I work part time for a local distributor of SHELL fuel products. I would very much like to reproduce a couple of their big tanker trucks in HO scale for our club’s layout. I have taken 35mm pictures of the artwork on the sides of this company’s Kenworth tractor cabs. I’m just wondering if with today’s technology if it would be possible to create decals for a project like this, using 35mm photos or digital format. Does anyone out there have any answers?? And if so, how can it be accomplished??
Many thanks to anyone who can provide me with some answers or tips!
You print the photo onto decal paper, which is available from a number of sources. Micromark carries it, as does I believe, Walthers.
The printed decal paper is then used like you would a normal decal. It would be essentially the same thing. The only problem you would have is if your printer uses water soluble inks. In that case, to prevent the image from dissolving off the decal paper when you try to apply it, you have to seal the image onto the paper using a sealer. These are also available, but I’m not sure of the exact names to give you.
Are all the Shell images Yellow, Red, Black (I believe the colours of Shell)?
Remember, white does not reproduce on standard home color printers (you need fairly expensive commercial ones for that - forget about Alps they’re fairly hard to find in working condition nowadays).
Red or Black colours should be fine, but the yellow may be a bit translucent.
The name of the Shell distributor that I work for is HOWES OIL COMPANY. Their company logo is in red and black, which is applied to the cab doors of the trucks. Their Kenworth cabs are painted entirely in silver. The Shell image is not used at all on any of this company’s trucks. Howes Oil was a distributor of Texaco fuels until Shell bought them out within the last couple years.
You can buy decal paper either with transparent or white backing. That’s one solution to the “can’t print white” problem.
There is decal paper for inkjets, and decal paper for lasers. I suspect the laser stuff would be better, because it’s much more water-safe, but I really have no experience with it.
As a decal printer I can answer most of the questions brought up here.
first, Yes, a decal can be produced from a photo. Will it look good? probably not. It will look like the picture, plus everything in the photo will be in the decal. Essentially you will have a decal of a picture to put on your model. Most all good decal printers work in vector images. These are line drawings that do not contain pixels like raster images do. This is not to say that raster(bmp) images can’t be used. The “best” way to do this would be to redraw the art into a vector format and them print it.
There is decal paper for inkjets, and decal paper for lasers. I suspect the laser stuff would be better, because it’s much more water-safe, but I really have no experience with it.
Actually, the difference between laser and inkjet paper is that inkjet paper is made to absorb the ink as opposed to laser fusing the toner on top. The laser is water proof only because it is not a water based ink like the inkjet inks are (epson Durabrite inks are water proof) Laser paper can not be used with inkjet printers as the ink will bead up on top and not dry properly or fuse to the paper.
Dan is right, it will look like a photograph. The other problem you will have is that any curvature on the object photographed will not translate to the decal. As a result you will have a decal that will not “square” to the truck door or tank. Perspective and parallex have a lot to do with it.
What I have done is take photos and paste them into Corel Draw (any vector program will work the same way) and then recreate the photo in vector. That way I can square it. Also because it is in a vector format it will resize without any loss.
I use an inkjet to print my decals and have never had any problem with running colors. You should fix the decal like any commercial decal and hit it with dullcoat.
I read in another forum that Epson inkjet printers with DuraBrite inks are the best for decals. The inks are oil based and do not run or bleed in water. I have not tried the decal paper in my Epsons (C80 & R200) yet, but this is my plan in the near future.
As I stated in my post above, durabrite inks are supposed to be water proof. I have never tested this so I can’t verify it. If you use it, be sure to use a paper designed for inkjet printers. Laser paper will not properly accept the ink and thus won’t print properly. Also, you may find that to get good color rendering on your models you may have to print on white backed paper. Inks and toners need the white backing for the color to properly render.
MR had an article a while back about “painting” models with decals. I believe that it showed a building, as well as a caboose as samples. The author purposely used the entire photo to cover the item. E.g. on the caboose, he used the entire side, so the logos, rust, paint, etc were all included.
A few key things to remember:
Use digital imaging software to “straighten” the picture so it is as “full-on” as possible. You probably cannot take the picture this way, but the software can fake it for you.
As mentioned by the above posts, if all you are after is the logo, you are probably better off reproducing it by tracing in some drawing program. On the other hand, if you want to take the complete coverage approach as I described above, then you don’t need to redraw.