New Decals : 1/48 EE Lightnings

[1POB]

Hi all.

I would like to announce that after a few years of creating ALPS decals for "one off" projects, I have teamed up with a friend and decided to take the plunge into "proper decals" by designing a decal sheet (and hopefully more to come!) to be silkscreen printed. Our company is called FireStreakDecals and being a UK based company we naturally we tackle a fair few RAF or at least UK based subjects. Our first release is related to the Airfix Lighting F.6 re-release in 1/48th scale.

Our intention is to get the sheets on sale in late January and the artwork is largely complete. Ideally we would have been ready for the Airfix release however typically work and other things get in the way and I am currently writing this from a New Jersey hotel room rather my my London house!. We also wanted to see the Airfix decal sheet first to ensure it has suitable stencils to work with. We are currently looking at having the decals printed by Fantasy Print Shop so I expect the quality to be good.

As mentioned the artwork is not quite finalised so I cannot show you that, but we will initially release two A5 sized sheets, with each one covering around 12 aircraft. We have largely focused on F.6s for obvious reasons although we do have a couple of T.5 and F.3 subjects from the Lightning's later years. Each sheet also has a mixture of later grey aircraft, camouflage aircraft and a natural metal aircraft to capture everyone's interest. We will provide enough decals to produce a model of one of each camouflage type except the grey schemes where 3 aircraft would be buildable from the one sheet. Of the 20 something aircraft we will have covered, only 2 have been covered before in 1/48 decal form. We have not included 5 Squadron's aircraft as these are quite well covered already although having done a lot of research, we would consider this for a possible later release. At the moment we are looking at pricing the sheets very competitively and seriously undercutting some of the current crop of decal sheets, especially considering the number of options we are providing. We also intend to provide our decal placement and painting guides online in very high resolution .pdfs and JPEG format to keep costs down, allowing the builder to print off what they require.

Here is a quick teaser of what we have on the first of the A5 sheet:

**Removed due to adding final versions here:

http://www.britmodeller.com/forums/index.p...st&p=922488

**

When I get back to the UK, we should be able to get the artwork finalised and submitted. I will then update this thread with all 20 something options we intend to provide. In the meantime, I'd really like any feedback you have on everything from the options we are providing to the business model we are working with.

I am unsure when I will be able to come back to this thread but next weekend at the latest. In the meantime if any questions come up my colleague KoenL may introduce himself and step in!

Cheers,

Ed Grantham

Edited December 22, 2011 by FireStreakDecals_EdG

[zipper]

Hi Ed,

Good to see you back up and running mate, looking forward to the decals.

All the best,

Ashley

[xvtonker]

Great news,

Congratulations and I can't wait to see the artwork.

XVTonker

[JohnT]

Good luck Ed

I hope the venture goes well for you.

I am aware that 111 had a few F6 for a short time. I think the scheme was still NM and while colourful it was not quite as in your face as their earlier schemes. Any chance it might be included?

regards

John

[Shaun]

Good luck Ed

I hope the venture goes well for you.

I am aware that 111 had a few F6 for a short time. I think the scheme was still NM and while colourful it was not quite as in your face as their earlier schemes. Any chance it might be included?

regards

John

Dito, I would also like to see 111 markings.

Any hint at what other schemes you are planning?

Shaun.

[KoenL]

Dito, I would also like to see 111 markings.

Any hint at what other schemes you are planning?

Shaun.

The first sheet will have a mix of bare metal, camouflage and grey 11 squadron Lightnings while the second sheet will have some different 11 squadron options with a number of LTF aircraft mixed in. Ed and I have not looked at 111 squadron at all but we'll at least discuss it when he gets back from the US.

Koen

[Calum]

I'd still love to see a set of stencils for the F2A/F6 for all of us with the older boxing of the kit.

[pacificmustang]

Dont Barracudacals do a sheet Calum, or are you saying you want to see stencils on this sheet. The latter would make it the complete package

Bruce

[KoenL]

Barracuda Decals do a sheet indeed but it's only for bare metal aircraft. If you look at the size of the decalsheet included in the new Airfix kit it will be impossible for us to include full stencils for bare metal, camouflage and grey schemes on an A5 sheet I'm afraid.

[1POB]

Hi all.

Thanks for the feedback so far. We would have loved to have provided full stencils for all options in addition to roundels and enough regular markings to build at least 4 or 5 aircraft however sadly this would have meant a large, expensive A4 sheet with associated costs. It is a really difficult decision with no real right or wrong but I felt that we could tackle stencils at a later date as long as the Airfix new release had reasonable decals to allow immediate use of the decals.

I would suggest that given enough positive feedback on our first product (voting with wallets!) I would be happy to work on an A5 sheet covering stencils for Grey/Camouflage/RAFG Green schemes to go with the older kits. I would imagine that this could go alongside an additional Lightning release covering other F.6s schemes other than 11 Sqn and the LTF.

Best Regards,

Ed

[zero]

I'd still love to see a set of stencils for the F2A/F6 for all of us with the older boxing of the kit.

just buy a new one, there is two sets in the box, what I'm going to do for mine! Ie I have two old kits, going to buy 2 new ones.

Dave

[chrismac60]

Hi Ed

Very interesting, always up for more Lightning decals

regards

Chris

[mungo1974]

Looking good guys, the Lightnings aren't my thing,but if ya get into US subjects like Ed asked me about via PM i'll be all over them.

Koen,can we have some Soesterberg Eagle please,it dont look like Astra will ever release theirs,and the Dutch Decals were poor

[KoenL]

Let's continue on that subject via PM, Mungo.

[Giorgio N]

Guys, first of all best of luck with your new venture ! Looking forward to see the final sheets.

Wonder if there's any chance you might in the future do some 1/72 stuff for us smaller scale modellers ? Maybe if airfix issues a 1/72 Lightning....

[Calum]

just buy a new one, there is two sets in the box, what I'm going to do for mine! Ie I have two old kits, going to buy 2 new ones.

Dave

Great idea, if I wanted more Lightning, which I don't..... really I don't.

But if th e price is right I may cosndier it.

Hopefully Roy S will do a A F2/F6 stencil set to go with the F1/F3 set. Although I do see the problem trying to cover all the paint schemes that F2A /F-6 carried.

[Scarlet]

Koen,can we have some Soesterberg Eagle please,it dont look like Astra will ever release theirs

First sheet of the double sheet set has been printed, they had an example of it at SWM, but they won't be on sale until the second part is available.

[Gary West]

Thank God - someone catering for 11 Sqn scaled down 1980's markings - at last!

Any idea on RRP yet?

[ollieholmes]

This sounds very good. I look forward to seing the finished product. Ive just sent you a PM though.

[KoenL]

Thank God - someone catering for 11 Sqn scaled down 1980's markings - at last!

Any idea on RRP yet?

Ed and I both like 11 squadron a lot and we also found it was about time some decals were released which brought us where we are now! I can't answer your RRP question yet but maybe we can release some more info when Ed returns from the US.

This sounds very good. I look forward to seing the finished product. Ive just sent you a PM though.

As you might have read Ed is away for the moment but if it's an urgent question/suggestion maybe you can send the PM to me as well?

Koen

[ollieholmes]

As you might have read Ed is away for the moment but if it's an urgent question/suggestion maybe you can send the PM to me as well?

Koen

Koen,

Its no rush, i will wait for him to return.

[Navy Bird]

Guys, first of all best of luck with your new venture ! Looking forward to see the final sheets.

Wonder if there's any chance you might in the future do some 1/72 stuff for us smaller scale modellers ? Maybe if airfix issues a 1/72 Lightning....

Airfix will most certainly issue a new tool 1:72 Lightning...right after I finish my TrumpyBoss kit, for which I have purchased every aftermaket accessory known to man in order to fix its problems!

Cheers,

Bill

[1POB]

Hi all.

As promised- I returned from the USA with news! Koen and I have been working hard to finalise the artwork and we are pretty much there. Due to the Christmas holidays I expect this will be submitted to the printers in the first week in January and I'd like to say we'd therefore have these for sale in February although I will keep you updated.

During the creation of the artwork we noticed a lot of differences between individual aircraft on markings you would possibly imagine were standard. It came as a bit of a surprise for example that not many of the aircraft share the same "double eagle" badge and therefore we had to check our references and draw a number of permutations. This is why on "Sheet 1" we have three sets of these tail badges. I think this puts some of the previously released 11 Sqn markings to shame as they often offer the "wrong type" of badge for that particular aircraft and that is not to mention other sheets not providing the correct pilot/ground crew names where applicable! Anyhow, none of the options we have provided are catered for in any other sheet (past or present) in an accurate fashion

and we have steered away from options that are already possible from kit or aftermarket options.

Sheet 1 provides the squadron markings, serials, codes and roundels to build:

-3 x Grey camouflaged aircraft.

-1 x Natural metal aircraft.

-1 x Green/Grey camouflaged aircraft.

Due to space/cost we were not able to provide full stencils, especially as we would need to provide different colours/options for each of the schemes. The current Airfix release offers full sets of stencils suitable for use with our decals and we will be providing notes on how and where to use these are it varied hugely from aircraft to aircraft. We do provide a few small stencils whereby the stencil is overlayed over a marking we do provide. We will look into a dedicated stencil release in the future.

And Sheet 1 provides the following options:

The artwork is shown below (this is an A5 sheet), with the "Part 2" sheet blurred for now and to be revealed later:

By the very nature of batch printing, this will be a limited release sheet and we are looking at printing an intial run of 50 sheets. Further runs would only occur when/if there was enough interest to make it an option.

We are currently aiming to release this sheet in the sub £10 area and we think this is good value for money considering the options catered for. Hopefully you agree! We would love to follow this sheet up with more of the same (RAF/European Cold War jets are our favourite genre) but this relies on sales of this intial release being good enough.

I have carefully considered the questions/suggestions in this thread and here is where we are with those:

-111 Sqn F.6s: I see these are not catered for elsewhere so we will endeavour to look into this. It could be that we could offer this on "Sheet 2" which we would be looking at announcing in the next few weeks or it could be that we have to look at this as a later option. I am not one for saying "We'd love to do it" only for it never to see the light of day but in this case I genuininely would like to offer this option. Please leave it with me!

-1/72 (and 1/32nd for that matter): This is not something we immediately considered and neither of us really venture outside of 1/48 however being fairly new to this and therefore enthusiastic I intend to read around and look at other scales, see what kits are available and how many people are building them. A large motivator to make this project happen was the Airfix 1/48 Re-issue so if a new 1/72 kit was to appear it would very much drive a 1/72 decal release forward.

As previously, if you have any feedback at all I'd be more than happy to hear it here or via PM.

Best Regards,

Ed Grantham

[junco]

Only 50 sheets!!!

When are you taking pre-orders?

Neil

[Windy]

Put me down for a set.