decal scheme?

Go0ty · #1 11-02-2002, 07:23 PM

im going to print out some decals for my civic to finish it off, and I want to know if anyone has any ideas or anything for what decals to put on it, or a certain scheme that would look good. I'm open to ideas, any pics of good ideas would be even better =P

Jonny B · #2 11-02-2002, 07:36 PM

They have tons of decal jpegs you can edit and print up on waterslide paper. I'm using this set on my black civic http://www.decalkits.com/cgi-bin/hug...ecalkits/honda . Check out all of the decal sets though, there are some really funny ones in there to give your zip that individual touch.

Go0ty · #3 11-02-2002, 07:51 PM

wow that site has tons of stuff, thx

Shacky · #4 11-02-2002, 07:58 PM

Are you using white water slide decal sheets to print on your black Civic? If not, how do you get your colors to stand out stronger?

Jonny B · #5 11-03-2002, 08:34 PM

You can order some clear waterslide decal paper from this site here http://www.decalpaper.com/ . I don't plan on using white for my decals, since it would be impossible to find them on the sheet.

Shacky · #6 11-03-2002, 08:58 PM

After seeing SupraCruza's decals, I think you should get white. Any light color decals will not work on the dark surface. Also realize that clear decal paper will still have a white backing and will be equally hard to see.

john · #7 11-03-2002, 09:44 PM

I don't understand. If the paper is clear or white, how would it make a difference? It's not like you can print white ink with an inket anyway. Or were you talking about the pre-printed ones?

Jonny B · #8 11-03-2002, 10:08 PM

I just did a search through SupraCruza's posts to see if there was any mention of white vs. clear decal paper with no luck. What do you think the difference will be? Are you saying color won't show up as well on the clear decal sheets? If so, how do I get around having the white decal background in the negative space around my images? This is especially important to me since I plan on doing window decals on all my zips.

Shacky · #9 11-03-2002, 10:34 PM

Here's the problem. The inkjet printer assumes it is printing against a white paper, so the colors are balanced for white. For lighter colors like yellow, the ink is not thick enough to stand out from the dark background color. The background color will bleed through the decal to give you, in my case, a really dark green and no way to see the decal. To me, it looked like a green smudge.

SupraCruza has nice light colors on his black skyline by using a white decal sheet. What he did, and what I'm going to do, is use a black background and put the light colors on top of that. Then cut out the decal and apply. The dark color will blend with the car color but the white, red, and yellow stand out strong because of the white base of the decal sheet. Since you are going to cut out the decal anyway, just use enough black background to cover the decal area.

The only other thing is to make sure and use a setting spray so the inks don't bleed. I'm using the Krylon Acryllic Spray, but put too little on the first time. I'll make sure to apply a several passes next time. Also, my inkjet is pretty good, but it still didn't give me the quality I was looking for. It's suppose to be 600 dpi, but my application would only print 300 dpi and the results were not as good as I would have hoped. If you can find a good color laser printer, I'm sure it would print better images.

SupraCruza · #10 11-03-2002, 11:07 PM

The problem I ran into when designing the decals was that laser printers can't print white. So for dark colored car bodies, I printed the decals on white paper, but with a background that matched the car body. The first color I tested out was black since there is only one shade of black, unlike blue or red. I think it turned out pretty good.
Oh, in case anyone was wondering, there is only one type of printer that i'm aware of that actually prints white, and that the Alps printers. Problem is that Alps went out of business. You can still find the printers on ebay going for about $500-$600. I'm not sure if anyone carries the white ink cartridges anymore. Every site that I go to says that they're out of stock.

Jonny B · #11 11-04-2002, 07:23 PM

I just recieved my 20 sheets of clear decal paper in the mail today, so it looks like I'm going to take my 1st shot at making decals for my zips with it instead of the white paper. I picked up some of the Kyrol Crystal Clear Acryllic finish today as well, so I'm ready to go. I'll post an update by Wed/Thur.

arch2b · #12 03-26-2003, 08:10 PM

does anyone have a sheet or two of the clear water slide decal paper that they would sell? i only need a sheet or two and don't want to spend 20 something for a lot of left overs. better yet, would anyone be willing to print my decals on a laser printer? my ink jet printer has crappy resolution.