago I had a Heljan apartment building w/ storefronts that had cartoonish interior pictures to paste in the window - well, I complained about that too, so at least I’m consistant)
If I use photo-paper, it looks much better, but it’s kinda expensive (I know, I know, print out a few dozen signs at once - fill the entire page). Still needs a coat of flat or semi-gloss to remove the [unrealistic] sheen.
So, I wonder if there is a happy medium combining the cheapness of regular paper w/ the quality of photo-paper?
Finally, those clipping out logos and such from magazines (I find magazine ads are a good source of logos/emblems, but rarely make good whole advertisements readily transferable to billboards/signs/etc) and planning to directly apply them to walls or fences should sand the edges of the clipping to reduce the visibility of these white cut edges (old trick mentioned numerous times in MR over the years).
Another trick I have used is to look in antique stores for books on signs and sign collecting. I have one on porcelin signs and here are hundreds of color signs from the 20’s through the 40’s for all kinds of products and stores.
Also if you can get an industrial or safety suppy catalog and scan pages out of it they are loaded with hundreds of pictures of industrial signs (Danger High Voltage, Watch Out for Forklifts, No Tresspassing, etc).
Dave H.
nice one, thanks
There’s a guy on these forums from Fast Tracks.(I think his screen name is Fast-Tracks. He’s got some beautiful signs on his layout that he did himself.I’ve E-mailed him before to find out what type of printer and paper he’s using but he never got back to me.Maybe you’ll have better luck if you contact him.
Thanks for sharing. This stuff is great.
Excellent tip but not everyone has a scanner or a printer which would produce high quality reproductions.
Still a good tip.
Dale
I have the complete set of Natinal Geographic on CD ROM. The pages are actually high resolution scans (or photographs) of the individual pages of the magazine. This includes the ads. Select your year and you can find signs and billboards perfect for your layout.
KJ
Thanks for the link, I knew it was out there somewhere!!