Decals library

[Ranger565]

6 hours ago, Anasazi37 said:

All of these are sets that I designed and printed for this community. My entire catalog is posted on this site:

https://sites.google.com/site/tridentdesignworksdecals/

Just what I have had in reference for about 15 years. 

[Anasazi37]

6 hours ago, Ranger565 said:

Just what I have had in reference for about 15 years. 

I appreciate you posting what you had. Just wanted to include a pointer to the full catalog since I don't think I've done that in this thread.

[Bolt]

Thank you @Anasazi37 !

I've been lucky enough to have scored several of those sets over the years. Amazing work! 

Edited June 12, 2020 by Bolt

[DYRL VF-1S]

So, for those interested, I'll leak a bit of info here.  Long story short, I've been able to recently work with ToyHax.com/Reprolabels.  (For those that collect TFs or Joe, they're well known for their repro sticker sheets and original sheets - quality is incredible.) 

Anyway, they consulted with me on the 1/55 DYRL VF-1S Strike decals and invested in an artist and Macross fan (friend of mine with a wicked portfolio - did work for Cartoon Network's Adult Swim, Coke, etc.) and created the attached.  They are currently making some adjustments to a couple minor things and in the process of creating a guide for sticker placement, but you should see this up on their site soon (I'd guess the next month or so?). 

I'll likely start a thread for this when it's officially released because they've agreed to garner feedback from collectors so that if this sells well, they'll invest in other sticker sheets (think 1/55 TV VF-1S, 1/3000 SDF-1, etc.).  I'll post some polls at that time.

Edited June 12, 2020 by DYRL VF-1S

[Anasazi37]

6 hours ago, Bolt said:

Thank you @Anasazi37 !

I've been lucky enough to have scored several of those sets over the years. Amazing work! 

Thanks!

[wm cheng]

I've been lucky enough to adorn all my 1/48 Yamatos with @Anasazi37 amazing work!!!

Seems like a lifetime ago...

[Anasazi37]

8 hours ago, wm cheng said:

I've been lucky enough to adorn all my 1/48 Yamatos with @Anasazi37 amazing work!!!

Seems like a lifetime ago...

It's hard to believe that I started making Macross decals in 2002. It was inspiring to see what a true master like you could do with them. I still occasionally design and print sets, but largely for my own projects--many of which I put on hold back in the day because I was filling orders and making 1/48 Yamato customs for MW members.

Apart from the set I made for the 1/20 Plamax Strike Gerwalk (need to finish the ones for the Strike Fighter and regular Fighter), my other recent project has been a complete redesign of my 1/55 sets. I decided to make a single streamlined generic set that covers VF-1A CF, VF-1A TV Max/Hayao, VF-1D, VF-1J Hikaru/Max/Millia, and VF-1S. For the last one, there's a supplemental sheet for items like skulls and all of the large striped areas (arms, wings, nosecone, chest, etc.). The VE-1 and VT-1 are unique enough that they still have their own sheets (in progress). Sample of the generic and Focker supplement sets below.

Edited June 13, 2020 by Anasazi37

[Ranger565]

On 6/12/2020 at 5:00 AM, Anasazi37 said:

I appreciate you posting what you had. Just wanted to include a pointer to the full catalog since I don't think I've done that in this thread.

Do you still make the decals?? The X-wing Cap cardboard would sell like hotcakes right now.  I would buy some myself/ 

[Anasazi37]

8 hours ago, Ranger565 said:

Do you still make the decals?? The X-wing Cap cardboard would sell like hotcakes right now.  I would buy some myself/ 

I still occasionally print sets, mainly to correct injustices like Plamax's 1/20 Gerwalk kit, which cost $300 (before shipping) and only came with stickers. Plamax eventually followed up with two expensive add-on decal sets that didn't contain all of the markings on the sticker sheet.

Did someone re-release the X-Wing kit?

[Ranger565]

On 6/24/2020 at 5:12 AM, Anasazi37 said:

I still occasionally print sets, mainly to correct injustices like Plamax's 1/20 Gerwalk kit, which cost $300 (before shipping) and only came with stickers. Plamax eventually followed up with two expensive add-on decal sets that didn't contain all of the markings on the sticker sheet.

Did someone re-release the X-Wing kit?

Salzo are still around I have made 2 in the last 5 months

[wm cheng]

What a flashback to be getting decals from @Anasazi37 again!  Thanks so much for doing this. 

Here's what I did with the last ones he did for 1/48 scale for my old Yamatos, how long was that?!?!

[sumyumgoy]

man, those look great!  Definitely awesome to have such a great resource and talented members!

[Anasazi37]

I'm always impressed with your work, @wm cheng. I feel like my decals reach their full potential in your hands. Keeps me motivated to continue making sets available.

[MacrossJunkie]

Here are some decals I received recently as well as decals from a couple Hasegawa kits I have. These were all scanned at 1200 dpi resolution. Click the thumbnail to get the full size pic.

Hasegawa 1/72 VF-0 Battroid

 

Hasegawa 1/72 VF-22S

 

Waterslide decals replica for Arcadia 1/60 VF-0S (A4 paper size)

 

Waterslide decals replica (mostly, has some extra decals and doesn't have the bunny emblems) for Arcadia 1/60 Shin VF-0A (A4 paper size)

 

3rd Party waterslide decals for Yamato/Arcadia 1/60 VF-1 (Note: all the NO STEPs are actually "NO STLP") (A4 paper size)

 

Edited August 22, 2020 by MacrossJunkie

[Convectuoso]

Great additions, @Macross Junkie

[MacrossJunkie]

Another. Scanned at 1200 dpi. Click to download full size version.

 

Waterslide decals replica for Arcadia 1/60 D. D. Ivanov SV-51γ (A5 paper size)

Edited August 23, 2020 by MacrossJunkie

[ulvdemon]

These decals are pretty cool.  I have a  VF-1A/J/S build on hold that I might make in a low-viz paint scheme.

[aiorus_22]

Will someone have the scan of the vf-22 moon shooters 1/72? I am looking for images of the nose art but I did not find good quality

[Gabe Q]

I feel like we're just helping out the black market decal bootleggers here. Every rare set of decals we post in detail is one less they need to hunt down themselves.

[Convectuoso]

@Gabe Q

Is there a white decals market? Most of the decals posted here are only available by purchasing the sets they're included with, and the standalone ones are mostly discontinued.

My first idea when creating the topic was to have backups of decals available for all users of this forum, because it's really frustrating to build a model and accidentally tearing a decal apart, with no backups of it. I think many users have benefited from this already, and if one MW user were to sell the decals posted here, correctly printed and cut, even with white markings, I would gladly purchase them.

[sqidd]

1 hour ago, Gabe Q said:

I feel like we're just helping out the black market decal bootleggers here. 

I think you're right. The companies that are ruined and the bodies that are stacked up due to the underground decal black market can not be supported.

[MechTech]

Thanks for the scans guys, this is cool to have. This is that gray area, like being able to burn discs. I create copies of company discs to be distributed within the company. Other people use the same gear (not ours) to bootleg stuff. It can be the jerks that ruin it for everyone else. What do you do? - MT

[Gabe Q]

@MechTech I guess you're right. If this is helpful for members, then it's worth it. 

If I do post a rare sheet, I will secretly put in a small, inconsequential change to know if I'm the source of a bootlegger's original scan.

[Anasazi37]

6 hours ago, sqidd said:

I think you're right. The companies that are ruined and the bodies that are stacked up due to the underground decal black market can not be supported.

After designing and producing Macross-related decals for 18 years, I can confirm that you'd make tens of dollars doing so. Maybe if you sold a lot of bootleg sets you could turn a small profit, but I think you'd probably have to bootleg a lot of different sets to make it worth the time and materials investment. That's probably what those guys in China selling sets on eBay are doing.

 

6 hours ago, Convectuoso said:

 if one MW user were to sell the decals posted here, correctly printed and cut, even with white markings, I would gladly purchase them.

That would be a massive amount of work. It's a great idea, but would require someone with all of the right equipment, and the time, and the talent, and the passion for Macross to do it. The scans are a great foundation, but you can't simply hit the "print" button and make a new set that would be worth using. Because of how the decals are created (usually some form of screen printing), you basically have to redraw everything if you want the designs to come out right, which takes a lot of time. There are some tricks to getting decent prints from scans (even ones that have the blue paper background that has to be removed), but that takes almost as much time to do well. I only reserve that approach for really complex designs where redrawing just isn't worth the effort and I'm willing to live with the degraded quality.

[MacrossJunkie]

2 hours ago, Anasazi37 said:

After designing and producing Macross-related decals for 18 years, I can confirm that you'd make tens of dollars doing so. Maybe if you sold a lot of bootleg sets you could turn a small profit, but I think you'd probably have to bootleg a lot of different sets to make it worth the time and materials investment. That's probably what those guys in China selling sets on eBay are doing.

 

That would be a massive amount of work. It's a great idea, but would require someone with all of the right equipment, and the time, and the talent, and the passion for Macross to do it. The scans are a great foundation, but you can't simply hit the "print" button and make a new set that would be worth using. Because of how the decals are created (usually some form of screen printing), you basically have to redraw everything if you want the designs to come out right, which takes a lot of time. There are some tricks to getting decent prints from scans (even ones that have the blue paper background that has to be removed), but that takes almost as much time to do well. I only reserve that approach for really complex designs where redrawing just isn't worth the effort and I'm willing to live with the degraded quality.

Yeah, there's definitely a lot of work needed to make these print ready. Cleaning up and making the background a transparency layer would probably be the bare minimum. 

 

Quote

It's a great idea, but would require someone with all of the right equipment, and the time, and the talent, and the passion for Macross to do it.

I think the main thing stopping a lot of people, including me, is the "right equipment" part of it. No one makes affordable dye sublimation printers that print white ever since Alps closed up shop and ones made by other companies that have that capability cost thousands of dollars which is a very high barrier for entry for what we hobbyists would plan on doing with them.

[Anasazi37]

5 hours ago, MacrossJunkie said:

Yeah, there's definitely a lot of work needed to make these print ready. Cleaning up and making the background a transparency layer would probably be the bare minimum. 

 

I think the main thing stopping a lot of people, including me, is the "right equipment" part of it. No one makes affordable dye sublimation printers that print white ever since Alps closed up shop and ones made by other companies that have that capability cost thousands of dollars which is a very high barrier for entry for what we hobbyists would plan on doing with them.

You'd also have to do some color correction to account for artifacts tied to the scanning and background removal processes. Plus, when you remove the blue background, your white decals are now the color of the background and won't print, so you have to figure out how to deal with those (not fun).

I've had to get very creative to keep my ALPS printing working, and to track down sufficient ink cartridges. Part of my ability to do so is that I've had my printer for a long time, so I cleared that entry barrier a long time ago when the prices weren't insane. The new printers in the range of thousands of dollars won't work, unfortunately. I spent a lot of time looking into that. They can't hold onto a sheet of paper over multiple print passes. You pass it through once to print white, pick it up, put it back in, then pass it through again to print color. That leads to misregistration, where the color layer isn't aligned with the white layer, because each pass is completely independent. For large designs, you might not notice, but for the scale we work at, you definitely would. I almost bought one until I realized that I'd be dealing with this issue. The only printers I know of that do it "right" these days cost tens of thousands of dollars. I never got a full quote, just a description that they "cost as much as a decent car."

[MacrossJunkie]

2 hours ago, Anasazi37 said:

You'd also have to do some color correction to account for artifacts tied to the scanning and background removal processes. Plus, when you remove the blue background, your white decals are now the color of the background and won't print, so you have to figure out how to deal with those (not fun).

I've had to get very creative to keep my ALPS printing working, and to track down sufficient ink cartridges. Part of my ability to do so is that I've had my printer for a long time, so I cleared that entry barrier a long time ago when the prices weren't insane. The new printers in the range of thousands of dollars won't work, unfortunately. I spent a lot of time looking into that. They can't hold onto a sheet of paper over multiple print passes. You pass it through once to print white, pick it up, put it back in, then pass it through again to print color. That leads to misregistration, where the color layer isn't aligned with the white layer, because each pass is completely independent. For large designs, you might not notice, but for the scale we work at, you definitely would. I almost bought one until I realized that I'd be dealing with this issue. The only printers I know of that do it "right" these days cost tens of thousands of dollars. I never got a full quote, just a description that they "cost as much as a decent car."

That's some good insight from someone with experience.

My thought was turning the blue/green backgrounds into an alpha transparency in GIMP so they wouldn't get printed.

I had thought about getting that ghost white toner for making decals, but the cost of those toner cartridges are not exactly cheap either and are only available for certain models of HP laser printers. Also, like you said, I was worried about how one would do alignment from having to do multiple passes for small text unless all that was being done was printing white text.

On top of that, one would have to keep swapping between the black and white toner cartridges and having to manipulate the image, probably as separate layers so that you have an inverted black and white version so that it prints the black parts with the white toner.

I don't know why no other company has made a printer with the same capabilities as the ALPS ones. Is the overall market just too small? I see a lot of uses from modelling for trains, jets, tanks, etc., to making decals or transfers for larger things. There seems to be enough demand where Ghost Toner and other alternatives had to be made in order to fill that demand. It feels we've gone backwards in technology in that regard rather than it being advanced forward.

[MechTech]

I would LOVE to be able to print white! Being a graphic artist, it drives me nuts not not being able to make my own full decals. Some things can be fudged, but there's nothing like printing white! - MT 

[Anasazi37]

5 hours ago, MacrossJunkie said:

It feels we've gone backwards in technology in that regard rather than it being advanced forward.

I agree with this statement 1000%. The need for this kind of printing hasn't decreased over the years. It's actually gone the other direction, at least from where I sit as a hobbyist, but maybe there isn't a big enough consumer market for the technology beyond us--until you get to the commercial level. When you look at that class of printers, there's definitely been advances, but it feels like inexpensive color laser printers displaced dry resin and dye sub printers for the average consumer.

[MacrossJunkie]

48 minutes ago, MechTech said:

I would LOVE to be able to print white! Being a graphic artist, it drives me nuts not not being able to make my own full decals. Some things can be fudged, but there's nothing like printing white! - MT 

Well, you could try looking at these white toner cartridges, if you haven't already.

You basically swap out the black toner cartridge with these and then trick the computer into printing white by inverting the colors in an image so that white becomes black and black becomes white so that it thinks it's printing black with black toner, but it's actually using white toner.

Unfortunately the cartridges are only for select models of HP printers and then there's the difficulty of getting perfect alignment of the sheet you're printing on for multiple passes for small decals/text that Anasazi mentioned. I'm not sure how well aligned these HP printers draw in papers/printing mediums.

[MechTech]

Thanks! Yeah, I saw those on MicroMark for about $300+ just for the toner cartridge! Too bad... - MT

[Anasazi37]

5 hours ago, MacrossJunkie said:

You basically swap out the black toner cartridge with these and then trick the computer into printing white by inverting the colors in an image so that white becomes black and black becomes white so that it thinks it's printing black with black toner, but it's actually using white toner.

That's basically what you do with ALPS printers, too. The white designs are black in digital form, which indicates that you want a "solid" print of that color. Same goes for the metallic inks. Just to indicate how far I'm going to keep my printer alive, I now import cartridges from Japan, where ALPS changed the formulation for white. Something to do with how the most recent printer they made operates at a higher temperature. If you use those cartridges in the MD-5000, the white comes out faded. So, you have to trick the printer into thinking the cartridge is gold or silver foil, which requires more heat. How do you do that? You create cartridge barcodes for one the foils and put them on the white, but since the barcodes are black on silver, it's not easy. I ended up finding a picture of a silver barcode online, redrew it in Illustrator, and dropped that onto a sheet of silver foil address labels that I ran though my laser printer. Problem solved.

[NZEOD]

On 6/13/2020 at 12:00 AM, Anasazi37 said:

I appreciate you posting what you had. Just wanted to include a pointer to the full catalog since I don't think I've done that in this thread.

any chance of the blue roses and enigma decals being rerun? Or at least the Kill markings?

[Anasazi37]

22 hours ago, NZEOD said:

any chance of the blue roses and enigma decals being rerun? Or at least the Kill markings?

The sets in 1/72? Those are small enough that I can probably squeeze them onto a sheet for another run. PM me if interested.

[Gabe Q]

Does anyone know what kit these decals are from?