How do I begin?

Well Mario Man, if I haven't said welcome yet, then welcome!

Next, where to start? Concept- what do you want to create- I'm still working (a long ongoing project) on at least one squad of soldiers- you mentioned doing a LotR Fellowship [or Mario Bros]. Either one has a number of characters- so pick a first character.

Got a character in mind? Let's use Mario for now (just as an example- off the top of my head it's easier to visualize this)- gather what you might need for him; Lego pieces: Blue hips/legs, red arms, red torso, white hands, a head and a red baseball cap (to keep things simple- you can always try a sculpy hat); Sculpey (for Mario, the Sculpey won't really be needed, unless you choose to do the hat in Sculpey); if you're me you'd gather some paints as well- brown for the shoes, blue for the straps over the shoulders and for the sides of the body, red if you use white Sculpey... oh, and don't forget the Primer and small paintbrushes- but, paint is extremely optional; a computer and program for creating the decals- if Drawplus gives you a hard time, see if you have something else you can use- I use Adobe Photoshop 5, Lamanda2 used to use MS Paint but now uses Paint.net, Kaminoan (who I think still has a printing service) uses Adobe Illustrator (I think), others use Corel Draw of some version. Reference pics of the character you want to create- atleast front view, I try for front and back views.

I can't tell you right now how to actually draw the decals, but I would do a decal for Mario's face as well as his torso and the circular "M" for his cap- try to match the reds and blues as best to the Lego pieces as possible.

Once the decal(s) are created, print them out somehow then apply the decals or stickers to the minifigure. A gloss overcoat may very well protect the stickers and paint also.

For Mario, get a Lego pipe wrench as well to complete the image.

Post the pic for others to see :D

I hope I've given you some help, instead of just rambling on, but if you still have questions ask me- worst case scenario, I'll try to direct you in the right direction if I don't have the answers myself.

-Alan

 

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"I am the Alpha and the Omega- I am the creator and the destroyer..."

Thanks for all that, now What kind of decal paper should I use? White or Clear?
Do I need to use a certain kind of paint, (if I choose that path) like that modeling specific stuff?

Chances are I'll try Mario and Co. before I try LotR, since I'm suspecting it will be a tad simpler.

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if you use clear paper it would probably be better . you wont have to create a custom color to "try" to match the color of your torso. also clear seems to look more detailed and more like a real lego torso than  white. 

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admin of nowackicustoms forums

 

 

Thats what I figured. Thanks

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As for the paints; I use from various companies: The Armory (acrylic pain), Citadel Colour (Games Workshop), and a variety of Testors/Model Master paints. I believe Armory and Citadel are usually used for painting the metal minatures (probably also models as well) and Testors seems to me to be geared towards models. I don't think the type of paint matters much (model vs. house) some people around here use Krylon spraypaints which seem to be house or general purpose.

And if you're going to be using clear waterslide decals, don't forget about Brasso for taking the Lego prints off of the torso/heads before adding your WS Decal.

-Alan

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"I am the Alpha and the Omega- I am the creator and the destroyer..."

OK, how much different is printing on waterslide though then just normal decal paper?

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From what I hear and see in pictures around here (but have yet to see in person) waterslide decals when done correctly (something that when building models I have never been able to do- they always look bubbled and crinkled and they dry up horribly- of course on those models I never put that waterslide sealant that I have recently heard about) end up looking almost like they were created by Lego Actual.

Normal decal paper however doesn't look bad, check out my LSF Soldier "Gamma":  I did have to paint (in this case, otherwise I use standard magic markers) along the sides of the edges to cover the white of the decal's thickness (another drawback to not using waterslide decals :P ). For the record I used Avery labels ( I forget the number but they were cheap and I never saw them again :( ). This decal was printed using a color inkjet (an HP psc 2175 which has currenly ran out of ink and suffered a stroke *sigh*) another sticker I did of this decal was done on an HP color laserjet (no clue as to the model number) and it looks much better- the colors are more exact and crisper.

Hope all that rambling helped.

-Alan

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"I am the Alpha and the Omega- I am the creator and the destroyer..."

I just watned to point out that I think there is a better cap for Mario. I will try and find a picture, but it appears to be more like the strange hat he weres. I have a black version. Either way he'd be prety simple, and if done right could be awesome. Espechaly considering that there were Mario levels where he walked on Legos.

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Peter_Nix- Thanks, chances are I'll just use normal decal paper. And I only have an HP psc 1600 printer. Hopefully everything I do wont print off too ugly. Nice minifig too ;)

Widigo- Thanks, I have also been looking around for another type of hat too. It'll be interesting decalling/painting a hat though.


And I am shooting for making a backside decal too, it would be easier to do that then paint it.

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 Back decals tend to work well in my opinion- adds to the "realism" of the characters. At first I was thinking that for Mario and Luigi you could get away with just the fronts of the torsos, but continuing to think about it the suspenders would continue to the back as well- you might want to think about paints then to paint the sides of the torso (by the way, Gamma's arms were blue at one point in time, now they're yellow. Also, if you check out my Brickshelf Gallery, you'll find what I was talking about concerning painting the sides of the torsos as well. But of course, paint is optional and not needed but is something that I like to incorporate into my figs.).

One thing I want to point out to you about the Normal Decal Paper- beware of it's thickness- for heads that don't need hats/hair you would have no problems, for heads that do need hat/hair (like my soldiers- glad you liked the fig by the way :D ) you might have a problem. When I created Gamma, I did a cammie face for him as well to see if it would be useful (I'm running low on the "boom-mike smiley faces") and with the Normal Decal Paper that I was using when I tried putting a "boonie hat" on him, it pushed the sticker down crunching the face and started peeling it off a bit- the glue wasn't the best but for the torso I noticed that once I "shelacked" him with the gloss coating it seems to be staying on pretty well. I do want to experiment with waterslide decals- I think (since they're so thin) that that would work well for figures that I'd be putting another piece over (like a hat...)- the drawback, waterslide decals cost a pretty penny or two compared to Normal Decal Paper.

-Alan

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"I am the Alpha and the Omega- I am the creator and the destroyer..."

Thank you for the invaluable help. I'll head over to the hobby store soon to see if they have anything before ordering online.

lol, one more question- how exactly do I match the paint colour to the decal colour?

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Hmm... good question. First off, nothing is ever exact unfortunatly. Next, I usually find the piece that I'm going to sticker first- like a red torso, then I'd start the decal and try to use the color values from the Lego Color Guide, of course I'd print a test page (normally on a black and white laserjet so that I waste as little ink as possible) to make sure the lines are thick enough, the details large enough, etc... and then once I printed and stuck on I'd usually use markers gently/lightly around the edges to keep from seeing the white of the sticker paper. As you may be able to tell from Gamma's pic, after being "shelacked" the ink from the inkjet seems to change shades- so beware of that possibility as well- I only "shelacked" Gamma's sand colored shirt and now its a shade darker (redder?) than the paint- again, check out my Brickshelf Gallery. Finally,  its more like matching the paint (or marker) to the Lego piece or decal. Here's some paints or markers that I tend to use:

Markers- Don't use permanent markers and beware of alcohol based (doubt you'll find these) markers, chances are they'll bleed all over the decal. Also, when I use the term "basic" to differentiate from other colors of say "red" such as  "brick red", "dark red" or any other shade other than the basic color

Basic red- could even be the red from a Crayola pack but those are too thick.
Basic black
Basic blue
I'm not sure which green since I haven't used that yet, probably basic as well.

Paints- Mostly for painting on the pieces themselves as opposed to the sides of decals. Please note that there are others here at MCN that would disagree with my choices, but if you look at the Lego Starfleet section at my Brickshelf Gallery you might be able to see how the colored triangles match up with the unpainted arms.

Testor's Gloss Red (921500004)- there is another [4 digit] number by testor's but I don't remember it at the moment. For Red Lego pieces obviously. White (or Testor's Gray (921556004)) Primer as the base coat.
Testor's Gloss Blue (921521004)- there is another [4 digit] number by testor's but I don't remember it at the moment. For Blue (like the Union Soldiers or Construction Workers) Lego pieces obviously. White (or Testor's Gray (921556004)) Primer as the base coat.
Testor's Gloss Black (921524004 or also possibly 1147). For Black Lego pieces obviously. You can usually get away with not using Primer for the Gloss Black paint.
Testor's Gloss White (1145)- see also this thread for a whole discussion about theright white to match with Lego. I stand by my decision though, but that doesn't mean I'm right. There's also a link to my Brickshelf'ed Starfleet. White (or Testor's Gray (921556004)) Primer as the base coat although you can get away with not using Primer as well.
Citadel Colour Emerald Green- For green pieces. White (or Testor's Gray (921556004)) Primer as the base coat.
Testor's Insignia Yellow (FS33538)- for Yellow pieces. Testor's Gray (921556004) Primer as the base coat.

These are the major pieces around (at least that I have)- I have yet to match or need to match the light tan/sand colored bricks so far, while my Special Force soldiers have a base coat of Gray Primer (see above) with Testor's Sand (FS33531) as the overall coat, after drying and "shelacking" (I use The Armoury "Armor Coat Satin (GG071) as the protective coating (read: "shelacking"- it's okay, but not wonderful :P ) the sand color doesn't match exactly to the Lego pieces- but for my soldiers its fine.

-Alan

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"I am the Alpha and the Omega- I am the creator and the destroyer..."

Thanks.
You wouldn't happen to know the dimensions for a minifig face decal?

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It would seem that according to Ramus' smiley-face, he uses the size:

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"I am the Alpha and the Omega- I am the creator and the destroyer..."

Gah, I am using MSword to resize my decals, but when I put in the values, it reverts to a different size... I got it once but now it refuses to do anything. And I already tried Irfanview

Here are my decals anyways-


Good? Bad? Too simple?

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Aha! After fighting with my PC (dial-up is slow enough to keep it freezing up :P ) I've just come to the conclusion that you may be having a problem that you may not have turned "Lock aspect ratio" off under the size tab- if you're trying to get two seperate sizes (something I did to try to change the size of Ramus' face decal- mine, all I do is change the "Scale" to 31% leaving the "Lock aspect ratio" checked on. If you're curious, I like the size of my template- its large enough to work on with ease and scaling down [in MS Word] doesn't get blurry or fuzzy- look at Gamma, you might notice that he's got muscles under his shirt (look at the yellow skin areas not the shirt). But I would scale after the decal is created.

If I didn't give you any ideas, give me some more info and we'll see from there.

-Alan

EDIT: Don't know why I didn't see the pic before I posted this, but I can see the pic now. "Too simple"? Perhaps, but remember how simple the Mario Bros. are (that's why I used them as my example above. Seeing the ref pic would make judging easier, but from what I can tell, the torso and moustaches look good- I'm not sure about the eyes- but that's just because I'm not a big Mario Bros. follower so I don't remember what they look like and I'm a stickler for things looking exactly like the ref pics (see my Marvel Supers). I guess for me the eyes just look too surprised to me. Also, for scaling purposes, try to crop the white background down as close to the decal as you can- scaling'll be more exact and you wont be wasting as much decal paper. From the decal can I assume that you've chosen to try Waterslide Decals?

EDIT 2: I just looked at the ref pic I posted for you ealier; the eyes- they're okay, but I would have made them oval, with larger blue irises toching the "nose sides" (at the center of the face) of the eyes. Otherwise it all looks fine to me.

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"I am the Alpha and the Omega- I am the creator and the destroyer..."

Oops, heres my ref pic-
there were some other pics that I got, so I kinda mixed it up.


I am still working on the eyes, and yes waterslide is going to be my first choice.
I am also trying to figure out a decal for the hats, unless I decide to paint.

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I would still go with oval eyes as opposed to circlular. As for the hat decal my first thought would be a circular decal printed out and stuck on. Another idea would be a white painted circle  with the "M" or "L" drawn on with a Black Sharpie pen- try for the thinnest (fine felt tip I think- like what I used for collar details on my avatar) tip possible- draw the letter twice for thickness. A thicker tip may be possible but I wouldn't recommend it.

-Alan

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"I am the Alpha and the Omega- I am the creator and the destroyer..."

Hey Mario I like the decals. Even though most people do decals, if you are really good with Paints (not water color) especially Acrylics and Enamel you will have a nice looking Minifig.

I was going to do Mario because no one else did but you beat me to it.

Can I still do it though? Not for competition but for fun?

Thanks i just want to double check

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Everything has an advantage and disadvantage, and everything has its place it life... especially people without status...

Sure, I cant really say no can I? ; )

Anyways, Mario Bros decals Version 2-




I kept the 'luigi' face expression essentially the same, as luigi is known to be... slightly less heroic then his Bro.

-edit- Everytime I try to use the centimeter measurements for the torso decals, MSword says its not a valid measurement. Whats up?
I do believe I got the correct face size, I just put it to 50% scale and it appears to fit nicely.

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Type in the resize window *your measurement in cm* cm.

It should automatically convert your measurement in cm to inches.

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Duh =S

Thanks

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Anugrah, just because one person does a decal or minifig custom doesn't mean you can't do the same one. Everyone has their own versions and interpretations.

Mario Man, concerning cm to inches, if I forgot to link it earlier I use online convertors such as this one- I'm lazy. Also, what version of MS Word do you use? I use Word 97 (okay I'm lazy and "old school" ; ) ) and I'm not finding that auto convertor that Vid's talking about (and in a post or two I'll probably be adding "careless, blind and stupid" to my list as well LOL).

-Alan

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"I am the Alpha and the Omega- I am the creator and the destroyer..."

I use windows 2000. I can't remember if '97 has it... But I just right-click the pic, hit the size tab, there you go.

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