zephyr1934

Custom lettering

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So I've got a ton of lego train MOCs and I've been meaning to letter them for some time. My club has a show coming up in an art museum and I have so few new MOCs that I decided to take the plunge and spruce up some of my old MOCs. I made decals for four of my passenger trains, several of my steam engines and a few of my freight locomotives. So far I have only decorated the trains that I plan on displaying at the museum and one of my son's engines. Here are the results, first, my C&O passenger train,

n_cando_42.jpg

While I plan on rebuilding this train to make the cars 42 studs long, replace the black roof with dark blue, and perhaps make the locomotive PF, it was an obvious choice for the show because I live in C&O territory. A few more shots can be found here. While lettering the passenger train, I also decided to also letter my C&O BL2's

n_cando_51.jpg

Next, I decorated the cab on my son's sw1200.

sw1200-n10.jpg.jpg

Finally, I lettered my NW J class and cars.

p11.jpg

I have one more shot of the new lettering in the main folder. I am least happy with this lettering job because it highlights a few deficiencies that would be really hard to rectify. Chief among them is that to my eye now the missing pin striping on the boundary between the red and black has become really noticeable. Without the lettering the missing pin striping was easy to overlook, but with the lettering it feels like it is missing. And no, at this moment I do not want to attempt the pin striping.

Except for the sw1200 these are some of my older builds, from back when my passenger cars were mostly MODs of the Super Chief cars. With the lettering I am all the more interested in stretching these cars. But that will wait until time allows. I am not even half way through the equipment that I will be lettering on this pass. Almost all of what is left are my newer MOCs (I am very anxious to decorate my North Coast Limited). So more to come soon...

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Nice work. A few stickers really make a difference on a model.

I've a few waiting to be done myself so yes, please share details of the stickers/decals/print method you used.

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Thanks all for the kind words. The short answer to the burning question is that I found a sign shop that can print white and multicolor on transparent "window cling" or "static cling" decals.

Now for the longer answer, I think these products are mainly targeted at retail stores, e.g., hours of service signs or short term promotions. The folks at the sign shop must have thought that I was crazy with this artwork, but they did not ask any questions. The following is my experience with the local shop, I have no idea if the products are uniformly available everywhere, etc.

Preparing the artwork requires a bit of skill, including some proficiency with Illustrator or similar software to do the layout. Then there is the actual artwork (it helps to have a collection of railroad lettering and artwork, e.g., www.railfonts.com). So this task is non trivial, but certainly doable, especially if you already have the software, etc.

Then there is the transfer process to the sign printer, e.g., making sure the scale will be preserved when printing. The cost is not trivial if all you want to do is a single train car. At least in my case there was a large setup fee and then small costs to increase the size. So I went nuts and did a large layout,

decal_sheet_01.jpg

It includes decals for 30-40 pieces of equipment, making it stomachable. For scale reference, the circular heralds that the bottom are about four plates tall and the larger "NORTHERN PACIFIC" stretch 16 or 17 studs long. I have to cut the artwork out by hand before application. For this first round I was not even worried about color consistency, I just wanted to be close. Next time out I will attempt to match lego colors and try some fancier things.

At a distance the artwork looks great. Up close it is not as crisp as a laser print, e.g., there is some blur on some of the smallest numbers that are shorter than a plate tall and some of the colors have a "halftone" like appearance, presumably related to the printing process. I don't think any of this is perceptible beyond 2 ft though.

Then there is the application, which aside from manually cutting the decals, is potentially easier than regular stickers because the material can be pulled up and repositioned. For my learning curve I started out with just the older MOCS that will be going to the upcoming show (as shown in the photos in my first post). The material has a slightly rubbery feel, so I hope it will stand up to wear and tear (I'll hopefully remember to post back as I gain experience in this regard). I am slowly learning how to work with the material. It has no adhesive, so that means no glue to show through the decal. The material is repositionable, so if you get it wrong the first time, it is no big deal to peel it up and redo, a feature that is far superior to normal lego stickers in that regard. For all of the pictures in my first post I applied the decals dry. It worked, but there were a few air bubbles, e.g., I noticed the bubbles at the top of the circular "monad" in this shot:

sw1200-n10.jpg.jpg_thumb.jpg

So I went back and tried applying the decals wet, i.e., with a little water on the lego before application. That did a good job getting rid of the bubbles. Now the only bubbles that remain are when the decals cover the edge between two bricks that have slightly differing depths. I think this remaining bubble problem would impact any transparent sticker applied in this manner and it is something that could easily be avoided if the decals were laid out to split over the seems between bricks with one brick per decal and one decal per brick (e.g., as I think has become common in lego sets in general and was seen in the EN in particular).

One of the nicest things about the wet application is that you can slide the decals around after you have applied them to the model (similar to water slide decals), which makes it a lot easier to get the perfect alignment. However, you then have to be careful not to touch the decals for a few hours while they dry. I think these decals are a lot more durable than water slide decals (they certainly feel more robust... just attempted a scratch test, no apparent damage to a decal applied 24 hrs ago after 10 scratches with a fingernail and a few scrapes with the corner of a new brick... I did not go crazy but they seem reasonably durable). And they certainly are not water slide decals, they are peel and stick.

I've also gone on to letter about half of my North Coast Limited train with mostly white lettering on top of dark green and sand green lego. I think it really looks sharp. I don't have any pictures yet, but they will be coming as soon as possible.

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Nice. Stickers or decals really helps model trains look better. It is worth the effort. Outsourced the printing might be a good group buy or LUG team project, just to spread out the setup costs.

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I can vouch for the quality of decals produced by JopieK, they really are as good as Lego produced decals, and Johan will do custom stickers. I had him produce the TGV sets for the Horizon Express and they look great, I believe they are on general sale in his website now.

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@1225Forrest

Thanks for the kind words, perhaps some PM in the future, but more immediate will be rebuilding the C&O cars to be longer and replacing the black roofs with dark blue. Then building a few GP and SW in C&O.

@English Electric

While these decals are not from JopieK at ministickers.nl, everything I've seen of his looks good.

Meanwhile, I finished putting decals on two of my newer works. First, the GN northern,

r01.jpg

r04.jpg

with a few more shots in the gallery.

Then second, the North Coast Limited, but the photos have yet to be moderated on BL. Once they are, I will post more here. I still have four more locomotives and three more cars to decarate...

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I've finally caught up to the forum and now it is time for an update on this project. I finished lettering the MOCs from my first round of printing. These include the C&NW bilevel commuter cars (more here),

cv2-07.jpg

Milwaukee Road 261 (more here)

sd02.jpg

Southern Pacific 2472 (more here)

r01.jpg

and my MN&S switchers (more here, including a very blocky prior attempt from almost 10 years ago of the same locomotives)

mns01v2_04.jpg

Meanwhile, the custom decals are highly addictive. After my first run I saw several things I would have wanted to do differently or better. So of course this lead to a second run. First, the "Z" curve on the white stripe near the nose in the above locomotives came from the second run. As I had posted in another thread, one of the biggest motivating factors arose from the North Coast Limited. I had already applied home printed decals for the windows on the locomotives. The black decals on dark green bricks simply were very hard to see. Now that the lettering has been applied, those windows became the next thing on my list. The result are the new windows in the following photo (with more here),

ncl-m20.jpg

The black porthole windows are only part of the story. I wanted to see if I could match the green and make transparent windows. I found a pretty close match for dark green, red, and blue (more here).

b10.jpg_thumb.jpg

I planned on trying them out on one of the North Coast Limited locomotives, but then I discovered that I would have to completely redo the design to eliminate structural 6x10 plates to make room for actual windows. So maybe another day I will get to that. Instead, I upgraded one of my Milwaukee Road F7's (obviously a MOD from the Super Chief) to use dark red porthole windows (more here)

wg20.jpg

I am still working on a color match for other lego colors. I also threw together two sets of reporting marks for North American freight cars.

rg03.jpg

rg02.jpg

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Looks awesome!

Regarding matching Lego colours: The Pantone colours of the Peeron Colour Chart have always helped me a lot in matching Lego colours. Everything I got out of my inkjet printer at least looked spot on while using the Pantone numbers. Also, since it's Pantone, a professional printer shoudn't be able to mess this up ;)

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I am also interested in you matching colors, specifically the Reddish Brown. I could use it for my Illinois Central E Unit.

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Looks awesome!

Regarding matching Lego colours: The Pantone colours of the Peeron Colour Chart have always helped me a lot in matching Lego colours. Everything I got out of my inkjet printer at least looked spot on while using the Pantone numbers. Also, since it's Pantone, a professional printer shoudn't be able to mess this up ;)

Thanks for the kind words, after taking this plunge I would agree that the decals (not just mine, but any decals actually) can really add that pop to a MOC.

Meanwhile, you would be surprised just how messed up I can get it. However, I am dealing with Pantone emulation on my computer rather than the ACTUAL colors. When I use the Pantone, CMYK and RGB values for a single lego color from the Peeron Color Chart I get very different colors on my screen. I suspect I could print them from my computer and get a pretty good match since presumably the emulation accounts for my OS etc, but the emulation gets lost as I transfer the files. Since my software will not output the correct Pantone color, I then tried converting that back to CMYK. I tried 10-20 different lego colors. Most I have not yet had time to evaluate. Of the six colors that I have looked at, the three dark colors from my last post came out close enough for my tastes while I will need to try again on yellow, blue and light blay. In any event, the Peeron Chart was a great starting point. Now I just need to fine tune.

I am also interested in you matching colors, specifically the Reddish Brown. I could use it for my Illinois Central E Unit.

I think reddish brown was on my test sheet but I have not compared it to a real brick yet. I'll check to see how well it turned out. I am certainly open to the possibility of others helping me refine this process.

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Thanks for the kind words, after taking this plunge I would agree that the decals (not just mine, but any decals actually) can really add that pop to a MOC.

Meanwhile, you would be surprised just how messed up I can get it. However, I am dealing with Pantone emulation on my computer rather than the ACTUAL colors. When I use the Pantone, CMYK and RGB values for a single lego color from the Peeron Color Chart I get very different colors on my screen. I suspect I could print them from my computer and get a pretty good match since presumably the emulation accounts for my OS etc, but the emulation gets lost as I transfer the files. Since my software will not output the correct Pantone color, I then tried converting that back to CMYK. I tried 10-20 different lego colors. Most I have not yet had time to evaluate. Of the six colors that I have looked at, the three dark colors from my last post came out close enough for my tastes while I will need to try again on yellow, blue and light blay. In any event, the Peeron Chart was a great starting point. Now I just need to fine tune.

I think reddish brown was on my test sheet but I have not compared it to a real brick yet. I'll check to see how well it turned out. I am certainly open to the possibility of others helping me refine this process.

I agree, decals help make the MOC.

As for Color issues, be prepared to go down a rat hole. In a previous job, we calibrated monitors weekly and had to make sure they were always powered on (warm). We also had to calibrate the printers and cameras. Depending on how serious you want to be, you may want to get yourself a MacBeth chart.

Let me know what assisance you would like, I am all ears :)

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Fortunately for me, ever since lego move away from pre-colored granules, there is enough color variation that they have created a fairly large range of color that one could match. So that is exactly what I am aiming for, a color that is within the lego variabilty.

Meanwhile, I checked the colors and I think another 5-6 are close enough. I don't remember exactly which ones, but red brown is among those that seemed close enough. I'll drop you a PM and we can discuss further.

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I've now lettered 20+ of my basic cars that I just use at shows for long trains. I only have shots of the gondolas at the moment, but I also did the coal hoppers and white tank cars. I will post those soon. Since these are meant to be generic cars that I might pull behind any locomotive I decided to use a generic railroad. Borrowing from the Lego themes, I modeled both the contemporary LRTS logo with the arrow and an older LRTS logo with a winged wheel.

rg06.jpg

I am amazed at how much a little sticker adds to a simple car by giving it a focal point.

rg04.jpg

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They really do look amazing. Great decals. I want!

I already have the black porthole and windshield stickers available (I have discontinued the older versions and will supply ones like in this photo). I am probably at the point where I could offer the transparent porthole stickers in several colors and I am working to the point where I could offer some set of "semi-customizable" stickers for sale, e.g., the reporting marks and logos from my last two posts. For small orders perhaps pick from a set of 6 or 8 different numbers for the reporting marks, printed in either black or white. For larger orders, specify the numbers you want. It would probably be about 1 USD per square inch and at least at the start there will likely be a delay between ordering and when I am able to ship. If you are interested feel free to drop me a private message. I have a few more ideas that I am working on before officially rolling out the red carpet though.

For custom stickers like the North Coast Limited... well... the time to lay those out was insane and the likelihood of being able sell a second copy of work like that is probably close to zilch. So I probably could not offer that level of service at a price that most folks would be interested in paying for. Though in this vein, I have finished a few more MOCs and will posting those as soon as I can.

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I've now lettered 20+ of my basic cars that I just use at shows for long trains. I only have shots of the gondolas at the moment, but I also did the coal hoppers and white tank cars. I will post those soon. Since these are meant to be generic cars that I might pull behind any locomotive I decided to use a generic railroad. Borrowing from the Lego themes, I modeled both the contemporary LRTS logo with the arrow and an older LRTS logo with a winged wheel.

rg06.jpg

I am amazed at how much a little sticker adds to a simple car by giving it a focal point.

rg04.jpg

These look really nice. I like when LEGO starts to look less like a toy and more like a model and these cars, with stickers, achieve that effect simply and very well.

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