Technical ART, How to make your own 'Vintage' decals!

awsome, this should win post of the week!

 

Did some thing similar when I did my trade as a spray painter.

Got glossy magazines, found a page with picture to be transferred to panel.

Sprayed coats of acrylic clear over the page (pic side- one side only).

Let it dry over night.

Next day, put page in shallow dish of warm water and GENTLY rub off paper from the side without the clear.

The clear takes up the print.

Spray a wet coat of clear on the panel.

Carefully place image onto wet clear and leave it alone.

Allow to dry, then start to add clear coats on top (not too wet).

When clear has dried rub back with fine wet and dry sand paper, cut and polish.

I used this method mainly on motorbike tanks and side covers.

 

Great post! I often trace pictures with vector graphics too. Coincidently I started the Lady Luck logo last week the same way. I was going to use it to paint a sign for the shop but now I guess I'll try to make a decal of it as well. The beauty of using vector graphics, is that the picture can be scaled to any size without messing up the resolution like bitmapped images.

 

Deuce, here is one I did for my studio. I started with a vectorial rendering, output to laser (full size) and use the artwork to cut 'Frisket' film (for airbrush). It is painted with plain latex housepaint. Hmmmm, for the next Tech Week, maybe?

 

whiz - how did you modify the font? What program....maybe I better go back and read that again.

I used to have a font creating program at one time. Very tedious.

 

In Illustrator, or Corel Draw you'd convert the font to curves, in order to be able to modify it like that.

Nice work Rick!

 

So-Cheap, Cword is right: I converted the font to outlines before 'tweaking' the type. Adobe Illustrator for Mac or CorelDraw for PC will do that for you.

 

Here's an idea:

At the local printing supply warehouse, he sells a "screenprint at home" kit for less that $30. A couple of small bottles of "air-dry" ink for vinyls, and you should be able to print on decal film with no troubles at all.

If you're not a do-it-yourselfer, the local screenprinter or print shop should be able to handle it... the screenprint will be more like the original decals, and will have more UV-stable inks.

Remember that the original waterslide decals were made by companies who made labels for produce packers and farms, but those inks actaully contained lead, and resisted the sun better tan modern print inks.

Dave