Laptop tools to reproduce classic lettering styles for printing onto transfer/decal paper

[DayReturn]

I'm trying to set up laser printing onto waterslide transfer paper (decal paper if you insist) for text that is either unavailable or in short supply commercially, and interested to know if anyone has found a good software tool or font source to do the typical raised effect lettering artwork of steam-era carriage liveries.

 

I need to reproduce Midland Railway carriage lettering in 4mm scale, particularly in the pre-1906 style.  I've got a small stash of Peter Chatham's excellent PC and Methfix sheets, but they don't cover everything, and for example there are 'only' 4 instances of "MIDLAND" in 4in high waist level block letters on each sheet - enough for a single bogie carriage in the pre-1906 liveries.  I've had some useful results laser-printing other designs onto laser-printer waterslide transfer paper, and am interested to know if anyone has found a good representation of any of the shaded raised block styles of railway company lettering using e.g. MS Word Text Effects and specific fonts.  For the Midland block style waist lettering, "Arial Black" font seems to be a close representation of the particularly fat, slightly stretched character shape, but I can't work out options that will generate a graduated left-and-below red to white raised effect as well as a right and below black shadow effect.  That sort of style was fairly typical of many railway companies of the time and continued into the 1930s.  The picture I've linked to is post-1906 style, but it illustrates the challenge.

 

[melmerby]

If you get a font generator or font editor program you should be able to create the exact outline font you want (a letter at a time!)

Such as:

https://sourceforge.net/projects/fontforge/

 

A graphics program might allow the shading required

 

Clarendon Black looks like a close match to Midland's serif font:

Put that in an editor and modify it.

 

 

 

 

 

 

[BachelorBoy]

18 hours ago, DayReturn said:

 

 

 

 

Give up now.

 

Typefaces are designed, on the whole, for being printed (or more recently, displayed on screen).

 

What you are trying to reproduce is lettering created by signwriters. That's subtly different.

 

Even today, logos that may look like they are in a particular typeface will use that as a base, and the proportions are tweaked to look better.

 

Now, you might be able to torture a modern typeface into looking like railway lettering from more than a century ago with MS Word. But it will be painful and difficult. 

 

The best way might be to mimic the way sans serif or "grotesque" typefaces were created in the first place: by taking letters with serifs and cutting off the serifs. 

 

My advice: take existing examples and scan them. Then enlarge the scans and trace them. And then shrink the resulting images down again.

 

Ideally, you could use typographic software, such as Glyphs (my favourite) or Fontforge. But that can be expensive and difficult to learn, and not worth the effort unless you get the typography bug. And typefaces with multicoloured elements such as shadows are beyond me, and I've been using Glyphs for years.

 

Next : vector software like Adobe Illustrator (expensive), Affinity (good but cheaper paid-for rival to Adobe) or Inkscape (free). 

Again, it might be a sledgehammer-to-crack-a-nut just to trace some a few letters. But the vector illustration is really useful for lots of other things in modelling, such as designing objects to be laser-cut. 

 

Also: a raster program such as Adobe Photoshop (expensive), Gimp (free but a bit complicated) or MS Paint (free but rather crude). Affinity also does a paid-for Photoshop-style program, and my favourite free image editor is Photopea.com. It's online, and very very similar to Photoshop.

 

The quick'n'dirty method with such raster editor is to take the enlarged scan, and then manually paint in the colours as solid blocks, smooth out imperfections, and then shrink it down again.

 

Now, apologies if you knew all or some of that already. But I am sure there will be other people without the right knowledge who might find this helpful.

 

BB

 

Edited September 1, 2023 by BachelorBoy

[RichardT]

4 hours ago, BachelorBoy said:

unless you get the typography bug

Beware!  Once you’ve caught this (in my case through a project a few years ago involving railway lettering) you can never again look contentedly at model railways supposedly set in the 19thC or pre-war 20thC where the buildings and stock have been lettered with something someone’s run off their PC: especially where they’ve used the “old fashioned looking” computer letterforms…

 

4 hours ago, BachelorBoy said:

Give up now.

 

Typefaces are designed, on the whole, for being printed (or more recently, displayed on screen).

 

What you are trying to reproduce is lettering created by signwriters. That's subtly different.

 

Even today, logos that may look like they are in a particular typeface will use that as a base, and the proportions are tweaked to look better.

 

Now, you might be able to torture a modern typeface into looking like railway lettering from more than a century ago with MS Word. But it will be painful and difficult. 

 

The best way might be to mimic the way sans serif or "grotesque" typefaces were created in the first place: by taking letters with serifs and cutting off the serifs. 

 

My advice: take existing examples and scan them. Then enlarge the scans and trace them. And then shrink the resulting images down again.

This should be pinned to the front page of RMWeb and auto-posted every time someone starts a topic asking “what Word font [aaarggghhh] is closest to what the East & West Snoring Railway used on its station signage?”

 

RichardT

[DayReturn]

Thank you Richard, BB and Melberby, all sage advice.  If I were to take your advice to heart, I think the most expedient route would be to forget about fonts and simply re-render a bitmap image from a current photo of a preserved carriage.  I did that previously for the GNR emblem on the lower part of Howlden carriage doors, retaining the teak background and using teak brush paint work to blend it in.  I'll post a pic here at some point to illustrate.  That is probably adequate for my deficit of suitable "MIDLAND" text, though can be a pain overcoming all the image edge rendering - I forget the proper jargon for that - and simple bit-by-bit rendering always looks clunky without that rendering.  Context is everything though - we are talking about lettering that is 2, 3 or 4 inches high, circa 1mm or a few points.  600 DPI laser printing allows 600 / 25.4 dots, i.e. 20 to 30 toner dots per letter height, so about 6-10 coloured dots allowing for the 3 colour toner, less per letter body after accounting for shading and relief.  So that gets close to Impressionism if not actual Pointilism (fine art is not my area of expertise, just ruminating), and makes PC Models' silk screen products all the more remarkable.  I'll try a bit more with Word and the things you have suggested.  It's probably impractical but I did think of overlaying transfer films - I have both white and clear film and need to use white because the toner density is too thin for pale colours on a darker painted background.

 

Thanks again and I'll post again after some further attempts.

[John Isherwood]

On 31/08/2023 at 13:13, DayReturn said:

I'm trying to set up laser printing onto waterslide transfer paper (decal paper if you insist) for text that is either unavailable or in short supply commercially, and interested to know if anyone has found a good software tool or font source to do the typical raised effect lettering artwork of steam-era carriage liveries.

 

I need to reproduce Midland Railway carriage lettering in 4mm scale, particularly in the pre-1906 style.  I've got a small stash of Peter Chatham's excellent PC and Methfix sheets, but they don't cover everything, and for example there are 'only' 4 instances of "MIDLAND" in 4in high waist level block letters on each sheet - enough for a single bogie carriage in the pre-1906 liveries.  I've had some useful results laser-printing other designs onto laser-printer waterslide transfer paper, and am interested to know if anyone has found a good representation of any of the shaded raised block styles of railway company lettering using e.g. MS Word Text Effects and specific fonts.  For the Midland block style waist lettering, "Arial Black" font seems to be a close representation of the particularly fat, slightly stretched character shape, but I can't work out options that will generate a graduated left-and-below red to white raised effect as well as a right and below black shadow effect.  That sort of style was fairly typical of many railway companies of the time and continued into the 1930s.  The picture I've linked to is post-1906 style, but it illustrates the challenge.

 

 

As a producer of waterslide transfers of 24 years experience, I can assure you that there are no shortcuts or software tools that will assist you in your endeavours.

 

You need a good vector graphics programme - I use an ancient version of CorelDRAW. Find a good, square-on image of the subject, and start tracing!

 

How will you handle the transparent ink problem - computer printer inks need a white undercoat to be visible over dark body colours?

 

You're getting into deep water here - beware!

 

John Isherwood.

[DayReturn]

Hello John, thanks for joining the chat.  Yes I use white film transfer paper for the toner density problem. 

 

I've also experimented a bit with lateral thinking - using a pale undercoat and clear film with the body colour on the film so that the transfer is a mask - works ok with some wagon sides if they have a large enough plain area, and gives a crisp edge without looking so much like a scaled-down vinyl stick-on as regular transfers do.  But the underlying paint does show up under the body-colour transfer unless it is either pretty precise (defeats the object!) or fades in. 

 

Also using my Silhouette cutter (like Cricut) to cut the letter shape on white transfer paper - tricky and usually requires several attempts, and usually I cut into the backing paper too, though that isn't always a problem.  These two methods only work with large block letters on wagons, though I've wondered about using the methods to represent other details, not just rolling stock lettering.  I have armchair thoughts about rendering the extremely complex artwork of original Pullman cars in similar ways - the transfers would cover the whole lower carriage side, probably in separate segments per panel, or perhaps laid in one to get alignment, then sliced up at the moulding intervals.

 

Edited September 1, 2023 by DayReturn

[John Isherwood]

3 hours ago, DayReturn said:

I have armchair thoughts about rendering the extremely complex artwork of original Pullman cars in similar ways - the transfers would cover the whole lower carriage side, probably in separate segments per panel, or perhaps laid in one to get alignment, then sliced up at the moulding intervals.

 

Look at what Precision Labels offer, before reinventing the wheel.

 

Unless you aspire to the kind of tech that Railtec has, (big money), Alps printers (legacy technology, not been available for years), are the only game in town for the production of waterslide transfers in the domestic environment.

 

Not wishing to pour water on your enthusiasm - but we have been here on many occasions previously.

 

Believe me - no-one would be more enthusiastic than me if a printer company were to produce a printer that used opaque and white ink - but there's nothing on the horizon, as far as I know.

 

John Isherwood.

 

[John Isherwood]

3 hours ago, DayReturn said:

Hello John, thanks for joining the chat.  Yes I use white film transfer paper for the toner density problem. 

 

I've also experimented a bit with lateral thinking - using a pale undercoat and clear film with the body colour on the film so that the transfer is a mask - works ok with some wagon sides if they have a large enough plain area, and gives a crisp edge without looking so much like a scaled-down vinyl stick-on as regular transfers do.  But the underlying paint does show up under the body-colour transfer unless it is either pretty precise (defeats the object!) or fades in. 

 

Also using my Silhouette cutter (like Cricut) to cut the letter shape on white transfer paper - tricky and usually requires several attempts, and usually I cut into the backing paper too, though that isn't always a problem.  These two methods only work with large block letters on wagons, though I've wondered about using the methods to represent other details, not just rolling stock lettering.  I have armchair thoughts about rendering the extremely complex artwork of original Pullman cars in similar ways - the transfers would cover the whole lower carriage side, probably in separate segments per panel, or perhaps laid in one to get alignment, then sliced up at the moulding intervals.

 

 

I know what you mean - I produce, for my own use, waterslide transfers for complete cabside and tenderside; lining plus numbers / crests.

 

Unfortunately, the quality of printing for such large transfers is not reliable enough for retail sales - even using Alps printers.

 

John Isherwood.

[DCB]

I use faststone image viewer for signs and notices,  303mm /ft as well as model, Parish Council, Concerts etc.
Quite often I resize with the "Preserve Ratios," Unchecked to stretch the lettering down or across to make the words fit the space.
For model signs, Station names, Shop names etc I tend to stretch the letters about 15% in height
and adjust the spacing by inserting an 8pt space between letters. 8pt is the easiest small space so I adjust the size of the letters often 24pt with 8 pt spacing.   My last one was using  Frank Ruehi CLM font stretched made a nice generic signal box or station name.
The M being much narrower in most old fonts than recent ones is an issue,  M the same width as D and L even N is such an eye catching  feature. 

[BachelorBoy]

5 hours ago, DCB said:

I use faststone image viewer for signs and notices,  303mm /ft as well as model, Parish Council, Concerts etc.
 

 

any chance of some photos, please?

 

[DCB]

11 hours ago, BachelorBoy said:

 

any chance of some photos, please?

 

From my latest attempt at signal box names these are to be printed as photos at Tesco.. Font as standard 36 pt, then spaced 36-8-36 then the 36-8-36 stretched.  Still tweaking . but it's looking a lot more 19th early 20th century to me.

[DayReturn]

Thank you for all your contributions.  At this point I took the graphic I copied into my first post above, the low resolution one as here, (not the high res one that you can get at the link’s resolution at the Midland Railway Study Centre website), and edited the surrounding to be crimson lake (RHB #813640).  I added a vague attempt at the raised upper left highlights ( they are rendered in the high res original, lost in the low res version), and came up with this:

 

I used Word as the base document for printing on transfer paper, because scaling down in Paint removed critical definition which didn’t get lost so badly in the printed Word document .

 

That gave me this sheet when printed:

 

 

it includes the painted-on train description and the clerestory rendering of the 1897 train.

 

 I had already applied PC Pressfix transfers, but I laid out this version next, for comparison.  There is no touching in of the edges (it is white transfer film, not clear), and no other prep or finishing here.  It doesn’t look too bad, though the picture shows a missing moulding line I need to fix, as well as the scruffy line at floor level.

[BachelorBoy]

46 minutes ago, DayReturn said:

Thank you for all your contributions.  At this point I took the graphic I copied into my first post above, the low resolution one as here, (not the high res one that you can get at the link’s resolution at the Midland Railway Study Centre website), and edited the surrounding to be crimson lake (RHB #813640).  I added a vague attempt at the raised upper left highlights ( they are rendered in the high res original, lost in the low res version), and came up with this:

 

 

 

Nice work, sir.