I recently read somewhere about making a type of decal using clear packing tape. The process is to laser print your image, apply a piece of clear packing tape over it then soak the whole lot in water. When you rub away the wet paper, the ink remains on the tape and you can use it much like you would a transfer.
I liked this idea but
when I built the riverboat, there was a seam between the two pieces of wood I used to make the superstructure that I want to cover up. I very quickly drew some hatches and portholes in
GIMP and added some rust streaks because why not? The printed sheet was mounted on card with spray adhesive and the individual sides cut out.
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| Printed mounted and about to be cut. |
With the pieces cut out, I still applied the packing as a protective layer and trimmed.
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| Cut taped, trimmed and resized |
I found that I had mis-measured the length of the forward cabin, so I had to do a little recutting to extend two of the panels. If needed, the vertical join will be concealed by a length of drinking straw painted up as some sort of pipe - the corners will need a bit of prettying up too.
Here's the finished product:
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| Waiting for the for'rd port side panel |
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| Aft deck house. |
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| For'rd panel cut and installed. |
Overall I am very pleased with the effect. With a bit more time and effort at the design stage, there is potential to add a lot more detail. Now to build up those gunwales.....
