Just for fun, I'm working on a paint scheme and herald for a fictional railroad to represent a merger of the two railroads lines I probably have the most equipment. I hope to thin out some of my train collection, sticking mainly with the two railroads. For some of the other equipment I plan to keep, I may eventually paint a few engines and make some decals in the fictional scheme. One of the well-known problems for making your own decals is what to do for white lettering if you don't own an Alps printer and want to avoid the expense of paying a company to make the decals for you.
I think I've come up with a paint scheme where I can have darker lettering on a transparent decal placed over a lighter color field on the engine, so that solves the problem for the large lettering for the railroad name and engine number.
But, the herald design I'm considering has small white lettering on a darker field, and some areas of the herald that would be white in color.
One idea I have to accomplish this is to paint the area on the locomotive where the herald decal is going to be placed a white or silver color, and making the herald decal with transparent letters and some transparent areas. When the decal is placed on the engine, the lettering and the transparent areas appear white as the white paint shows through the transparent parts of the decal.
Sounds good in theory, but I'm wondering if anyone has tried something similar? How did it work? Any suggestions? Thanks.
I forgot to add, I run traditional size trains, so no scale size trains are going to be harmed in this production.
