painting decals

[gerdog]

Is it possible to paint decals? I am thinking of the stripes on the 1/12 mustang gt 500.

I could paint the hood roof and trunk stripes directly on the car but the side stripes supplied with the kit have gt500 in them. I am thinking of changing the color of all the stripes. Any opinions/suggestions?

[Draggon]

I used to paint decals all the time. I was really into "hand lettering" back in the 60's and 70's. I found it much easier to paint a decal flat on my bench rather that work directly on the side of the model. I used Testor's enamels, and it worked great. I think a lot of the success came from the fact that the enamel paint remained sort of flexible, so the application process was easy. I think I still have a couple of the models I did back then, I can take pics if you're really interested.

[gerdog]

Thanks for the input. I kinda thought it would be do-able but it's always good to hear from someone who has done it. If it is not a lot of trouble, a pic would be good. I know peoples time is valuable.

I used to paint decals all the time. I was really into "hand lettering" back in the 60's and 70's. I found it much easier to paint a decal flat on my bench rather that work directly on the side of the model. I used Testor's enamels, and it worked great. I think a lot of the success came from the fact that the enamel paint remained sort of flexible, so the application process was easy. I think I still have a couple of the models I did back then, I can take pics if you're really interested.

[cobraman]

I would like to see photos as well.

[Draggon]

I dug the old "girls" out. They're swimming in dishwater right now. They havent seen the light of day for 4 decades. Pictures to come. It is very very easy to do!

[Art Anderson]

Back in my Indy Car building days, I used to overpaint just about all the decals I used, given the generally poor quality lithographed decals most kits had in them back in the day. I found it pretty easy to paint over them, using the original printing as a guide, almost exactly the same as working with old-fashioned paint-by-number sets that were popular in the 50's and 60's. I also found that after learning how to do that, I could easily hand-paint my own graphics, without the benefit of having a decal to use as a guide.

I built this AJ Foyt Coyote (1977 Indy winner, AJ's historic 4th trip to Victory Lane) in 1988, all the graphics are hand painted, except for the accessory decals:

[Draggon]

Very nice Art. Here are my examples. First bear in mind that I did these at the ripe old age of 16. The quality is not what I would accept from myself today. "Pacific" is all Testors enamels, with lettraset dry transfers for "trucking co". If you look close you can see I ran out of dry transfers for the right side and had to hand letter it.

The "carter" is testors spray gold with hand lettering and again dry transfers. In retro spect, I should have cleared the gold, as its flat and doesnt look all that good.

What I discovered is that the better the base decal is, the better your results will be. I found that AutoWorld decals, as well as old school Monogram were perfect. I didn't have so great results with the AMT decals. Look for glossiness on the base decal. If its really shiny, you'll get good results.

Edited January 19, 2013 by Draggon

[gerdog]

Very nice pics Art and Glen. I will go ahead with my decal painting, now that I know it can be done successfully. Thanks