CadillacPat

My second AirBrush, a Badger 155, introduced me to better AirBrushes. I tell people all the time, You do not have to start at the bottom with AirBrushes, an Anthem 155 costs only a few bucks more than generic or single action AirBrushes and blows them away. CadillacPat

Terrific!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! There are a lot of people here interested in making their own Decals!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Good to see!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! We have one or two more introductory info steps (writing those at the moment) and then we get to the juicy stuff. Stay Tuned over the weekend, CadillacPat

Are you making the Decal yourself, or are you trying to get the cracked appearance on an existing Decal? CadillacPat

Thanks John, I've used Corel for a few things. Confusing the names is no biggie, There actually are a PrintShop and Printshop Pro so you had part of it correct. I use PhotoShop for everything but as you can see these CadillacPat Custom Decal tutorials are not just about the Graphics Program. You can still use your Corel and perhaps the PhotoShop discussions will help you along with it. CadillacPat

Everything You Need To Know to Make Custom WaterSlide Decals by CadillacPat Part II Decal Tools I make Promotional Custom DieCast for Companies, Events, Parties, Movie Premieres, Conventions, Weddings and Individuals to publicize and advertise themselves with 1/64 scale DieCast mementos and souvenirs of their Events. Making your own Decals at Home allows anyone to achieve personal "One of a Kind" results. The possibilities decorating or personalizing objects with Decals are limitless. To begin with you need good Clear InkJet Decal Paper. I've used several kinds of Decal Paper in the past 12 years and Clear InkJet Decal Paper from Papilio.com is by far the superior brand, it is all I use. It's thin, conforms to complex surfaces and is always fresh. Papilio.com offers the best options around for shipping and my Decal Paper always arrives quickly. Here's a picture of all the tools you will need for easy perfect application of your Custom Decals. These tools are what I use. Here we have our Decal Application Tools, Good sharp scissors, Titanium, about $7. Keep them clean and use them only for your Decals. Small manicure scissors used to cut away sections of an applied Decal that is draped over any window or wheel well opening. X-Acto Knife with #11 blades. Dollar Stores carry an X-Acto Knife Kit full of blades. Keep this clean and don't use your Decal blade for anything else. The X-Acto Knife is used to trim away small clear negative sections of a Decal after it is cut out and before it is immersed in water. With the X-Acto you need not cut all the way through the Decal and the paper it is printed on. You only need to lightly scribe through the layer of Decal film itself. Curved Jewelers Tweezers Sure you can use simple straight tweezers but you will notice greater ease and accuracy in applying Decals with Curved Tweezers. 1/2" Square Wash Nylon Artists Brush (the orange one in the pic), Nylon NOT Camel Hair, Nylon is firm for brushing the Decals flat. This one tool will transform the way you apply Decals. Just wet it and blot it dry before using. #2 Artist Brush for wetting down a surface before application, and for applying either of the shown Decal Solvent or Decal Set. Toothpicks for gently sliding and making adjustments in a Decal's position. Pedicure Wedge Sponges, Yes, the wedged Rubber Sponges women put between their toes when painting their toenails. After a Decal is brushed down flat I dampen one of these, wring it out and press down on the Decal. Found in Dollar Stores or Cosmetic Departments of Grocery Stores. Micro-Sol and Micro-Set, Used to soften a positioned Decal so it can be pressed down into recessed areas or around compound curves. Other brands are available. I use these by MicroScale. Micro-Sol is the stronger of the two and I rarely use Micro-Set. #10 Artists Brush (very tiny) used to touch up Decals after applied if you should crack or break the surface color. Just use good water based Artist paints like Golden, Wicked, Com Art. Sharpie Permanent Marker, Permanent ONLY, also used for Decal touchup. Lastly all you will need is a shallow saucer or bowl with no more than 1/2" warm or room temperature water to soak your Decals. Add no more than 2 or 3 drops of any liquid dish soap, gently stir, and this will lubricate the Decal assisting in sliding it into position. Not pictured is a Rubber Squeegee available at Papilio.com for gently dragging over the surface of a Decal applied to a flat substrate. These are the only tools I use. Like all my Customizing Tutorials I teach people the way I do things so they can achieve the same crisp clean results that I do. So, if you decide to substitute tools, products and methods, you run the risk of also altering your results. Part 3 coming up, CadillacPat

John, check your software and double check that name. Let me know what you have. You either mean Corel or PhotoShop, not the two together And, Nothing will take images off a real car and edit or manipulate them. I'm sure you mean using images that you have either found on the Net or scanned from originals. CadillacPat

Ron, Printshop and Printshop Pro were of the many programs I first used. I went to PhotoShop because of its ability to save everything in Layers. PrintShop had a lot of nice Text features but PhotoShop was actually much easier to learn Everything is different in PrintShop opposed to PhotoShop so all the Tools and Features and Manipulations are different. Yes, PhotoShop is way better!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! CadillacPat

Absolutely Don, When I began putting these up on the Internet almost 10 years ago there was no one making Decals other than the casual sticker made in Word. I needed crisp clear Graphcis for my Promotional Customs so I had to come up with ways to produce them. More to come, Stay tuned, CadillacPat

I submitted some of my Sons Of Anarchy Custom DieCast to the Sons Of Anarchy website and they put them up on their Gallery Page, http://www.fxnetworks.com/soa/gallery/artist/season1/recent/1/ CadillacPat

Everything You Need To Know About Making Your Own Decals by CadillacPat Part I What Are InkJet Decals? The simple answer here is InkJet Decals are images printed on Clear or White InkJet Decal Paper using an InkJet Printer. The same information will apply here for LaserJet Decals printed on Clear or White LaserJet Decal Paper. InkJet Decals printed on Clear InkJet Decal paper are just like Stained Glass Windows, they are printed with transparent inks whose colors can be affected depending on the surface color of the object they are applied over. InkJet Decals printed on White InkJet Decal Paper are completely opaque and can be placed over any color without any interference from underlying colors. Both Clear and White InkJet Decal papers have their own distinct advantages. All my Decal Paper comes from Papilio.com There is no White basecoat behind InkJet Decals like on the Decals that came with your Models you built as a kid. InkJet Printers do not contain White ink, so they will disappear if placed on top of very dark colors like Black. InkJet Printers see the color White, on your images, as a blank space. After all Printers use White Paper so there is no need for White ink. With varying degrees of color appearance in your applied Decals, you can place Clear InkJet Decals over White or SnowWhite Pearl with perfect results, over Silver with a very slight change in color, over Yellow and light Pastel basecoats with a slight change in color, over Gold with a slight change in color, beyond that on darker colors the Decals suffer a heavier degree of color change. Light Metallic colors or colors with Pearl Powders in them will have an amazing Neon effect to the colors of Decals applied over them. The Cyan, Yellow and Magenta of InkJet Inks suffer the greatest change over very dark colors but the Black Ink will show up on anything other than Black paint. However, I have come up with ways to apply Clear InkJet Decals over dark colors, later in these tutorials. If you own a Laser Printer, stay with me, everything is the same except you print on Clear or White Laser Decal Paper. By far the best Graphics Program I have found for making Decals is Photoshop. I have tried and used nearly 2 dozen other graphics programs and none yield the results or are as easy to use as PhotoShop with its Layer abilities. Now Stay Tuned for Part II "Decal Tools" CadillacPat

Choosing the right tires right now, Moving right along!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! CadillacPat

Thanks Manny, All Decal Images are created from scratch using PhotoShop CadillacPat

It doesn't matter what type of AirBrush you have. Anything with at least a .3 needle will suffice. I use HOK Clear in everything I have, Badgers, Iwatas, Paasche. Sometimes people will advise a novice AirBrusher to stay away from Urethane clears because they know that they may be lax in thoroughly cleaning their tools. Clean> use> Clean, it's as simple as that. CadillacPat

Jim, exactly what House Of Kolor 1 oz. paints are you asking about? CadillacPat

Don, those are!!!!! They're made on Clear InkJet Decal Paper from Papilio.com I don't use the White Paper because it is so much thicker than Clear. When I first got online DieCast Customizers for the large part could only use a homemade Decal on a light color of car. While most of my Promotional Customs at that time were made using SnowWhite Pearl HOK I also wanted to put graphics on cars of any color. So, I came up with this process, Above, After Primer the fenders are shot House Of Kolor Black, Fenders are dusted with InterCoat Clear for Taping, then taped and the whole thing is shot HOK Shimrin White and then HOK SnowWhite Pearl, Upper left and right side Panels are taped ujsing Tamiya Tape and a Frisket mask, made from one of the roof Decals themselves, is attached to the roof and the whole thing is then shot House Of Kolor Zenith Gold, The nose is dusted with HOK InterCoat Clear for taping, taped, and then the grill outline is shot, All tape is removed and then the Decals go on. So, when I want true color InkJet Decals on dark colored DieCast, I just AirBrush a White surface that will fit behind the Decal image. It's the same with many of the flamed HW Passions I have in threads. CadillacPat

Yes Hooter, I did a Cowboy Dairy Delivery Custom for a guy in Dallas. The Silver and Blue colors are okay but they just don't have enough contrast for that Wow factor. CadillacPat

Scale, that's not a sealant or fixative. That stuff is actual Decal film or something close to it. It's touted as a means of brushing the stuff on paper and then printing a single decal on top of it. CadillacPat

Nothing ClearCoats like 2 part Urethane Clear shot through an AirBrush. I apply mine with any of my AirBrushes for a glass smooth finish. CadillacPat

Yep!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! CadillacPat

Quote: Once you start using automotive paints for your model cars, trust me, you'll never go back to using Testors/Tamiya/etc. paints ever again That's right!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! CadillacPat

Some more Pearl, More to come, CadillacPat

You bet!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! CadillacPat

Vector images won't hurt but they are not necessary. At these scales manipulated high resolution images will look just fine and of course tiny text will appear perfect. CadillacPat

Nearly any Font you see is available online and easily loads into your PC and PhotoShop at the same time. The Maserati logo is easily recreated and then turned Chrome using a Chrome style, (one click of the Mouse) Your second image can easily be cut out, cleaned up and also Chromed. Just lay them down over White or SnowWhite Pearl. CadillacPat

I don't see anyone having said it would "fade away", in fact just the opposite. It will take a long time for it to fade into use for replacing injection molded Models, if to any tiny degree. What many of us have stated is that ease of use will be the main issue. Add that to cost of material, quality of parts, time it takes to make parts, machine cost, etc., and you can see how only a fraction of Modelers will ever be using these. UNTIL, Just like the ease of PhotoShop, one is able to simply open an image and click the Mouse one time, just like Star Trek. Way too many boxes of Models remain available and will for a long long time to fill the majority's needs. Just like those who make professional Decals, look how many there ever were, only a handful, and look how many are current, only a couple. CadillacPat