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View Full Version : Creating perfectly sized decals



4StarCustoms
02-12-2012, 02:08 PM
How times have you printed your decals out and got them on your figure only to realize they are too small? Here is foolproof way to size your decals correctly.

Step 1: Take a few pictures of your figure with a ruler in the shot. Get all the spots where decals will be applied later.

http://i75.photobucket.com/albums/i313/jweber26/WIP/Butler.jpg

Step 2: Import that picture into the program that you normally size decals in. I'm using Adobe Illustrator as an example. The document usually has rulers running along the top and side of the page. I pull out two guides that represent one inch. I then resize the picture so that my guides on the page match the ruler in the picture.

http://i75.photobucket.com/albums/i313/jweber26/WIP/Guides.jpg

Step 3: Now just pull your decals over the picture and resize them to fit the body you're working on.

http://i75.photobucket.com/albums/i313/jweber26/WIP/Back.jpg

Works great for making sure you have room for multiple decals:

http://i75.photobucket.com/albums/i313/jweber26/WIP/Manning.jpg

Hate painting stripes? Yeah, me too. Take a picture of the legs, scale them up and draw the stripes right over the picture. Leave some extra on the ends and you have yourself a perfect stripe!

http://i75.photobucket.com/albums/i313/jweber26/WIP/Stripe.jpg

I know you could just measure with a ruler the old fashioned way, but I found I still made mistakes, maybe too many customs at once with way too many dimensions scribbled on a piece of paper.

The other nice thing is that by taking pictures, the camera will pick up flaws you didn't catch yourself. Fix them early before you start decaling!

stevescustoms
02-12-2012, 02:36 PM
I normally just print my decals on plain paper first and then size accordingly. I like this idea though. I'll have to try it out. Tanks for posting.