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I need help MAKING decals.

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  • Member since
    April 2008
  • From: Philadelphia PA
I need help MAKING decals.
Posted by smeagol the vile on Wednesday, February 29, 2012 9:15 PM

Hey Everypony. 

I have a project I am working on and I need decals, small decals, Specifically eyes.

 

Now I dont mean human eyes.  Basically hasbro put out 'blind bags' there bags you cant see into with a random MLP:FIM figure inside of it.  Many of them are just pallet swaps of the main characters.  Many people recolor these or add a bit here or there and turn them into other characters (some are good, most are poor quality) and they triple to quadruple the cost of the original toy.

I have a few and want to repaint them but the eyes pose a problem. I have the decal paper and everything, and someone made me templates but my issue is they are WAY to bring and I cant shrink them down to size without them getting blurry and pixily.

 

Does anyone that has experience making decals think they could assist me?

 

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/8995364/Ponyeyes.rar
 That is a link to my dropbox which has the images compressed.

 

  • Member since
    March 2003
  • From: Towson MD
Posted by gregbale on Wednesday, February 29, 2012 10:26 PM

You didn't specify what method you're using to reduce/resize your artwork, but that may be the problem.

I generally paste my images into an Open Office document and resize them there. As long as the artwork is sharp to begin with, it will retain that sharpness to an amazing degree when reduced to a pretty tiny size. I've done things like data plates that are fully readable (under magnification) in the 1/16 to 1/8 of an inch range.

Of course, the clarity will also depend (to at least some degree) on your printer. Some combinations of ink and paper brands seem to work better than others, but only experimentation will really determine how well your setup does.

 

Greg

George Lewis:

"Every time you correct me on my grammar I love you a little fewer."
 
  • Member since
    June 2010
  • From: Austin, TX
Posted by DoogsATX on Wednesday, February 29, 2012 11:03 PM

Stepping down shouldn't be an issue. 

If you take an image that's say, 800 pixels wide, and reduce it to 100 pixels, then zoom in by 8X to view it at the same size as the original, it will look awful and pixelated, but that's life. At its 100% size, it will look fine. 

For eyes, I'd imagine it'll be your printer challenging detail, if anything.

On the Bench: 1/32 Trumpeter P-47 | 1/32 Hasegawa Bf 109G | 1/144 Eduard MiG-21MF x2

On Deck:  1/350 HMS Dreadnought

Blog/Completed Builds: doogsmodels.com

 

  • Member since
    April 2008
  • From: Philadelphia PA
Posted by smeagol the vile on Thursday, March 1, 2012 12:06 AM

No no, when I try and shrink it, in any program, it gets distorted.   The image does not have a high enough resolution and I do NOT have the skills to fix it myself...

 

  • Member since
    March 2003
  • From: Towson MD
Posted by gregbale on Thursday, March 1, 2012 7:50 AM

smeagol the vile

No no, when I try and shrink it, in any program, it gets distorted.   The image does not have a high enough resolution and I do NOT have the skills to fix it myself...

If you're referring to the same images you provided the link to, they've got more/better resolution than you'll ever need. Three things to consider, if you haven't already done so:

If you're shrinking images to a tiny size, they'll almost always look worse in "real" size on your monitor than they will when you print them out. If they look fuzzy and indistinct on your monitor, try "zooming" the view--if the detail is still there, it will show in the magnified version. Most printers will print that detail cleanly.

Second, when reducing your image, it's absolutely vital to maintain aspect ratio, which is a fancy way of saying you have to resize the height and width of an image by precisely the same amount. If those two are off, even by a small amount, you'll start getting pixilation that will degrade the image more every time it's manipulated in some way.

Third, if at any stage along the way you're using JPEG images, those images will degrade a bit more every time you save and reopen them, due to the compression built into the process. [If you want a good example of this, open a medium-sized JPEG image--especially one with a white backgound-- in MS Paint, then save and reopen it a couple of times. You'll start seeing that pure white backgound become more "blushy" and general detail more pixilated.]  I use MS Paint extensively for working with images (since it's already on every Windows computer, and I'm, well, cheap...), and if I'm working with a JPEG image, the first thing I'll do is save it as a TIFF file instead. That way, it will look the same every time I open it instead of getting hazier and muddier each time (which will be magnified exponentially in resizing).

I'm not an artist and I'm not a computer technician--but these things work. They're more complicated to describe than they are to actually do.

Good luck!

Greg

George Lewis:

"Every time you correct me on my grammar I love you a little fewer."
 
  • Member since
    November 2009
  • From: Twin Cities of Minnesota
Posted by Don Stauffer on Thursday, March 1, 2012 8:56 AM

If by distortion, you mean you get a different scale factor in horizontal direction than vertical, you must check the box that says retain proportion.

If you mean it gets blurry, then you need to retain pixels and not let it resample.  You need about 300 pixels per inch.  For good, sharp decals I often use 400.  So you need to ensure that you have enough pixels to start with, then control the pixels per inch value as you resize.

Don Stauffer in Minnesota

  • Member since
    April 2008
  • From: Philadelphia PA
Posted by smeagol the vile on Friday, March 30, 2012 11:56 AM

well I got the imaged fixed, but now I have a new issue.

 

The ink, even after dried, is running the moment I put the water on the decal.  How can I fix this??

 

  • Member since
    October 2008
  • From: SE Pennsylvania
Posted by padakr on Friday, March 30, 2012 12:34 PM

Did you seal the printed decals?  Testors has purpose-made Decal Bonder.  Some people have used generic clear gloss.

Several light coats are better than one thick one.  Give the printed sheet a day to thoroughly dry before sealing.

Paul

  • Member since
    November 2011
  • From: Near Houston, TX
Posted by GeneK on Friday, March 30, 2012 1:23 PM

smeagol the vile

Now I dont mean human eyes.  Basically hasbro put out 'blind bags' there bags you cant see into with a random MLP:FIM figure inside of it.  Many of them are just pallet swaps of the main characters.  Many people recolor these or add a bit here or there and turn them into other characters (some are good, most are poor quality) and they triple to quadruple the cost of the original toy.

Have you looked at Archer transfers? They have lots of eye decals. Here's just one sheet:

http://www.archertransfers.com/AR99016.html

 

Gene

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