Recap

This project has been on-hold for a bit while I searched for appropriate decals. Unfortunately, the decals needed for this project are no longer available. I did find an old set on eBay and purchased them, but I don't have high hopes for their use as decals become quite fragile over time. Instead, I will be using them as a reference for the script style railroad name across the nose of the engine.

Custom Decals?

As it turns out, creating custom decals isn't all that difficult, and there are a number of methods available to modelers. The primary challenge is white, which very few technologies are able to print. One way is to use a commercial sheet of white decal and apply your custom decal over it, leaving the white areas clear. This can be tricky to align and works well for designs that have white in the herald. White lettering, however, generally requires employing the services of a commercial provider. While this design doesn't use white text, it is the approach that I took. 

I already had drawn the Great Northern heralds, so creating the left and right facing heralds for the sides of the loco were not difficult. I added the yellow ring and the lines to define the width of the green band. I included a standard herald so the set could be used for both the as-delivered and the updated schemes. Since the set was specific to the fantasy project and the E7 loco in particular, I created number sets for each prototype locomotive and the number we decided to apply to the RF16. This eliminated the need to cut out and apply individual numbers.

This is the decal sheet that I created - the script is NOT yet the correct style. I am preparing this for submission to Fusion Scale Graphics, who can print quarter, half, and full A4 sheets at fairly economical rates. I'll update this image once the script is corrected and will make the custom decal sheets available through our store. Note that the image has a light-blue background to make the details more visible.

Once the decals arrive, we'll complete this series and show you the results of paint, decal, and final details of the RF-16 being added to the Great Northern roster before final delivery to the customer.