Do-It-Yourself transfers.

By Lawrence Greaves For those of us who cant paint freehand, shield transfers, also known as decals, are a godsend. If the shield looks good, you can get away with a less than stellar paint job on the rest of the figure. The ranges from Veni Vidi Vici (3V) and Little Big Men Studios cover many of the well-known armies. However, these ranges are finite. If you want to do something a bit unusual, give every barbarian warrior a different pattern, use the correct heraldry for identified individuals in a particular medieval army, or just give your army a unique look, then it may not be possible using off-the-shelf products. In that case DIY transfers offer a solution. In this article I discuss the materials you need and the methods that I have used, and pass on a few tips I picked up from discussions with Justin Tayor of 3V and Tim Porter (of www.madaxeman.com fame). The main thing you need, of course, is blank transfer sheets. Luckily these are a stock item from Veni Vidi Vici. They are listed as Blank decal paper under Modelling Accessories (not under any of the transfer headings) on their website (http://www.3vwargames.co.uk/upshop/shop/modellingaccessories.html). These are water-slide transfers. They supply two types of paper, optimised for inkjet and laser printers, both types available in transparent or white. You will need the latter if you have white in your design as most printers dont print white ink. I have only used the transparent kind. At time of writing, an A4 sheet costs 4 and is enough for three or four hundred 15 mm shields. An instruction sheet comes with the paper. For my first experiments with DIY, I only had a dot matrix printer with black ink (it was a few years ago). I used the laser printer paper, which accepted enough ink from the ribbon for my purposes, although it was rather faint. I drew up outlines of the patterns I wanted, printed them out and then hand painted the colour within the lines - much easier than trying to do it freehand. This resulted in a reasonably neat and consistent pattern, but with a hand-painted look. The same method could be used if you only have access to a monochrome laser printer. Once the paint is dry you can use the transfers immediately. More recently I have used a colour inkjet printer. 3V advises setting the printer to photo paper, which I did. The results were not quite as good as printing on actual photo paper, but they were acceptable (Figures 1 and 2). Next time Ill try the premium glossy photo paper setting as the transfer sheets are a bit glossy. Inkjet ink is water-soluble, so it is necessary to seal the surface before you use the transfer. 3V recommend artists watercolour fixative, available from any decent art shop. I used Citadel matt varnish spray, which works perfectly well. Inkjet images are translucent, so the underlying colour on the model will show through slightly. Therefore, paint the shield background a pale colour to ensure maximum contrast with the printed design. I have not tried laser printing transfers, but by the nature of the process I would expect good results. I suspect not many of us have a colour laser printer at home, but high-street print shops normally do. To generate the designs, you need a computer and drawing software of some sort (obviously!). I use a technical drawing package, Autosketch, which is a budget version of the widely used CAD package AutoCAD, plus an ancient version of Photoshop that I inherited. I strongly recommend using a technical drawing or CAD package because they make it easy to create precisely sized elements in specific geometrical relationships to each other.

Before generating the design, you need to establish what size and shape it must be. This means measuring the shield on the figure and noting any deviations from the theoretical shape. You will often find a round shield is not a perfect circle, or the boss is not at the exact centre (Figures 3 and 4). I found it advantageous to take a digital photo of the shield and then paste it into the drawing package to use as a guide when generating the pattern or design. Some designs I build up from geometrical elements. For others I will use photos, scans or images from the internet (e.g. of a vase or a coin) and trace over the bits I want before deleting the original image. Justin Taylor has been considering providing clip art graphical elements for shields and flags on www.3vwargames.com and also the facility to upload and download complete transfer sheets , which will make things easier in future if it comes to pass. When generating the design, do it large, then shrink it down to the size you want. Copy and paste more copies than you need, as there are bound to be imperfections in the printing and/or mishaps when you come to prepare and apply the transfers. Before printing the transfer sheet, it is a good idea to print it on plain paper, just as a final check that all is well (size, colour, layout etc). Once you have generated your designs and printed them out, you need to apply the transfers. But not yet. According to the instructions from 3V : Paint has a rough surface , and if a decal is applied directly to paint, small pockets of air get trapped - a silver colour results - this effect is known as silvering, and it can spoil an otherwise good figure. To avoid this, you should varnish (gloss is best) the model before applying the transfer. I must admit to not having always done this as I dont want to build up massive layers of varnish on the figures, and I have got away with it unless the paint has been really rough. Unlike ready-made transfers, for which the transfer layer exists only under the emblem itself, on DIY sheets it covers the whole sheet. Therefore you need to cut out the transfer quite accurately. The transfer layer is quite stretchy, but If the shield is doubly curved, like a hoplite shield, then it may be necessary to cut some slits in the transfer to allow it to drape properly. If the shield has a boss, you need to either score (i.e. cut through the transfer layer) an X over it, or score or punch out a hole for it. I use a piece of brass tube with one end sharpened to score out a circular hole in the transfer layer. Finally, your job is much easier if you leave a tail on the transfer, which you will hold in your tweezers while applying it. Dont forget to score across the end of the tail. (Figure 5). Finally you are ready to apply the transfers. The instructions suggest soaking the transfer in water for 20-60 seconds. I find that 20 seconds is normally enough. After the soak, I paint the shield with a thin layer of diluted PVA glue (or for better results you can use a transfer setting agent such as Micro Set). This ensures the surface is fully wetted, making it easier to reposition the transfer when you apply it. Otherwise, repositioning can be difficult if you have used a water-resistant varnish. I also have a theory that it reduces the risk of silvering and of the edges lifting in the long-run, although I havent done any studies to investigate this. If you have scored around the boss, now is the time to pick it off with tweezers, and then you just slide the transfer off the backing onto the shield and adjust it to the correct position. Finally, when the transfer is dry, varnish it, ideally with one coat of gloss, then one of matt. Job done. (Figure 6) It has to be said that it is a lot of work and quite fiddly to get to the final result. Readymade transfers are a lot easier. However, if you have a clear idea of exactly what you want, and ready-made transfers are not available, then DIY is the solution. Even if you are the worst painter in the world, you can get excellent results.

Figure captions: Figure 1: Printout at 720 dpi on inkjet matt photo paper. Figure 2: Printout at 720 dpi on transfer paper. Figure 3: Chopped oval cavalry shield outline. The actual shape is far from regular. Figure 4: Oval auxiliary shield. Note the boss is slightly below the centre. Figure 5: Transfer ready to apply. Figure 6: Finished figures.