Printing Clarification

[Orpheus]

Hi Guys and Girls,

I hope you don't mind me posting a new topic about this, I have had a look around and there doesnt seem to be anything that really clarifies this for us new boys. I am planning on getting back into lego very soon (as soon as a paycheck rolls my way or I pop back down south and grab my old school bucket ;) and have been looking at making a large amount of zombies. Of course the problem I have is heads.

Capt. Kirk has designed some incredible decals and I will hopefully follow in his footsteps and design some of my own, sticking to the traditional lego styling like his own. Anyway, to the point of this thread, with regards to printing decals, why are there always two sets, transparent and non-trans (coloured)?

Is this due to printer type? e.g. Laser printers can print white and therefore use the trans on a trans water slide. Inkjet's cant print white and so print onto stickers, trying to match colours to the minifig skin? Or something else I am totally missing.

Thanks for taking the time to read this and hopefully help clarify their purposes for me. Like I said, I looked around and although lots of posts seem to talk about what paper type and how to do this and that, nothing seems to state why we produce two kinds of decals.

Thanks guys,

Orpheus

[Darth Legolas]

It's the paper. Some customizers like to be really specific and rub off all of the ink from a torso, and then spend hours with special chemicals to print on a new one, so it stays permanent. Others like to print the decal straight on, over the torso, then it tends to fall off, but in my opinion saves a heck of a lot of trouble.

[Captain Green Hair]

The transparent decals are also for when you like to use waterslide paper.

This paper makes stickers like in modelkits and they come of the paper with water.

The advantage of this is that you can see the original color of the torso and that they are thinner then sticker paper.

[Orpheus]

Brilliant, Thanks for the quick replies guys. Yeah dont think I would want to print out stickers but then I dont have a lazer printer atm. Might have to do some tactical decal printing ;)

Thanks again,

Orpheus