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Samurai Decal Colours

Samurai Decal Colours

All my decals are printed using a colour laser printer. This causes some problems with lighter colours, in particular white, as laser printed decals can be somewhat translucent and most laser printers, including mine, are not capable of printing white. Laser printing colours are “thin” and can change appreciably when put on solid colour backgrounds.

Black decals

The good news is that laser printed black decals work well on top of all background colours I’ve tried them on (see picture below).

Red, yellow and blue decals

Red yellow and blue decals work well on top of white. Red works on a yellow background, though I have been unable to find more than a couple of examples of this colour scheme on samurai banners. Blue does not work on yellow, it comes out as a muddy black/brown. I have not yet tried out other colour combinations, but what I have available covers most common historical ones.

Light coloured symbols on darker backgrounds (black, blue, red).

Laser printed coloured decals (other than black) do not usually work on top other solid colours. To get these schemes you have to print a negative decal with the light coloured mon on the dark background colour and then apply it on top of a white background then paint it in on the banner.

Stage 1 – The decals are put down on a white painted surface

This requires matching the colour on the printed decal with your paint, which is tricky. I have only really managed to get it to work for black, red and blue backgrounds as seen below. The matches that work for me are Citadel Corvus Black (actually a very dark grey), Citadel Macragge Blue (Vallejo 930 Dark Blue also works, but not quite so well) and Vallejo 817 Scarlet.

Stage 2 – Paint is applied around and on top of the decal and on the rest of the banner.

I have tried to find other acceptable colour combinations without success, at least so far.

When ordering decals please specify what colour or colour combination you want. If you do not specify anything else you will get black decals on a clear background.

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