Got this idea after remembering seeing somewhere a company was offering decal sheets of SS camou that could be cut up and placed on a figure instead of painting.
Current project is another knight, this time from El Viejo Dragon at 54mm scale.
Firstly, an image search on the net for medieval textile/patterns got me this:
Choosing the blue circled pattern, it was imported into Corel paint program. By manipulating brightness, contrast and intensity, ended up with a clean background. Altered the hue somewhat to arrive at a red pattern.
Made about 150 individual patterns, saved as a file and then printed onto water slide decal paper. In total used about 130 of them on the surcoat, including sleeves - five were ruined or lost as they only measure about 3mm by 3mm. After painting the surcoat yellow, did some shading as well before applying future acrylic followed by the decals. Right now it just has some dullcote sprayed on and will most likely do some further shading.
As for the surcoat. I’d be curious to see how it stands up to close scrutiny.
From the pics it looks awesome, but I’d really like to see it up close. Any chance of some macro shots of the fold areas? How was it to go down on extreme folds in the fabric of the surcoat or across the circumfrance of the sleeves?
I found that the decals best adhered when done within a couple hours of applying the Future acrylic. (There was a patch left undone for the following day and it became an ever more delicate task to get the decals to stay in place). Since the decals cover a small area there was really no problems getting the decals to cover the folds of the model. If I had used a single large decal or just three or four for the whole figiure, then yes I can see problems there - I’m sure the decal would have folded on itself or not settle completely down where it is busy with the ‘topography’ of surcoat folds.
There was a bit of problem of lining up the decals in a few areas - I think this is either a scale problem or the original sculptor cheated a bit and used more clay to replicate a fold, thus distorting the actual area size. There will be some touch-ups done with a brush on incomplete edges as it would be just too insane to fit a partial decal in to complete the pattern.
I’m very impressed with this method and see a possible new trend. Thanks for the feedback and update. I can see where the topography of the folds would determine the difficulty of such a project. There are a few figures out there with some serious undercutting and folding in the depiction of fabrics and materials. I can see now the definate advantage to cutting the pattern into several panels to help with conforming to the contours.
I really want to try this method with some of the muraled shields you see in the 15th c’s and on some of the landsknecht banners and italian standards. I did see a nice job done on a shield where the painter stripped the layer of paper with the print from a prayer card and used that as a painted shield. It was “decopaged” over and then the edges blended in to the edges ofthe shield. It looked good. THe decal idea would produce a far better result in my opinion.
You’ve really done a wonderful job with this. I look forward to your continued progress.
Fantastic!! This is jus’ what i’m lookin’ for, a service like this! I’m wonderin’ if you could ever supply fellow modellers with custom printed decal sheets like this, for a price?
If not, ideally what hardware do I need to achieve somethin’ like this?
I do agree with you about the folds. What is more, is that you have a very symmetrical design, so it will suffer in this way. Nonetheless, superb work.
I never really considered creating decals for fellow modelers, but I’m sure there are some websites that provide custom decals. It really isn’t that difficult and it would save you a few bucks to create your own, assuming you have an ink jet printer or access to one. I ordered my decal sheets from Papilio based in Texas http://www.papilio.com/ (I believe Testors makes them as well). A pack of 10 sheets sized 8"x10" was $11.25US, but shipping costs to Canada was almost double the product price.
I used the clear type, but white decals are also available. There are advantages and disadvantages to both. With the clear you don’t have to trim the decal right to the image, but since ink jet printers don’t print white ink (at least not that I know of, but someday I’m sure that will change) you have to place the decal over a white background to get it’s true colour. With the white decal film, you don’t have to worry about this. You will have to trim right up to the image to elimate excess white. I suppose you could paint up to the image once it is on the model. Another method to try is introducing the background colour of the model around the decal while it is still on your computer screen and do some blending afterwards on the model.
For software I’m sure any program that is used for photo editing will suffice. For these decals I had the images set at 1200 dpi and not until at the very end before printing would I shrink them down to the required size - test print on plain paper to determine exact size.
Other items needed is can of fixitive spray which is available in craft shops - I used a matt finish from Krylon. This is sprayed on the decal once the ink is dry. As an extra measure, once the fixitive was dry, I brushed on some Future acrylic just to make sure the ink was sealed on the decal film. After this dries they are ready to use like any other water slide decal.
Anyways, here is the finished knight … next comes the horsey
Score!!! Not only is that fabulous work, but that is a brilliant idea. I think that is the solution to digi-camo. It will also be great for the 1/16 figs. I’ve got to do. I wanted to do the bandanas in patterns and the dresses in calico. Thanks!
