So for most of my modeling life I've relied on Microscale decals, and a few others, but never needed custom decals. For a complete n00b, what kind of experience with custom decals does anyone have? I have a vendor in mind, but to defray the costs of setup, I'd like to take a whack at doing my own artwork. What resources exist to help me? What computer programs are needed, what font sizes, how to scale font sizes to photos? If there's a complete idiot's guide to custom decals, please share!
How much experience have you with programs like Draw or Adobe Illustrator? How much experience do you have proparing art to go on a printing press? Do you have any graphic arts experience whatsoever? Beware. I have behind me a career as a pro photographer and a fair amount of prepress experience and I wouldn't go within a mile of decals.
Most places will charge you a minimum amount, usually 2 -3 hours for set up, no matter if you have your own artwork. The place I used in the past charges $35/hour for design and layup time then $24 per 8.5 X 11 page of decals. They do not state if they charge any minimum amount. My order was for white decals for a hopper fleet. I got one page of decals enough for 52 cars. That was less than $2.00 per car.
So my experience with this stuff is minimal. I use Adobe Lightroom, Acrobat pro, Word, and that's about it. For doing the text only, what are some tips and tricks for scaling a photo to font size?
You need to first define exactly what you need. Text only in black for orange cars using the Rio Grande font can be printed using Word, and any inkjet or laser printer. You just need to change the font point size to what you need. At the other end of the spectrum is multi color over white decals. Like NP heralds with the NP Rail Roman font in Z Scale. Here you need skills in using Corel Draw to convert text to curves, and create Vector Artwork that can be scaled to the size needed. Also you need a printer that can print white ink, then colors on top of the white, so you can apply the color decal to a Boxcar Red car for example. The color would not show up unless it is printed over white decal film or a layer of white ink. You need skills in drawing multi layer artwork in Corel Draw and you need an Alps MD printer (out of production since the late 1990's).
Tichy train group does custom work also a new decals maker K4 does some nice work, I am not sure if he takes custom work but its worth an ask. Metallic colors are the only issue now.
Just an add on. This place I used is a professional printer who is also a model railroader. They can do all colors including metallic as well as white. They advertise in Model Railroader Mag.
The 200+ sheet minimum order is a deal killer. That said, there's one that requires vector artwork, as it has graphics. The rest are reporting marks and data for private utility coal hoppers and gons.
I actually have already reached out to CC. He's asking for higher resolution scans of the photos I sent via Flickr links, as I wasn't the photographer. I am working that angle now, but if I can save money by doing the text work, I'll do that. Just need to figure out font sizes from a photo to N scale. The dimensional data is probably the most critical, and I probably have enough random lube plate decals to omit those, so the main concern are details like the red boxes with white text in this photo: https://www.flickr.com/photos/photo...1/in/gallery-123416308@N03-72157713622617197/ Additionally, the FMC logo for other cars, and getting the reporting marks in the right color for those that aren't white. If I can do the text in Word, what font sizes should I use?
Definitely stay the course with Matt at CC. The quality of his decals it setting the bar right now. Whatever he is printing with is amazingly crisp and accurate. The decals are so easy to work with it’s amazing.
I have not had anything custom done by Circus City but recently got some MoW vehicle decals from them and was very happy with the product and service.
I recently had circus city do a print for me and the result was top notch. I supplied the artwork I made with photoshop. A single 8.5" x 11" sheet print was $80. The print was graffiti I pulled from an actual trinity hopper car image and then I redid all lettering of the road markings to bring back the crispness of those portions. I found out after sending over the photoshop file and despite setting it to 1200dpi resolution and converting all the text to vector that the small lettering loses it's crispness on print. Illustrator is the ideal format for printing so if you have that program then save out as a pdf or .ai then that is what you want to send to Matt for print. He did redo the lettering portions for me and all within the $80 minimum charge for a single 8.5x11 single sheet first print. It's not cheap for a small amount of decals but if you can fill a sheet with unique artwork that you can use or multi print and sell sets from it then it could be worthwhile.