I just bought a new inkjet printer,scanner,copier yesterday and am wanting to make some decals for my figures. I build them from clay so I am not certain of the exact scale. They are on average 3.25" high. I have found alot of websites that have military insignia and patches and such but it seems that when I shrink them down on corel draw or paint you cannot even make out what it is. I am trying to get the death’s head pin and ss insignia and also beret flash and special forces shoulder patch but they may not work??? Does anyone else know of any sites for decals images or how to print these that small?
I’ve tried using an inkjet printer many times in the past to create decals with a failure rate that runs around the 100% mark. No matter how many times I tried, the inks never set right on the page. I suggest copying your files to a disk and having them printed on a lazer printer.
You need to set your picture resolution very high in order to maintain some sort of quality when you print at smaller sizes.
Some pics just won’t work so you may have some searching to do.
Can’t help with any German stuff … best of luck.
The key is indeed using higher resolutions. I use photoshop. I make a canvas that is sized to printer paper dimensions, 8"x11", then select an area that’s sized to the SuperCal decal sheet I use, and place it in the upper left corner. I also have the ruler tool enabled so I can keep things in scale to the model. When you reduce the image, you want it reduced in relation to a full sheet of paper and not the smaller decal sheet, which is why you make your canvas to the larger of the two sheets
Sounds like you’re working in 1/35th scale or 54mm, so you may be out of luck regardless. It’s awfly small for the resolution of an Inkjet, but keep trying. You should be able to get divisional patches to print okay, though they may not be too clear, but they will be recognizable. You are likely out of luck with the Death’s Head badge though. I fear that it’s too small. If you can’t find images on the web, don’t forget your scanner and your reference library.
Here’s a pic of some decals I recently made for a model of a local county sheriff’s department car from about 1995. I did these on my Inkjet.
Not the clearest of pics, but you can clearly read the writing on the badge aswell as see the image in the center of the badge.
Print off as many tests as you need to to check the scale, visibility/clarity, and position on the page before committing the image to decal sheet…
Thanks for the reply…yes I think you are right with the death’s head and german eagle. Oh well I guess I will have to sculpt them. It would be nice to save some time and relief on the eyeballs for awhile. I couldnt see your decal. It just is an x but Im sure it looks great!
take care
No problem. I think the pic depends on the browser. When I use Mozilla it’s an X but when I use IE it shows up. Don’t know. I’ll try a link instead.