Kind of on topic, A guide for what decal makers need to make decals Options

[VFA-103guy]

Ok, I was board out of my gord at work today so bare with me. This means I had more time on my hands than I knew what to do with..and I got paid for it.

The main reason I decided to write this article was, because when I was in the business of making decals, I was constatly bombarded with the question: "why don't you do decals for tomcat...". Usually what would happen is, an individual would email me a lo res or very grainy picture or 2 that usually belonged to another photographer and ask the previous statement. I would always respond with the usual "I need walk arounds or hi res shots of both sides of the a/c", and 9 times out of 10, I would either not get a response back or I'd get some sort of hate email which I usually found histerical.

Please understand I am merely speaking from my experiences when I was in charge of VF, and by no means am I representing the thoughts and policies of any other decal manufacturer.

Since the consumer demand for "accurate" decals is higher than ever, some decal manufacturers strive to bring customers the accuracy they ask for, while others focus on how fast they can pop material out without thoroughly researching their material, therefore producing a less than accurate sheet. Rest assuered with companies like VF, Fighter Town, Steel Beach, MAW, Afterburner, and 2Bobs, we as model builders will be getting decal sheets as accurate as they can get!

Ok, so what's needed to make an accurate decal sheet ?

There are several factors involved in making a decal sheet as well as making it accurate.

1. The decal artist has to know what he/she is doing in Corel Draw or Adobe Illustrator. The artist must have a great sense of detail other wise the sheet will be half arse. I guess the saying goes "The art work is only as good as the artist."

2. Good references, or "walk arounds". By todays decal standards, walk around photos are the best reference a decal artist can have to make a decal sheet. The pictures must be straight on shots of the markings, however some can be slightly off angle. (See images below for an example.) I don't care how good a decal artist is, they can't make decals from 1 or 2 lo res grainy pics. Also keep in mind, photos for older a/c subjects are harder to come by than you think. My general rule of thumb was this. If I/we couldn't clearly see EVERY marking on the a/c, there was no way decals of that subject were getting done. I have found through my own experience, material older than about 1990 is very hard to come by and would require hundreds of man hours in doing research alone just to find decent photos. If you have a real job and a life outside decal making, you could be researching for centuries. Reason being is, in the 80's and into the 90's, "walk arounds" were not a particular form of photography that photgraphers practiced on a regular basis, and they would usually only take one, maybe 2 shots of a particular a/c. This is one of the main reasons why I think most decal manufacturers are shying away from most older subjects.

3. The artist as well as the researcher (if any) need to have a good knowledge of the FS color system and of course your subject matter. If you don't know your jets, you'll never make it in the industry. One thing that we (as well as most guys in the biz nowadays) have is, the advantage of having contacts in squadrons and more importantly, contacts in their corrosion control dept's. This is very bennificial, because the corrosion personnel know "what's what" in terms of what markings are painted what color as well as paint scheme info for their birds. Most of them are very cooperative in giving information, but some are not. It's like they think they're guarding the secret to Busch's Baked Beans or something.

Talking with pilots and RIO's/WSO's is not always the best idea when it comes to asking questions about colors on their jets. These guys and gals are paid to fly the a/c, not paint them. That is, unless they are the maintenance officer, then they have double duty and have some limited knowledge of marking colors. Most of the tomcat aircrews I've spoken with over the years were amazed when I tell them their jet is actually painted 3 shades of grey and not one..

4. Research of course, is a vital part of making a decal sheet. Again, you have to know your jets. This is the reason VF-Decals stayed specialized in F-14 and F-18 markings. I've been studying the F-14 for over 25 years, legacy F-18's for 12 and the F-18E/F since it came out. I still learn new things about all 3 a/c every day. When I would research a decal sheet for VF, I would spend a minimum of at least 100 hours scouring over pictures of the a/c we were doing decals for, just make sure I wouldn't miss anything. And yes, there would be times I would over look something, and it's a good thing Mike was always there to back up what I was doing. So not only was he doing art work, he was photograph consulting as well.

5. Ok, so I keep stressing the fact that "you have to know your jets." Well, you not only have to know them, but you also have to know your weapons. Knowing your air to air and air to ground weapons that are authorized to be loaded on a particular a/c, and load out configurations is a good thing because it lets your customers know you've done your home work. Most model builders like to strap bombs and missiles on their models, and again accuracy plays a huge part in this. The average modeler will of course do their own research, but when 2Bobs offered the weapons load out sheets in their OEF F-14 and F-18 sheets, I thought it was the greatest thing since sliced bread. It was a great convenience to have that guide and I still use it on my own models today. So, in essence it's not a requirement per say, but it is more of a convenience to your customer if you go that extra mile to provide them with accurate load out information. Thank God for the red shirts!

6. Letter and number fonts. Good Heavens. I've learned more about fonts in the last 3 years than I have ever known my entire life. This is a relatively easy concept to catch on to once you've learned to match them up, but again, having squadron contacts is bennificial here because the corrosion guys usually will straight up tell you what fonts they've used. Some of the most primary fonts used on modern US Navy jets are: Times New Roman, Long Beach USN, and occasionally Arial just to name a few.

Ok, so below is a series of walk around style photos typical of what a decal artist would need to make a a sheet. Our example here is of Fast Eagle 105 from VFA-41. Now granted, we ae missing 2 shots here. Can anyone guess which ones?

Tada! If you guessed the upper left and lower right wing national insignias you get the prize of................................................................................................................................. FREE air!

Seriously, there was a reason I didn't shoot them. One of which was I'm not tall enough to see over the top of the left wing, and two; the national insignias on the wings are the same size, color, and shape as those on the fwd fuselage. (This is just common sense)

Left Side:







Right side:





** Note: I do have shots of the right wing flap number and "VFA-41" logo on the spine, I just couldn't post them due to the fact I had exceeded the number of images I could load on one page.

So, the next time you toss an idea to a decal manufacturer, keep this article in mind. In the end, I sure hope that this will satisfy most people's curriousity and answer some of the same old questions that have been asked of us who have been in and/or are still in the business.

I also, would like some of the artists to please chime in and share their thoughts and observations and what they've experienced, as well as to elaborate further on what I have stated.

Brian

This post has been edited by VF-103guy: Jun 11 2007, 05:19 PM

[gtypecanare]

Great write up! Brian.

Kinda feel bad of not taking some more reference photo's of Tomcats when I lived near NAS Miramar back in the day, circa 1990-1996. I can remember when VF-124 recieved their F-14D's and doing a walkaround it.

[VFA-103guy]

Great write up! Brian.

Kinda feel bad of not taking some more reference photo's of Tomcats when I lived near NAS Miramar back in the day, circa 1990-1996. I can remember when VF-124 recieved their F-14D's and doing a walkaround it.

Thanks George!

[GreyGhost]

I completely understand Brian, one can NEVER have enough reference photos, especially if decals are to be done !

Gregg

[leatherneck224]

dido hear Brian, i would just add that close up of all markings is a must for the most accurate decals. especially stencil data. while it is easy to figure out what a stencil says from a manual it's the little things that bring out the detail. like spelling errors on the actual subject or different fonts.

[VFA-103guy]

Cool man, thanks!

[Fishwelding]

Your post might be a candidate for a permanent pinning somewhere in the forums. Other decal manufactures might want to add their thoughts as well.

In particular, your comments about older subjects explains a lot. It has occurred to me that with most molds of modern jets (particularly teen-series jets) having been cut in the '80s or '90s, and therefore with modelers struggling to 'update' items as varied as cockpits and missile rails in order to use sheets depicting airplanes in the 2001-7 era, it would seem logical for decal makers to go the other direction, and provide markings from earlier decades, thereby enabling more 'out of the box' construction. Now I see why, in many cases, this is not easy.

If ever I and my camera come into contact with a subject possibly suitable for decal manufacture, I'll bear in mind your requirements.

[hatchet]

Great how-to Brian

I wish I'd had it before I went to the Airshow yesterday.

[phantom]

Thanks Brian.....but I have a question..........
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.When are you doing them in 1/72?

[VFA-103guy]

Thanks Brian.....but I have a question..........
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.When are you doing them in 1/72?

No

Soup

For

You...

[VFA-103guy]

Steve-

Can we get this pinned?

[VFA-103guy]

......Geoff is pretty good looking, but we are just model geeks like you.

When compared to who's standards?..

[Trigger]

material older than about 1990 is very hard to come by and would require hundreds of man hours in doing research alone just to find decent photos... Reason being is, in the 80's and into the 90's, "walk arounds" were not a particular form of photography that photgraphers practiced on a regular basis, and they would usually only take one, maybe 2 shots of a particular a/c. This is one of the main reasons why I think most decal manufacturers are shying away from most older subjects.

Lack of both digital photography and the interwebs didn't help either.

Some of the most primary fonts used on modern US Navy jets are: Times New Roman, Long Beach USN, and occasionally Arial just to name a few.

Arial, Helvetica or both?

[VFA-103guy]

Lack of both digital photography and the interwebs didn't help either.
Arial, Helvetica or both?

Can't say we ever used Helvetica for anything..really don't know why we would have..

[ThePhantomTwo]

material older than about 1990 is very hard to come by and would require hundreds of man hours in doing research alone just to find decent photos.

It's out there somewhere,just takes time,alot of e-mails,and snail mails,took me over a year to get all the F-4 stuff I needed for two of our units Phantoms,very complete walk-arounds to boot,plus had pleanty of pictures to base accurate decals on for about another 10-12 Phantoms.I've never really counted the research hours but I imagine I've put in 500+ over the last couple of years on the F-4,F-16,and F-100 subjects I've researched for several decal companies,and that's probably a low estimate.

[VFA-103guy]

It's out there somewhere,just takes time,alot of e-mails,and snail mails,took me over a year to get all the F-4 stuff I needed for two of our units Phantoms,very complete walk-arounds to boot,plus had pleanty of pictures to base accurate decals on for about another 10-12 Phantoms.I've never really counted the research hours but I imagine I've put in 500+ over the last couple of years on the F-4,F-16,and F-100 subjects I've researched for several decal companies,and that's probably a low estimate.

Been there, done that, got the t-shirt for it.

While I was researching the Desert Storm 1 VF-103 Sluggers F-14B's we were going to do decals for, I had contacted former crew members, looked in cruise books, was sent photos (both email and prints), contacted NAS Pensacola's museum library (a great research source I might add), and by the end of it all which I believe tallied up to about 7 or 8 months time, I had enough material to cover 1 F-14 from that time frame.

To me the older subjects are great, but I never considered them a priority. Our customers were demanding subjects of the here and now, and that's where the majority of my research time went.

[Trigger]

Can't say we ever used Helvetica for anything..really don't know why we would have..

I ask because I know that both the USAF and Army have also been using Arial as well as Helvetica. I've seen Arial on HH-60G Pave Hawks (tail numbers, "USAF" and "RESCUE") and Helvetica on AH-64D Longbows (The "UNITED STATES ARMY" on the tailboom). I wasn't sure what the Navy was doing.

The two typefaces are almost identical, but there are some different characters. For example, the uppercase "R" in Helvetica is quite different than the Arial "R." Arial is a default typeface on PCs that is, for lack of a better term, a free-Windows version of Helvetica. Because Arial is so widespread, this is a big reason why we're starting to see it on stencils. However, it's still not Helvetica and one will need to check their references against the typeface to make sure they're using the correct one.

Something else I noticed on photos is that the typefaces on the stencils aren't perfect matches to the fonts on ones machine. So depending on the scale of the decal and how many rivets one counts before breakfast, one might have to do some slight manipulation (stretching the artwork in either the X or Y axis, adjusting the kerning, adding an thin outline stroke to the characters to build up weight, etc.) to get the perfect match.

[Superheat]

Hi Brian,

A couple comments. First you said (reguarding the upper wing insignia): "Seriously, there was a reason I didn't shoot them. One of which was I'm not tall enough to see over the top of the left wing".

There is a neat solution to this problem: a monopod. Get one with the longest posible extension. I have two, my favorite is a Giotto. You stick the camera (I am assuming you use a digital of some sort) on the platform, adjust the angle of the head, put the camera on timer mode, hold it up to shoot the area you want and wait. Check the result and shoot again as necessary. Sometimes it takes me three or four attempts to get what I want, but I usually get something acceptable eventually. A wider shot rather than a tight and setting the camer to shutter priority with a pretty high speed both tend to minimise re-shoots. The monopod also allows you to shoot markings on tall tails at closer range without an annoying angle, as well as underside details without laying on the ground looking like a geek, or, at my age, a reason to call 911!

Next, I can agreee with all that you say about photos required as long as we are talking current aircraft, where, in this age of digital cameras and 8GB memory cards, complete coverage at ultra high res is reasonably possible. When you get back into the "prehistoric" times like the '60's, though, where those kind of photos are not available, it is not reasonable to exclude them as subject matter simply because you can't find everything you would require of a current aircraft subject. All it takes is a disclaimer that the decal is based on the best information available (maybe even publishing the reference photo or photos used on the instruction sheet, if possible) and the offer to make corrections available if better information is forthcoming. If your standard were to be applied to World War II aircraft, for instance, there would be damn few sheets appearing of anything. (And if kit manufacturers took your approach, there would be a lot fewer kits available than there are!)

I also think you rather over-estimate the accuracy expectations of the average modeler, especially where older subjects are concerned. I really doubt that most expect absolute accuracy on older subjects, realising implicitly that there is simply not enough information available to ensure absolute accuracy. And in spite of the well publicised shortcomings of any number of decal sheets on modern subjects as well as older, I have seen many models built using them, some by modelers I would have assumed would have known better. Further, if you considered doing a 60's F-8 or F-4, perhaps, but you didn't because you could not get exactly everything you felt you needed, but "Errora Decals" did, you lost a lot of sales by default. If you had done it, it may not have been 100% accurate because of a lack of information, but it would undoubtedly have been more accurate than "Errora's".

I personally appreciate that you, and a few others like you, try to get everything exactly right on a decal sheet, but I also know full well that their are subjecfts of interest to many where you can't. In those cases I would much rather have your best effort at getting it right than an "Errora's", because I have complete trust that yours would be a best effort, and I can live with your errors as a result more easily than theirs (which I will have to anyway). I don't think I am alone in this.

Cheers,

Tom

[stealthy1]

Superheat:
I think that many model builders have different views on accuracy. IMHO, a teenage modeler is less likely to be extremely anal on a dial's inaccuracy on a cockpit, whereas other more experienced modelers will pay specific attention to detail in areas where the detail could potentially be seen.

Brian:
I understand the pain and sweat one has to put into to decals, which makes it more apparent the reason why you need to close VF-decals. It's a tradeoff, but and obvious tradeoff to take care of family nonetheless.

[Mike5401]

Amen brotha! Brian pretty much hit the nail on the head. Yes close up shots of Data Stencils and any certian nose art or pretty much anything with lots of detail is best to have a straight close up, head-on shot to get the best accuracy.

Some people who suggest to do certain things but then present you with 2 or 3 griny, low rez photos expect you to do a complete accurate sheet with that.

Mike

This post has been edited by Mike5401: Jun 12 2007, 01:09 AM