Custom Decals?

[plummerfan16]

I'm hoping to start work on my F-15E soon (hopefully I'll get an airbrush soon). I was wondering about getting custom decals. I am hoping to make this model of my jet, but the decals in the kit obviously aren't for my jet. Is there a company that sells decals for the different squadrons? I would like to find them for the 494th. Also, is there anywhere that I could get a custom name-tape decal. This might be going overboard, but I would like to actually get pilot/wso/dcc/my name tapes on the jet. I could probably fine-tip sharpie them on a blank decal, but it wouldn't look as good. Thanks for any help.

 

[Papermodder]

Hi Plummerfan.
If you have no luck finding the decals, you could get decal paper and make your own. I'm sure you would be able to find the required fonts and insignia on line.

Jim

 

[Sudsy]

As a caveat to the using decal paper, some good USAF graphics for use with a photo editor to set up your decals can be found here on the USAF website art section:
http://www.af.mil/art/mediagallery.asp?galleryID=5147

As far as photo editors to set up decals (or any image generation really), Photoshop if you can afford is best as it can set up your images using CYMK colors for printing. But, most of us mere mortals cannot afford that, so I use the GNU Image Manipulation Program (GIMP) which can be downloaded for free from http://www.gimp.org/ You can go into the preferences and set up your image document to match whatever size of sheet you need to print. GIMP is limited to RGB colors for now, however you shouldn't experience too much of a difference between CYMK/RGB with decals... If you don't want to risk it check out Scribus http://www.scribus.net/canvas/Scribus to assist with conversion. Other free photo editors worth looking into for the decals would be Paint.Net, or if you are a Linux guy (specifically a KDE user), Krita.

 

[plummerfan16]

Thanks for the replies.

 

[plummerfan16]

Bought a set of decals from a website called spruebrothers (not sure on spelling). The set includes the decals to make 01-2003, so with a little bit of rearranging, it will work for 00-3002. I'm hopefully going to be able to buy some spray paint this weekend and get started on this project.