Design your own Alps / OKI custom decals

The Alps printers    Designing your decals    Preparation for printing    Custom decal printers    Links   

Most modelers will have heard about Alps decals, either because quite a few small aftermarket decal producers use Alps printers, or because of modelers who own an Alps or OKI printer. You don't need to own an Alps or OKI to create your own decals (I don't have one either), because there are a number of custom printers that will do the printing for you. Therefore the Alps technology discussed in this article will be limited to what is required to design Alps/OKI decals. Designing decals likely requires learning some new software, but it is worth the investment: being able to design your own decals opens a world of new possibilities, and it's great fun. The printing costs are quite acceptable: an A4 or Letter size decal sheet containing only black and white decals cost me around 15-20 dollars. Full color artwork will cost more though, depending on the number of colors used.

This page describes the method that delivers the best possible results, and it's quite an involved process. It is not far removed from the 'professional' way of making decals, and may therefore be intimidating when viewed for the first time. I too would be intimidated if had seen this a couple of years ago. My advise is to start simple, perhaps in one or two colors only, and proceed slowly. I'm sure that the results will encourage you to take the next steps. If you want to quickly print some decals, this page is not the best starting point. There are simpler ways of printing decals with an Alps/OKI, for example directly from a text editor like Word, but they don't give the same quality and flexibility.

Without going too deep into the technical details, here are the main aspects that make an Alps (OKI) Micro-Dry printer different from other printers:

• Alps Micro-Dry inks are some kind of wax, they will not dissolve in water like inkjet ink, and they are light-resistant.
• Alps has white ink, and this is of major importance for decals. Firstly because many decals have white in them, secondly because you can use white as a base-coat to make opaque color decals. Both arguments will possibly sound of little importance, but try to make color decals with an inkjet and we will talk again.
• Most Alps color inks are not opaque, which allows one to print inks over each other and create new colors (see next chapter). Black, metallics and foils are opaque.
• The Alps printer allows a lot of tricks, that make decal printing a possibility. For example, it can do spot color printing (using only one ink) instead of only printing tiny spots of cyan, magenta, yellow and black (dither printing) like all other printers do. Also, it is so accurate that you can do multiple printing passes on one sheet without alignment problems.
• The resolution is basically 600 dpi. That is more than enough for decals printed in spot color mode: I have Alps-printed decals with readable text of 0.25 mm (1/100th of an inch) height ! With tricks you can make the 5000 model do 2400 dpi, which has some uses for dither printing.
• Apart from cyan, magenta, yellow, black and white, there are also silver and gold plain metallics (which have sort of a satin finish) and silver and gold foil metallics (that look like chrome or gold plating).
• Citizen, OKI, Kodak, Roland and Powis Parker sold their own versions of the Alps printers, all coming from the Alps production line. You can find a complete list of printer models on the reference page. All except the Japan-only MD-5500 and the Powis Parker are now (early 2008) discontinued. Factory-fresh MD-5500's can be ordered from Alps Supplies from New Zealand. Production and sales will end on 31st May 2010 however. Possibly production will move to China, Focus Digital Technoloy from Shanghai is reported to offer a MP-6000 printer that looks like an Alps.
• Citizen, OKI, Kodak and Roland rebranded the (otherwise 100% identical) CMYK ink ribbons, and introduced new colors, which are mostly compatible across the models, expanding the color palette considerably. A complete list of ink cartridges can be found on the reference page.
• Regarding the availability of the cartridges: Alps-USA will stop distributing them from early 2007 on. But Alps-Ireland and OKI-Europe will continue theirs, for at least a number of years. Therefore it is clear that cartridge production still continues at the Alps-Japan factory or its subcontractor.

The remainder of this page only gives information on designing decals, not how to use or operate an Alps printer. If you want to know everything about the Alps printer and how to print decals with it, subscribe to YahooGroups 'Alps' and 'Alpsdecal' mailing lists. Alternatively, you can search the mailing lists' archive built by Julian Bradfield which works much easier than Yahoo's search function.

Vector graphics versus bitmap graphics

There are many ways to design decals. The main choice is whether you want to use vector graphics or bitmap graphics. Every computer user will be familiar with bitmap graphics, since everyone uses Paint, Photoshop, Paint Shop Pro or something comparable to manipulate JPG, GIF, BMP, and dozens more file formats. When it comes to designing decal artwork with bitmap graphics, there are a number of problems. Bitmap software is primarily intended for the manipulation of bitmap images created with digital photography or scanning; making accurate drawings from scratch with bitmap graphics is not easy. Another factor is the resolution. To draw an A4 size decal sheet to be printed at 600 dpi, you need a giant 5000 x 7000 pixel file, and you must draw everything at the right size from the start.

Vector graphics are very different: objects are defined using vectors, not pixels. For example, a rectangle is defined by the (vector) position of its four corners. It also means they have no resolution, so it doesn't matter at all in which size you draw something. This may all sound complicated, but it works very naturally, a bit like a CAD program. However, it requires some adjustments if you're a bitmap person (ask me). It's impossible to explain everything about drawing with vector graphics. A vector graphics example is presented on the reference page.

The popular names in vector graphics are Adobe Illustrator and CorelDraw (free 30 day trial downloads are available of both), Microsoft Acrylic (you can download a beta test version for free), and freeware/shareware software like Canvas and Inkscape. Also, you don't need the latest versions of the software packages mentioned, so it can be worthwhile to pick up an old version cheap. In designing decals you're using only the simple features, and an old version will most likely work just as well. I can say that now I know vector graphics, I never want to go back to bitmap for decals!

If you don't want to convert to vector graphics, the rest of the article will have limited value. Be sure to read David Aungst's article on designing decal artwork with bitmap graphics.

Fonts

CorelDraw comes with 1000 fonts, that you can browse through using Font Navigator. Even with this very useful tool it is often quite a job to find the right font to recreate a 1:1 text. There are a lot of web sites with fonts, here are three:

• Unlimited fonts
• Web page Publicity
• Da Font
• Famous Fonts

These sites have powerful tools for determining a font type:

• What the Font?!
• Identifont

You can also use several fonts made especially for modelers:

• Nine RAF and RCAF/RCN fonts by August T. Horvath used to be downloadable from his website (archived here, but the downloads don't work, but the comments are very useful). They can now be found at a Balsadust page without comments. Note: the individual letters are composed of elements, that I weld together before continuing.
• USAF Amarillo and USN Longbeach fonts by TLai Enterprises (not for free)
• Modern Luftwaffe font on request by e-mail
• Simmers Paint Shop Forums - Font Downloads combining some of the above plus some additional ones

Even with all these fonts available, you will not always find what you are looking for. In that case you take the closest font, type the text, and change it to 'curves'. You can now manipulate the characters. Usually this is a lot of work, and it's not easy to keep the characters 'tidy', but it can be done. In fact, it is best to convert all your text to curves if you send it out for printing. Otherwise the printer person must have all your specific fonts installed (chances are very small). You can check whether you still have fonts in your CorelDraw artwork by checking 'Document Information' under the 'File' tab.

Logos

If you need commercial logos, for race cars or trucks for example, have a feast on these sites:

• Brands of the world, a Russian site with tens of thousands of logos in vector graphics
• Logotheque, a French site with thousands of logos in vector graphics
• Vektorgrafiken für Scalemodelle, a German site with lots of vector art for aircraft
• F1 #$§&%, a Japanese site with Adobe Illustrator files (that you can import in CorelDraw) of Formula One sponsor markings
• Logotypes for professionals, a Latvian site with a few thousand of logos in vector graphics
• Logotypes, a Russian site with around 5000 logos in vector graphics

The logo artwork is not guaranteed to be accurate: it is contributed by people like you and me!

Note: you will need a trick to import EPS into CorelDraw. Don't import it straight as an EPS, but choose the 'PS, PRN, EPS - Postscript Interpreted'. Only then you will be able to see and manipulate the artwork.

Reprinting existing decals

Many modelers want to reprint existing decals, usually in a different scale than the original decals. Ignoring the touchy subject of copyrights for a moment, this can be done, but it is a lot of work! Just scanning them and push the 'Print' button results in a very mediocre quality. You will have to redraw everything if you want to achieve good (or even excellent) quality. An example is shown on the reference page.

Spot color printing versus CMYK (dithered) printing

Like 99.9% of all color printers, the Alps printer will normally reproduce colors with dither / halftone / CMYK printing: by printing dots of cyan, magenta, yellow (CMY) and black (K for 'key'), an unlimited palette of colors is created. An exception are pure CMYK/RGB colors, discussed later. Since the Alps printer is 'only' 600 dpi, the dot pattern is visible and can be objectionable for decals, of course depending on the viewing distance. The following example was kindly supplied by Graeme Brown. It shows a decal 12 mm wide.

Artwork	Dither/halftone/CMYK	Spot color

You can also use the spot color mode. In this mode, the printer uses only one ink cartridge at a time, instead of printing dots of CMY and black to make a color. Taking red as an example, if you print a solid layer of Y, and then a solid layer of M on top of it, the result is a solid red without dithering. A strong drawback is that the color palette is rather limited, as explained in the next section.

Standard mode - Dither printing

The easiest way of printing with an Alps/OKI is the standard printing mode, which gives you dithered printwork. You don't split up the artwork or try to find the right color matches, you simply let the printer do the work for you, and accept the resulting dithering. Black, white and 'pure' CMY colors (see table in the next section) are printed solid, all others as dithered print. The standard settings are 600dpi horizontally and 85lpi vertically, but better resolution are also available (see next section). The visibility of the dither pattern depends on the colors and settings used. The standard printing method is the only method that allows photo-like images, or designs with color gradients to be printed. Examples are nose art on military aircraft and graffiti on trains. Dither printing is also one of the few options to print light (pastel) colors with an Alps/OKI.

The example below, kindly provided by the late Al Superczynski, shows part of the decals for a Le Mans Corvette pace car. It demonstrates the standard printing quality. In this example, black, white and yellow ('pure' CMY colors) are printed solid, the blue, green and red as dither print. The scan is also shown in 1:1 size, but the screen's limited resolution prevents you from seeing the fine dither pattern that would be visible in real life.

Detail scan

True size on 17" screen at 1024x768 pixels

The MD-5000 has selectable halftoning values of 85, 145 and 190 lines per inch (lpi); other MD printers are only capable of 85 and 145 lpi halftones. Higher numbers give smoother looking halftoning colors. This is illustrated by three groups of objects printed at the indicated halftone values, kindly supplied by Peter Wisniewski. The first example below (on the left) shows solid colored objects. The second example (in the middle) shows rectangles with color gradients; green changing over to blue, and white shifting over to blue. It shows how the printer handles all the colors in those ranges. The third example (on the right) shows the result of printing high-resolution bitmap artwork for N scale carnival wagons, a herald of the Royal American Shows and a mural. When viewed with the naked eye, the 85 lpi printed images look terrible, the 145 lpi are a lot better and 190 lpi are quite smooth. In the 190 lpi print the halftoned colors look like they are solid, and the herald and the mural look pretty smooth. All these examples cannot be achieved by spot printing.

Standard mode - pure CMYK colors only

If you define all colors in the artwork as 'pure' CMYK colors (see table below), the printer will automatically print them without dithering. An example is CMYK 100,0,100,0 which is 100% cyan, 0% magenta, 100% yellow and 0% black, giving green. Because the decals (usually) need a white undercoat, the artwork is first printed with 'White undercoat' selected in the printer driver. The same page is then printed with the 'Driver Colour Matching' option OFF. The printer then automatically sequentially prints four solid layers of CMYK ink, and not a dithered CMYK pattern. However, the white undercoat is only printed underneath the CMYK inks (avoiding partially translucent colors), and not where the pure white parts were defined in the artwork. Therefore, for decals with white parts, this method is not suited to prepare your artwork for the custom printer.

	->			->
Original artwork		Print white with 'White undercoat' selected	CMYK printed with 'Driver Colour Matching' OFF		Actual decals (scanned)

Note: it appears that 'Driver Colour Matching ON / OFF' works differently on the various printers models and/or drivers. Taking pure cyan as an example, CMYK 100,0,0,0 with 'Driver Colour Matching' option off gives a solid layer of cyan on most printers, but with some it still results in a dithered print. However when the color is defined as RGB 0,255,255 (which is exactly identical since CMY and RGB are each others opposites), these printers print a solid layer of cyan.

Standard mode - pure CMYK colors only with split-up artwork

To achieve decals with white parts, there is no way around splitting the artwork in two layers or pages. The first is a page with all the artwork (black parts can be excluded) copied and changed to black, which is then printed with the white ink cartridge. The second page/layer is a CMYK page, just as in the first example. The example shows that the decals are printed correctly, and therefore this method is suited to prepare your artwork for your custom printer, with a rather limited color palette. However, if you know how to split your artwork in layers or pages, why not use the method below and enjoy many more colors?

	->			->
Original artwork		Artwork page 1: White (2x)	Artwork page 2: CMYK printed with 'Driver Colour Matching' OFF		Actual decals (scanned)

Spot color printing: the complicated method with many more 'solid' colors

If you want more colors without dithering, you can use 'Spot color charts' (see below) to find out all colors available with the spot color overprinting mode. To start simple, the example used above is repeated here, but fully split up in layers/pages. The complete decal design is copied to pages representing W, C, M, Y and K, and then the parts that are not to be printed in that spot color are deleted. The remaining parts are then changed to black, so each spot color will be printed full strength (this is a difference with 'normal' color separation in the printing business, where greyscale values are used). This manual color separation may look complicated, and indeed it requires some getting used too, but after that it's pretty easy. This format is preferred by most custom printers.

	->						->
Original artwork		Artwork page 1: White (2x)	Artwork page 2: Cyan	Artwork page 3: Magenta	Artwork page 4: Yellow	Artwork page 5: Black		Actual decals (scanned)

Note: with some printers there is a problem with printing black over other colors. In the above example, that would mean leaving out the black parts in the white triangle of the 'Koni' decal.

In the second example a double pass with the Cyan ink is performed to make it more opaque, resulting in two hues of blue. There is no layer/page for the Black ink, since there is no black artwork.

	->						->
Original artwork		Artwork page 1: White (2x)	Artwork page 2: Cyan	Artwork page 3: Cyan	Artwork page 4: Magenta	Artwork page 5: Yellow		Actual decals (scanned)

Alternatively, you don't delete the unwanted parts, but change them to white. This can be an important technique if you have complicated artwork, for example designs with extrusions or shadows.

Color matching method 1

The Alps and OKI printers are basically designed to use CMY plus black and white inks. In the spot color mode, this gives you a fairly limited color palette, as shown below on the 'Alps and OKI Spot Color Chart' created by William Brillinger of Precision Design Co. and used with permission. The printing order is of limited importance, for example Y+M is tomato red, M+Y is a little darker red. Sometimes you will need a double layer of color. For example, a single pass of cyan will give a light blue color, and a double pass a middle blue color.

However, the red, green and blue (RGB) ink cartridges of the OKI-7000 printer can also be used in other Alps and OKI printers. It requires a trick with label swapping, but that's for the printer person to worry about. The combination of CMY and RGB gives a much larger color palette.

Here's another CMY + RGB palette, created by John Isherwood of Cambridge Custom Transfers and used with permission. An important difference with the previous two charts is that this chart was corrected so the on-screen colors match those of the actual printed colors. Still the color representation depends on your computer screen, and some report that they cannot match the color variety of this chart.

The palette can be expanded further by using 'OKI Opaque White' ink, which isn't opaque! By printing OKI Opaque White over colors, you can achieve pastels and greys. Technical note: on about half of the Alps and OKIs the white overcoat will not adhere. This can be solved by slightly increasing the print temperature, either by using a hair dryer or using a 'hotter' cartridge label. An alternative solution is printing your decal in the full-strength color and a copy in white, and layer the decals on the model.

Some rather complex receipies can be found in the color charts. An example is 'warm yellow'. Alps Yellow is a very bright yellow. By printing two layers of Alps White, one layer of Red (or alternatively Kodak Orange) and two layers of OKI Opaque White a slightly reddish base is achieved, and with one layer of Alps Yellow over this base a warm yellow is finally achieved .. An obvious drawback of complex color matching is that (in extreme cases) ten to twenty printing passes will be required for a sheet with multiple color decals. Of course this will increase the cost and the risk of errors.

Another problem of spot color matching is that it is often difficult to find an exact match of a specific color (for example RAF Sky for squadron codes, or a specific Federal Standard 595 grey color). On the other hand, many model manufacturers and even aftermarket decal producers don't always have accurate colors, so perhaps a reasonable match will do anyway.

Color matching method 2

John Peck of Precision Labels & Decals was not satisfied with the color representation of the above color charts, and created his own, in a very methodic way that was first tried by Eric Tetangco. They are shown here with permission.

John started by printing single and double layers colors, using a table format that shows every possible combination. Alps/OKI Cyan, Magenta and Yellow, OKI Red, Green and Blue and Kodak Process Orange and Process Green were used in the color table. John even printed a separate color table that uses the metallic inks as the first layer, creating several new colors. The adherence of certain layers can be pretty bad, notably when over printing Magenta or Red, or with any attempt to overlay with Process Orange. The use of Finish between passes made no difference. The problem differs between printers, possibly because the individual print head settings. The two layers table contains interesting information on the adhesion of the inks, since it is a diagonally mirrored arrangement. For example R1-C2 shows adhesion problems, whereas C1-R2 has no problems.

Also of importance is that the color chart was scanned, not photographed. This had an effect on the representation of metallics and particularly foils: due to their reflective natures, they almost never scan as seen. The particular scanner lights may cause fluorescence in any type of ink or underlying media which can distort colors in various unpredictable ways. One example is Process Orange over Process Green or vice-versa in the two layer chart; in reality it is an olive green, the scan shows an apple-like green.

Next was a set of tables showing the results of three layers. Each table is read as follows: start with the top row, then follow clockwise for the successive layers. The top and right rows are always identical, the bottom row keeps moving left one step with each of the eight tables. This results in a methodic analysis of all color combinations possible with three layers.

John even went so far as to create a four-layer table, using the same system. In this chart 'only' CMY and RGB are used, hence 6 times 6 makes 36 tables!

John overprinted the one, two and three layer color charts with one layer of OKI Opaque White.

Lastly, John photographed the complete color chart with his digital camera in natural light.

The full color chart can be ordered from Precision Labels & Decals. It's not cheap, but one must realise that printing a color chart is both time-consuming and quite costly regarding the inks. I believe it is a very good investment for anyone designing Alps decals.

White ink

White ink is one of the unique features of the Alps/OKI printers, and essential for decals, but there are also some problems with this ink:

• Opacity: many, but not all, judge the ink to be not opaque. This is not necessarily a problem on light and/or single colored surfaces, but if you apply a single-layer white decal on a multi-color surface, you will likely see different hues of white. This can be solved by printing two layers of white on top of each other. A single or double layer of white is also used under color decals, again to prevent the model's color from shining through.
  
  
• Double printing: printing white on white can be a problem, with the second layer not adhering properly and flaking off during printing. It seems to vary from printer to printer, possibly caused by the temperature settings of the printing head. Also, a warmed-up printer seems to work better for white. I've seen a decal sheet with flaking white at the top, and good double coverage in the middle. The printer manual states that the printer is not able to print multiple white layers. A trick that reportedly helps adhesion is the use of a burnishing ribbon (Finish I or II) after the first layer of white. It is also reported that VPhoto Primer works very well in making a White stick on other colors and metallics. Relabelling a white cart with a VPhoto Primer label and using it for the second white layer (telling the printer this second layer is VPhoto Primer, not white) is another technique reported. Yet another technique is printing OKI Opaque White over (standard) White, avoiding the adhesion problem of (standard) White on (standard) White. However, you cannot print other inks over Opaque White (nothing sticks to Opaque White except itself), so it can't serve as a base coat for color decals.
  
  
• Beware of the 'White Undercoat' feature, which on some models will print at 150 dpi only and leaves ragged edges peeping from under the decal. The OKI 5000 is confirmed to print at the normal 600 dpi with the 'White Undercoat' setting.

Here is a list of around 40 companies and individuals that offer custom printing service, grouped by country:

Australia

• Brunel Models. Can no longer accept requests for custom decals due to time constraints, since changing to Brunel Hobbies shop
• Steam And Things. See 'Services'

Canada

• CanMilAir Decals. Does custom work apart from the Canadian decal range
• Custom Emergency Vehicles (e-mail). Specializes in custom decals for Canadian Police & EMS vehicles in all scales. Examples can be viewed in this blog
• Jbot decals, Jim Botaitis. Jbot may require that permission is obtained to print some commercial logos.
• Mike Grant Decals. Currently too busy for custom print work.
• R-Dec Water Slide Decals (e-mail), W. Robert Franklin
• SpareTimes Hobbies. Uses OKI Red, Green and Blue cartridges too, apart from the standard CMYK cartridges.

France

• Upnorth (e-mail). Produces Alps decals on demand, apart from their regular screen printed decals.

Germany

• DecalPrint.de. Probably only truck decals
• Drucker-Onkel Decalservice. All kinds of decals
• HaHen, Harald Hensel. Has a line of 'regular' Alps/OKI decals for post-war Luftwaffe models, but also does custom printing
• Peddinghaus Decals. Has a large line of 'regular' Alps for many subjects and scales, and also does custom printing

Italy

• Luca Beato. Has a line of Alps decals for Italian aircraft, and also does custom printing for all subjects.
• Max-Model. Has a line of decals for Italian emergency vehicles, for trucks and for slotcars. They also do custom printing for all subjects.

The Netherlands

• Black Lion Decals. Black Lion has its own decal lines in 1/72, 1/35 and 1/16, but also does custom work.
• Modelbrouwers. The decal printing service is no longer mentioned on the site, but still exists.
• Scale:Print. Produces Alps/OKI decals for truck models, and also does custom decals for other applications

New Zealand

• Chosen Scale eTch ceTera
• RG Enterprises. Prints Alps decals on request (not mentioned on the website)

Sweden

• BenMik decals (e-mail), Bengt Norman. The regular BenMik decal range can be seen at the Rebell Hobby Online Shop.

United Kingdom

• Mike Brown (e-mail). Also produces the decals for Garden Railway Specialists
• Precision Labels & Decals. Model railway specialists, offering OKI DP5000 custom decals
• Wessex Transfers. A full-time decal producer for many model manufacturers in UK and Australia, that also offers Oki DP5000 print service for smaller runs.
• Whirlybird (e-mail). Custom Oki-printed decals; their own line of aircraft and helicopter decals which can be seen at the Linden Hill site

USA

• Barney Kable (e-mail). Specialty: printing FS color matches
• Bedlam Creations. Artwork can be supplied as graphics, photos, or an idea.
• Bob Anson (e-mail), who runs two Alps MD1000's, one Alps MD5000, and two Kodak First check printers.
• Cedarleaf Custom Decals. Apart from its standard railroad decal range, Cedarleaf does custom work for railroads and other applications
• Dan's Resin Casting. See 'custom decals' tab
• Decal Connection. Makes decals for many applications. Will not print decals with copyrights unless permission is given in writing
• Decal Man. Probably only car decals
• Diecast and Decals. Specialises in graphics for diecast vehicles
• E.L.S. Trains. Prints Alps decals for model railroading and all types of scale models.
• Exact Decals & Details. Apart from a catalog of Alps printed aircraft decals, Exact also offers custom design and printing service
• Fireball Modelworks, Joseph Osborn. Produces a line of Alps decals for helicopter models and does custom work.
• Great Decals. Has links to numerous custom railroad decal printers
• John Hagen (e-mail), Alps decals any scale down to and including N scale. Can do artwork from photos or sketches
• Kadee Quality Products. A train manufacturer that also does custom decal work
• ModelWerks. Produces decals for Bandai Gundam models, and also does custom decal work
• Scale Rail Graphics. Produces decals for primarily model railroading, and also does custom decal work, but no race car, military or rocket decals.
• Shawn Hull Decals. Custom decals are no longer mentioned on the website, so this service is probably discontinued.
• Tango Papa Decals, Tom Prestia. Tango Papa also sells the decal paper that is most popular with US modelers.

Some items to discuss with your custom printer are: type of software and version used (CorelDraw, Illustrator, or perhaps PDF files), which ink-sets are used (always CMYK, but possibly RGB too, and just maybe Kodak orange and green), whether the printer can print two white layers on top of each other (not all printers can do this, yet you need two layers to make opaque white), whether black can be printed over other colors or not, and which decal paper is used (thickness etc), margins to be used in the artwork (at least 15 mm top and bottom, 5 mm left and right), whether the artwork should be put in separate pages, separate layers or even separate files.

Most companies will also offer a decal design service. This is usually quite expensive, which is quite understandable if you look at the amount of work involved (see above!).

A few links on the subject:

• So you want to make your own decals? by Tango Papa decals (link to PDF document)
• Eric Evain explains how he created complex 'Daft Punk' decals, and less complicated Ferrari truck decals
• Eric Evain's Yamaha YZR M1 Spiderman is an even more impressive project (three pages, French only)
• John Coker shows how he made decals for rocket models
• Custom decals explanation by Dan's Resin Casting
• Simmers Paintshop color charts with RGB values for lots of camouflage colors
• Chandelle - Aviation Colors with CMYK values for lots of camouflage colors
• A guide for what decal makers need to make decals on the Aircraft Resource Center forum

My very first Alps decals, a small and simple set in black, printed by Luca Beato.