Need Some Font Help

[Dave Schneider]

I am working on producing some N scale decals for Milwaukee Road insulated boxcars that were used to haul beer from the Schlitz and Pabst breweries. The reporting marks are for the most part similar to the freeware RailroadRoman, but there are some issues. The X for example in DSDX and URTX is not correct. Also, both the letters and the numbers have a pretty fine line for part of the character. I can compensate for this a bit in Adobe Illustrator by increasing the stroke width (easy there). The X in NewTimesRoman is better, but everything is wrong.

Any suggestions for font here?

Best wishes, Dave

[pnolan48]

You might want to try converting the characters to "Outline" and then moving the single points to correct spots over a correct scale image of the letter. That is how I converted Palatino to PRR.

[glakedylan]

if you do not mind paying for a font:
http://www.railfonts.com/cgi-bin/font_shop/fontshop.cgi?ACTION=enter&thispage=page7.html
fwiw...
sincerely
Gary

[Dave Schneider]

if you do not mind paying for a font:
http://www.railfonts.com/cgi-bin/font_shop/fontshop.cgi?ACTION=enter&thispage=page7.html
fwiw...
sincerely
Gary

I have purchased fonts from that site, Their Railroad Roman looks identical to the one that I am using.
http://www.railfonts.com/Samples/roman1-demo.html

The Northern Pacific font has a better looking X. Maybe....
http://www.railfonts.com/Samples/roman2-demo.html

Or the Clinch Roman
http://www.railfonts.com/Samples/clinch-demo.html

I don't have a very good eye at catching the differences between these.
Thoughts?

Best wishes, Dave



Best wishes, Dave

[Dave Schneider]

You might want to try converting the characters to "Outline" and then moving the single points to correct spots over a correct scale image of the letter. That is how I converted Palatino to PRR.

Thanks for the suggestion Pete. I want to avoid going that route if I can. Sounds tedious. I'll keep this idea in reserve for now.

Best wishes, Dave

[nkalanaga]

To anyone designing a webpage to advertise something:

I looked at the NP demo font.  That site is missing something very important - a link back to the page selling the font!  At least, it's missing on my up-to-date Firefox.

If I wanted to buy it, how would I find it?  Their demo pages should have a "Buy IT Here" link.

[wcfn100]

I'd say it's pretty close to Erie lettering.  Take a look at this link.

http://rr-fallenflags.org/el/dwg/152-11-274.GIF

I can help draw off of that if you think it's close enough to work with.


Jason

[peteski]

Thanks for the suggestion Pete. I want to avoid going that route if I can. Sounds tedious. I'll keep this idea in reserve for now.

Best wishes, Dave

To me your original example (RR Roman) seems the closest. The customization will take some time but I wouldn't call it tedious. To me stuff like that is actually fun (and much easier than tracing letters from scratch).  And it seems that you only need a partial alphabet and 0-9.  Not bad at all.

I use Corel Draw. I would create a separate layer for the photo of the actual letters and lock it. Next, I would set up guidelines to help me in lining things up. Then in a separate layer over the photo I would get a set of letters from the RR Roman font set, convert them to curves, then line them up over the letters in the photo and modify them as needed.

Once you do them all you'll have them ready for all your future projects.  Even better would be if you could modify the letters and create your own font (like Ron Bearden did for his Milwaukee electrics).

[Dave Schneider]

Thanks for the suggestions everyone. I work in Adobe Illustrator, but like Photoshop, I have only touched a small fraction of it's capabilities.

I will give it a go with trying to edit the letters and see what happens. I see four issues.
1) Fix the X. That looks like it might be relatively easy.
2) Thicken the fine lines slightly using the AI stroke function.
3) The zero looks too wide. Let's see what happens with that...
4) The spacing of the periods after the U and the T are too large. I tried the kerning function what it doesn't work with this style of font.

As a general rule, I can go a bit overboard worrying about these kinds of things. However we have all seen examples in the past where the font looks slightly off. Typically it's not something that one can point out without a reference, but there is a feeling that something just isn't right. I want to avoid that if at all possible.

Jason thanks for the offer to help. I will let you know if I need that. Pete, thanks for the suggestions on process. I suspect it is very similar in AI. Open to more advice.

Best wishes, Dave

[wcfn100]

Here's the Erie X.  I can get you the vector file if you want to use it.



I can do any of the Erie letters (or some close variation of) in less than 10 minutes each, just let me know what you can use. 


Jason

[tom mann]

That Erie X is pretty darn close.

[JMaurer1]

That must be the spot 

[AlbertSpor]

Dave, have you looked at Tichy Train Group? They are slowly adding to their catalog, by using the former Jerry Glow artwork. They have decals for both URTX and DSDX for your cars. They can be a little tricky to find on their website. Go to N scale, then decals, then car type, then reefers. They will be the first ones to pop up. Hope this helps.
Albert Spor

[wcfn100]

Dave, have you looked at Tichy Train Group? They are slowly adding to their catalog, by using the former Jerry Glow artwork. They have decals for both URTX and DSDX for your cars. They can be a little tricky to find on their website. Go to N scale, then decals, then car type, then reefers. They will be the first ones to pop up. Hope this helps.
Albert Spor

I looked there, and it looks like the same RR Roman font Dave has.

Jason

[Sokramiketes]

Here's the Erie X.  I can get you the vector file if you want to use it.



I can do any of the Erie letters (or some close variation of) in less than 10 minutes each, just let me know what you can use. 


Jason

No upturned serifs?