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Made in au
Stalwart Space Marine






Hi everyone! i was hoping someone might know of a online company who will print out custom decals for me. Decals will be used for a imperial knight.

Thanking in advance
   
Made in gb
Dakka Veteran



South East London

I thought Fallout Hobbies did this but looking at their website I'm not 100% sure they do any more?

These guys are pretty good and can do everything from designing the art right up to printing the decal although you can send them a file if you have the artwork already done:

http://wessextransfers.com/custom-decal-printing/

You might get a better response to this in painting and modelling though.

"Dig in and wait for Winter" 
   
Made in gb
Regular Dakkanaut



uk

Citadel Six Designs...try these

 
   
Made in us
Willing Inquisitorial Excruciator





I used these guys:

https://www.chaptercustomizer.com/

Just got my order in this week - and everything looks great!

Insidious Intriguer 
   
Made in us
Lone Wolf Sentinel Pilot





Los Angeles, CA, USA

If you have the design done already, you can print them yourself on decal paper. The only caveat is that home printers don't print white. So if white is a major part of the decal, check with the above suggestions.
   
Made in gb
Growlin' Guntrukk Driver with Killacannon





Scotland, but nowhere near my rulebook

You can get white decal paper as well as clear - I've got some kicking about that I got from Amazon.
   
Made in gb
Furious Fire Dragon





Midlands, UK

Printing your own is worth a shot. I did it for my Salamanders and Deathwatch and it worked out great. The thing to remember - as mentioned already - is that your standard home printer doesn't print white and that it makes colour by putting down dots of ink. If you want a pale colour, it will put down fairly widely spaced dots because it assumes you're printing on white paper and it wants to use that white to show through the ink to make the light colour. If you actually put a non-white paper in, your colours won't come out the way you intend. So ideally you would use clear decal paper, but because of the way home printers work you won't be able to print light coloured decals to go on darker backgrounds using clear paper. You can print dark decals to go on lighter backgrounds just fine using the clear stuff, but if you want light decals for dark backgrounds you need white decal paper. Then it works just like printing on regular old white paper, and the printer can produce lighter colours just fine. The issue when working with this is that you need to print a border around the decal, because the paper's white. So if you were using it to make Dark Angels insignia, for example, you would have to do it by printing a dark green around the insignia which is as close to your paint colour as you can manage, then when you cut your decal out you cut through that green bit (this means that you're not stuck with a white border), put the decal on and then blend the edges with your paint. It's a bit more of a hassle than getting a professionally printed white decal, but it's not that bad considering it's something you can do yourself at home.

I got a pack of clear decal paper and a pack of white decal paper. When I made my image files for printing, on the clear paper I put black and green salamanders insignia (because the 5th company uses black insignia and the 6th uses green, both on a yellow/orange background - suitable for clear decal paper) and insignia for all the chapters I was thinking of using in my deathwatch where the logo is dark on a lighter background (e.g. Star Phantoms, Crimson Guard, Angels of Vigilence, Destroyers etc.). Then on the white paper, I printed the 1st/2nd/3rd/4th company salamanders insignia (because they are a lighter logo on a black background) and all the chapters for the deathwatch that also have a lighter logo on a darker background (e.g. Scythes of the Emperor, Guardians of the Covenant, Angels of Iron etc.), each one surrounded by a blob of colour which matches the background colour the decal is going onto.

You also need to make sure you buy the right decal paper for your printer, because they use different sorts. There's inkjet decal paper, and laser decal paper. The laser printer works better if you have one, because you don't need to seal it. If you're using an inkjet, you need to seal it with a varnish after printing otherwise the ink will run when you wet the decals to apply them. It can be a bit of trial and error to get it right because too little varnish and the ink will run, too much and the decal will be too stiff to conform to a curved surface. I'm actually considering investing in a colour laser printer, partly because I tend to print so rarely that the ink in my inkjet dries up, then when I do need to print something I need new ink - but I'm also attracted by the thought of home printed decals that I don't have to seal first.

So in all - it's a little bit of a faff, but if you give it a go, get it right (maybe after a bit of trial and error), then you're in a position where you can make your own decals for whatever you want, and that's pretty cool. The longest part of the process is preparing your image file for printing, and if you're trying to get custom decals made you're probably going to need to do that anyway.


   
 
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