Graffiti Decals and Custom-Work

[VonRyan]

Hi all, my brother has been after me for some time to probe the market as to the possibility of his doing graffiti decals and perhaps some custom work.

Now before someone points to the masses of decals already on the market being made by various companies, those are all from stock images and are by now over used.
My brother do all original artwork, be it a basic printed version, working directly on decal film (rather than just printing scanned images, thus the work would be one-of-a-kind), and also doing work directly on the car.

Decals of the printed grade would be available in limited batches based on my brothers discretion and if the is enough of a demand they could be made in other small quantities.
Those decals that are actually drawn on the decal film would be available in makes of one. My brother can do others similar but not exact copies. These would be made in small amounts just to maintain a small amount of decals ready to ship, and could also be done on request with parameters supplied by the customer and they can use archived images of past work to help make their choices as well as gain ideas/reference-points.

Work to be done directly on a piece of rolling stock has two different options...
Customer supplies the piece of rolling stock and a note of where the work is to occur as well as what type of work they are looking for (again using images of past work to guide them)
or
Customer specifies what piece of rolling stock they want work done on, and then it is (my) job to go out and secure it thus all costs would be totaled into the overall bill.

What i'm trying to do right now is see what everyone thinks about the idea (i'd prefer just those who don't mind graffiti on their rolling stock, but all input is accepted). Just let your ideas be known as well as your stance on the whole graffiti or no graffiti on model rolling stock.

Questions of any kind are welcomed also.

Thanks All!

-Cody F.

[peteski]

Cody,
I'm curious about the details of this technique.  I assume the artwork will be drawn on clear decal film. Will the ink used for artwork be waterproof (permanent)?  How about opacity?  If the graffiti is multi-color, will the ink be opaque enough to still be visible when applied to dark-colored cars?

[kornellred]

Since you have invited all manner of opinion, I've got to tell you that even if Picasso, Renoir, Rembrandt and Michaelangelo were reincarnated as taggers, I would still consider their work to be unsightly vandalism.  Railroad equipment is not a suitable venue for art.  I shudder to think what the urban environment will look like if graffiti becomes socially acceptable.

[jagged ben]

I shudder to think what the urban environment will look like if graffiti becomes socially acceptable.

If?  Hahah.  I daresay that graffiti is actually past its peak in many urban environments.

As for me, if it's prototype, I'll model it.

[Smike]

If?  Hahah.  I daresay that graffiti is actually past its peak in many urban environments.

haha well, giving nearly 99% of fresh from the factory rolling stock I see on the Allentown to Harrisburg NS line is tagged up, I'd say no...


Cody,
I've used a lot of various graffiti decals so far and all have not met my standards.


Here are the issues I have with whats available:

• Decal paper is too thick
• Screen printed,  so dots and color transitions look bad under macro photography
• No white printing – Issue with small run photo printers
• Not unique (although to me custom work is not required just more variety would be nice)

 
I like putting them on, and I will paint over them to blend out the terrible color transitions. So what I would most want would be small runs of pre-printed high resolution decals with white colors included. That I would pay dearly for.


Mike

[jpwisc]

I would love to see some more good graffiti decals on the market! I even have a couple of taggers whose art I would like to see included in the run.

As a modern modeler I have tried a few different graffiti's and they do need to be good quality to look correct. Keep us posted on his work.

[jagged ben]

haha well, giving nearly 99% of fresh from the factory rolling stock I see on the Allentown to Harrisburg NS line is tagged up, I'd say no...

I meant past its peak on 'non-railroad' surfaces.   I actually suspect that 'artists' have moved to doing most of their 'work' on railroad equipment (as opposed to buildings) for a few reasons...
- the owner isn't local and the evidence moves away from the scene of the crime, therefore it's probably easier to escape consequences
- their 'work' gets seen across the country
- it's less about 'turf' so other taggers won't 'write' over each others' work as much, so it lasts longer

[VonRyan]

Cody,
I'm curious about the details of this technique.  I assume the artwork will be drawn on clear decal film. Will the ink used for artwork be waterproof (permanent)?  How about opacity?  If the graffiti is multi-color, will the ink be opaque enough to still be visible when applied to dark-colored cars?

My brother mostly works with paint-markers and sharpies. the paint markers can stand up to a good bit of water and are well enough in the opacity department. Sharpies are, well, just themselves and i dont quite know how they'll stack up on decal film. Anything done with paint markers should stand out fairly well against darker cars, probably even more so than spray paint on the prototype.

-Cody F.

[Dave Schneider]

Cody,

Over the years, there have been a couple of cases of high school students offering various products for sale here on The Railwire and other forums. Please permit me to share a couple of overarching thoughts on this topic.

1) In order for a product to generate interest from a new provider, they need to provide examples of their work. Very few people will buy a product on the promise that it will be of high quality.

2) While some modelers will pay a bit more for a product from young entrepreneurs to provide encouragement, that is a limited pool. This is a hard business to turn a profit. You need capital at the front end to purchase supplies. Profits margins are slim for established manufacturers, so do the math and figure out whether the cost of supplies, the labor, and simple things like shipping are worth it. Your price point needs to be attractive to the consumer while making sure this doesn't just turn into a labor of love.
 
3) Be responsible. Once you get up and running, you are making promises and handling money. Use an online payment system like PayPal for the protection of you and the consumer.  Establish and maintain good communication with your customers. Don't over-promise and don't make excuses. If there are problems, deal with them directly and honestly.

Good luck with your new endeavor.

Best wishes, Dave 

[ljudice]

Graffiti is just part of the scene today and I'd love to see more of it (on models, not real stuff!)

My only inputs would be:

- Needs to be on very think decal film and carefully printed to avoid thickness problems which I see on
  even the Microscale graffiti sheets.

- I'd love to see more of the "scribble" stuff where some idiot just goes nuts with a can of paint on the lower
  side of a car. You see a lot of it that is not even artistic, just garbage but I've not seen much of that offered
  except in small pieces by MS.

- Lou

[peteski]

Lou, I'm not sure if you can get decal film thinner than Microscale.  That, IMO is one of the thinnest decals available.  If it was any thinner, you would have very hard time applying it to the model without the decal tearing or curling up.

[tom mann]

I ordered very thin paper from decalpaper.com - you have to ask for it.  This paper is a little tough to work with, so I would always print out multiple samples on the same page.

But back to the original question.  If you can produce quality graf decals, you shouldn't have a problem selling them.  However, you need a way to advertise them via good quality photos.  Factor these costs into your business plan.

Good luck.  Keep us updated on your progress.

[nkalanaga]

Lou:  For the "scribbles" have you tried Sharpies or similar marking pens?  As you said, much of it isn't artistic, so it shouldn't be hard to come up with convincing graffiti.

[central.vermont]

Lou, you need one more post because that post count you have is kinda scaring me! 

Jon

[ljudice]

Re: decal paper - I should have said that the MS grafitti decals sometimes seem to be printed in a way that makes them thicker - perhaps they are screened multiple times for different colors?  All I know is that their film is usually really thin - but on some of the graf's they are thicker?? 

Re: scribbles - good idea, need to play with that!

Re: post count - fixed!!!