Colour of decal paper

[Skeg]

Hi all. 
 

Going to try and enlarge and print some decals I have but have never printed my own before. 
 

Looking at some decal paper there is an option for clear or white paper. 
 

Which one do I go for?

 

Will clear be too translucent? If it white is used, does that show on any of the decal. 
 

And now I think about it, why do kit kit decals come on blue backing?

 

Thanks

[Black Knight]

1. if you use an ink jet printer the inks are very translucent. Black is usually ok (even black can sometimes not be dense enough), but red or yellow or blue won't show very well on coloured backgrounds, but ok on white or silver back grounds. eg if you want a red/yellow/blue roundel it won't show on a camouflage base, so you need to paint a white or silver base for it.    or

 

2. print it on a white decal paper then cut it out. But if you cut too close to the colour it will ruin when it goes into water, so you really need to leave a thin white border. White paper is fine if you need white inside an artwork and you can paint up to the edge to cover the thin white edge on the decal. It is possible to match the colour you are putting the decal on and print that colour as a surround, but I just leave a large border and paint up to the artwork

 

3. so white in the decals shows up

 

I printed the roundels on this Chipmunk on clear and applied them over decal white discs which can be bought

 

[thorfinn]

Everything BK said.

 

I would add that printing a 'background' colored surround on decals printed on white paper can be very helpful even if you can't match the background color exactly. The downside is that, no matter what the colors, you may occasionally need to do a paint touch-up where a cut white edge shows...so his advice of leaving a wider border around the image may help with that process.

 

Just to show that even bright or odd colored surrounds are do-able, here's a shot of a 1/72 air ambulance I did recently with all home-printed decals. The areas around the white SCAA lettering [i.e., all printed on white decal paper] are inkjet-printed...with just minor brush touch-ups to hide the white 'cut edge.'

 

 

Cheers

[BTW @Black Knight
 that Chipmunk is gorgeous!]

[Skeg]

Thanks for replies. 
 

my problem is is it’s the lettering and numbering on the side of the BAe Hawk 200 prototype that I need. It reads “HAWK 200” in light grey and then has another decal to go over it that is a black outline so not sure what to do. 

[thorfinn]

13 minutes ago, Skeg said:

my problem is is it’s the lettering and numbering on the side of the BAe Hawk 200 prototype that I need. It reads “HAWK 200” in light grey and then has another decal to go over it that is a black outline so not sure what to do. 

Not sure what your resources are for creating your decal art, but if I were doing it, I'd just do up the light grey lettering with the darker grey/black outline already applied, then surround all with the fuselage grey color.

Of course, there's always the possibility that I'm simply drawing a blank on some aspect you're trying to describe.

[Black Knight]

Wot he says. Is the fuselage coloured? 

I reckon an all-in-one decal is best

Printing two decals to align is not easy, eg one sold black and a grey one to go on top, the grey being smaller than the black. Very difficult to get the sizes right. I have a professional DTP program so I can just about do it

I would print it up on clear paper. Hollow black letters with either a clear or light grey internal. Paint a light grey back ground, apply the decal and paint up up to the black letter edges

[Dave Swindell]

Combat Decals do the Hawk 200 in 1/72

https://www.hannants.co.uk/product/COM72004?result-token=21uMX

[Skeg]

35 minutes ago, Dave Swindell said:

Combat Decals do the Hawk 200 in 1/72

https://www.hannants.co.uk/product/COM72004?result-token=21uMX

Sorry I probably wasn’t being clear. 
 

That is the set I have and i want to enlarge them and print them out. 
 

Someone did do this for me but he said he’d not really done it before.

 

The fuselage is already painted a dark grey colour and when the decal goes on the light grey lettering just doesn’t show up. 

[thorfinn]

If you're enlarging already-existing decals -- sorry, that's the bit I blanked on -- the only way I could conceive of doing it on an already-painted model would be to print the lighter lettering on white decal paper...and paint up to the edge...and print the black outline on clear decal paper to go over it.

Granted, that may be more complicated than what you had in mind.