Making White Lettering for Decals

That's probably the best way to go about it, making the outline as close to the color of the surrounding area as possible.

I had to remake some decals for an F4-U Corsair. I scanned the top of an Xtracrylix Gloss Sea blue and put a thick band of that colour around the decals. Then I could cut them out without too much worry. Stand back 2 feet and you can't see the join!

David David Pennington SBX Model Shop

Yep, kind of. If the background is a reasonably common color, I make the background for the decal that color. I don't worry about fine lines when I do the art work- just ALL the background is that color. My art program allows any color background, and white lettering.

Then, after printing the decals, when I CUT out the decals, I try to cut close to white areas. This method works reasonably well.

One thing that you can do with most good paint programs is pick up a color and set it as bankground color. So you can paint a little sample of the paint you will be using on a piece of plastic, then scan that sample with your scanner. Open that as a seperate image from the art creation image, pick up the color from the scanned sample and use it in your design creation. It won't be perfect unless you are very good at color matching, but again if you cut out reasonably close to the white, it won't be too bad.

On Sun, 1 Jan 2006 15:28:40 -0600, snipped-for-privacy@aol.com wrote (in article ):

That'll work, if you can cut out the letters accurately enough.

The only other way to do it with an inkjet would be, instead of a thin outline, use a solid background color that matches the paint on which the decal will be applied. When you cut them out, leave a bit of border; if you matched the paint closely enough, the border won't be noticeable.

There's also an old technique that doesn't even use a printer: Find some dry-transfer lettering of the right size & style. Paint the model gloss white and let dry a few days. Apply the lettering. Paint the model in the desired colors and let dry. Use tape to pull off the lettering, exposing the white paint underneath. (You can also use this technique to create decals with white decal film, using the same paint as on the model so that it matches.)

Thanks for the advice. This should be interesting.

You might try the product offerred here:

Rob