License plates

[Chrischu33]

Hello again,

Have any of you had experience with making your own DIY license plates? Because you know, sometimes you just wanna make your model more personal rather than using the kit provided plates. How would you do em? I am not really fond of the idea of printing it on a decal since i heard its not that easy and i have to get some kind of special paper, and printer. Are there any other methods out there on making your own license plates realistic???

Thank you

[Foxer]

Even "cheap" printers nowadays can do it. Just get geed photo paper and use the best settings when printing. If you get at a distance from your plate with the camera so it prints at .5 inches you can just cut it out and use that. Sometimes the paper can be split with a razor blade to make it thinner. This I do a lot and it's really simple.

 

[Longbox55]

Mike has the right idea. Photo paper works much better than decal paper for doing plates. If you have a decent image resizing program, you don't even have to worry about the image size. I tend to prefer using images that were shot closer up, mostly source from online sources, and resize them myself to .5 x .25 (depending on 1:1 plate size). If you get the right font for the letter/numbers, you can make your own "blank" plates very easily in a program like Paint, and put whatever you want on them.

The plate on this Dodge was done on photo paper, using a blank plate made in Paint.  

[Kit Basher]

There are some online sites where you can create your own plates. I like all my models to have Virginia plates, so I stole some images from the Virginia DMV, and use "photoshop lite" to create the lettering. If you have MS Word, it works great for resizing, and I agree that photo paper works well.

Here's one of my home made plates.

Edited April 8, 2016 by Kit Basher

[berr13]

Check with Best Model Car Parts.  A few years ago he made me a bunch of plates that I requested--my former rides, friend's rides, etc.  Not that expensive, either.  Email him and ask...

[Nitro Neil]

The best website to get license plate artwork is http://www.licenseplates.tv/

They have an incredible variety of locations and years. (with the exception of California. California sells "vintage" plates so they don't want any aftermarket company selling them because California would lose that revenue). 

You can type in what you want and the site will create a small PNG image the you can copy and resize and then print it on photo paper. I make a variety of samples on one 4x6 photo paper and print it out and then cut out the one I decide to use. 

I spend a bunch of time during each build coming up with license plate ideas and then save the samples to my computer so I have them all at the end.

Edited April 8, 2016 by Nitro Neil

[ChrisBcritter]

I made a bunch of black '63 CA plates from licenseplates.tv before they cut it off; I saved the base image and put all the letters and numbers on a template so I can copy and paste them onto the base.

[TomZ]

Microsoft Paint does a fine job of resizing pictures, and it's part a Windows.

 

[Tesla]

Here's a site that I use: http://www.acme.com/licensemaker/

[afx]

This is good stuff.  I need to make some European plates for a couple of builds.

[hedotwo]

Here's a site that I use: http://www.acme.com/licensemaker/

x2

[TarheelRick]

Here is another site that offers the ability to custom make license plates.  I print mine on 3X5 index cards.

 

http://www.licenseplates.tv/license-plates.html

 

[Longbox55]

Here's another good place for finding vintage plates http://www.greatamericanplates.com/index.php

[misterNNL]

I have used a site named Acme license plate maker quite a few times.They offer a lot of different states and years to choose from.By printing them at a slight size reduction they can be printed to 1/25th scale and in full color.Best of all it's free!