This art is very new to me. Our Air Guard flew f-100’s in Nam. Not allowed here but over their they could put their names on as nose art under the canopy. Yellow background with black letters. We,I had help, used yellow construction paper and put rub on black letters on it. Looked great and the decal was made. Howevere, after dipping in water and sliding on to the model - The Yellow Disappeared. One suggestion I followed was to color the decal sheet with red - then print the decal on the red background using the red color as a sealer. Didn’t work. Yellow disappeared completely and didn’t print. What are we doing wrong. I have made black and white decals with no problem. I was told Yellow is a weak color. The professional decals that come with the kits have no problem with any color.
usually a white background is used. try painting a white panel and putting the yellow decal over top
What color was the area of the model you were applying the decal to?
Light colored printing from an inkjet will not cover well on a dark area. The printer assumes you are printing all colors onto white. Dark colors print fine, because ordinarily you apply dark lettering and designs over a light color on the aircraft.
For very light colors you must print on white decal paper which becomes a pain. The white is everywhere, so you must either trim the decal perfectly, or else print the graphic with a background color that matches the color of the area over which it will be applied. This takes some testing and a knowledge of color theory to do perfect matching. However, the closer you DO trim, the less any imperfections in background color affect the appearance.
I am hoping to send an article on white and light colored homemade decals to FSM soon.
I will be waiting for your article. The background color on the model is dark green. I resorted to just gluing the two masters we made. One the pilot and the other the crew chief. I have been using only plain decal papers. No matter what I did the Yellow completly disappeared. And when you DO get to your article - PLEASE get down to my level. Glen - Sioux City Iowa.