Just click on the link ... in my previous post .. and you will see a HUGE project ...

Before I played around with Cherubs (and boy does that sound wrong when I reread it) ... I had planned to do some self produced water slide decals for my bases. Now water slide decals come in two flavours, either a clear or white backing depending on your whether your decal has bright or white colours in it. I went for white as I wanted stars and nebulae on my decals and to work they need to be quite bright.

Using photoshop I prepared a number of different examples to test, printed them to normal paper first (to check the orientation etc) and then printed them onto the £1.85 a sheet decal paper. At that price I didn't want any mistakes, wasting sheet after sheet of mistakes could get very expensive. I was using Laser decal sheets, but they do Inkjet sheets too (which are a bit more complex to use), once the sheet was printed I cut around the decal and put it into a tray of water as one normally does. After about 45 seconds the decal was movable and so I transferred it to the plastic base and slid it around till it was centred.

Now the one big problem was the base was not flat ... its rounded nature (rather like marine shoulderpads) can cause nightmares for decals and indeed whole areas of the decal lifted up from the base and refused to lie flat. I had met this problem before however and own a product called Micro-Sol ... I had liberally covered the base in Micro-sol before applying the decal and once centred I then applied a layer of Micro-Sol to the top as well. I then left it for 30 seconds to partially "melt" the decal and deform it so it would follow the contours of the base. I then looked for trouble spots and re-applied more micro-sol till in the end every raised area was flat and adhering nicely to the surface.

I then let it dry naturally and painted the rim and stalk black to match. I repeated this for all three of my tests/examples so I could compare them on the bases and here they are: -



As you can see the technique works nicely and I can think of a number of tweaks and redesigns for the decals to enhance them further ... here you can see a shot on the base lying flat under a ship, its normal position: -



I think it looks nice and quite professional, almost like a printed counter in a game, but it does as a friend of mine pointed out lack a certain artistic warmth.

Here are two similar views showing the Cherub name banner and the base decal for your comparison ... Bearing in mind the banner isn't painted but imagine it was ..



Which would you use for your fleet?

What about this change to the Decal ...



Minor improvements .. the white circle is the cut line for the scissors and no trace of it should remain when cut

I prefer the transfer with the aquila. I still like the scroll stand, wouldn't use it myself but love the idea.

I guess I'm the only one that still likes the scroll and cherub stand... Both the decal and scroll look great but, like your friend, I tend to lean towards a more artistic look to things. Plus, like you said before, the scrolls just look more Gothic.

The scroll is great,
the other one as well.

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Choose one Horizon

I might well try and come up with a solution that uses both if I can!

No progress tonight, I actually managed to have a game of BFG for the first time in two years! ... I will have a clear night tomorrow so I can get to work again

The scroll's best for display, the base for battle. At least, that's my suspicion.

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Night Lords 0.1
My Trade Thread

This.

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Some days go really well (making Cherubs etc) ... some days just FAIL

Last nights task was to make 4 bases for my ships and solve the banner / decal issue, I worked out a way to do the banner decal thing using magnets .. so it was a good start.

Then I hopped into Photoshop and started making a master decal from my previous work ... and decided to remove the ship class description (its stupid as I magnetise all my ships they can be any class) ... I fiddled ... tidied .. and got what I wanted. I duplicated four of them and gave them names with a central theme and printed them on the Laser Decal sheet.

All was going well ... little did I know ... I kept going and painstakingly removing bubbles and flattening the decal to the curve of the base I proceeded to spend a couple of hours getting my bases done. There they sat all looking good if I say so myself.

My test base had gotten scratched when my daughter had picked it up (risking my wrath <grins>) ... so I was aware the decals were thin. I decided to put a couple of layers of Varnish on them to protect and give a little gloss / satin finish (looks good starfields).

So over eager (bad move at 10pm when your tired) ... I grabbed a couple and popped them into my spray booth and went for it ... the coating was smooth all looked good ... I let them dry off while I was getting ready for an early night.

Upon my return ... I saw large areas of the decal going all crinkly and weird ... DAMN ... I should have only done one not two .. and should have put a thin layer of hand painted varnish down first. So two down ... two to go.

I hand coated a single one next ... and tried again, only to discover one coat was not enough and it still crinkled ... just less.

Finally I ditched purity seal and moved to Vallejo Silk Varnish in a can. I worked perfectly and did not crinkle at all ... all was good and at least one was ok

Then as I carefully picked it up to put under my lamp to dry off quicker ... I fumbled badly and dropped the damn thing onto my floor where it got covered with cat hair and other detritus.

So about 4hrs work ... all for NOTHING.

Here are results ...



Bulwark of Faith looks ok .. but that's after I got hair etc. off ... and then I noticed the decal was offset <sighs>

So it was one of those epic FAIL nights!

But I needed to show you guys so you can see I did actually do the work <grins> .. and if you can mentally remove the bad stuff I think they would have looked really good.

They look OK to me, dude. Hair is totally a nebula...

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The Apocrypha of Skaros 1.1
Rogue Trader Expedition 0.4
The Horus Heresy 0.5
Night Lords 0.1
My Trade Thread

You're perfectionist.... heh

_________________
Light at the Horizon.

Warp Rift
Project Distant Darkness
Eldar MMS

GothiComp Hall of Fame
http://www.tacticalwargames.net/taccmd/viewtopic.php?f=38&t=19176