M2A2 Bradley WIP #7

Okay, it's been a couple of months since I last did anything with this project. The Hawk and Intruder had to take priority over the Bradley due to the decal problem I had with it. Now for a push to get it finished before the end of the year now I've got a week off work.


After some searching around the internet, I found a couple of sets of decals for the right period of my Bradley. So they were both downloaded for me to edit for fitting my Bradley. One set was for an Academy 1/35th scale kit and the other was for Revell's 1/72nd scale kit. I chose to go with the latter as they looked the better of the two and I had access to the instruction sheets via Revell's website.


I started altering the various settings of the image using a photo editing programme to remove the background colour of the decals backing paper. Then after printing off a test sample, I could use the instruction diagrams to work out the position of one of the "V's" on my model to get the size of it. When this was worked out, I altered the dimensions of the image by measure the "V" on my sample print and the total size of the image. The image was scaled down to the correct size required for my model.


Once this was done, using Firefox, I started to go over the two "V's" and the badge to restore the quality of them after they faded from the earlier editing. This was done pixel by pixel, a bit of black here and there, some white here and there too. After several attempts at this, I was happy with the result, even though it's not perfect, but these were stencilled and either sprayed or brushed on the 1:1 examples. Three copies were set out for printing and after a test print on normal paper, I printed onto the decal paper at the highest setting on my printer. Once dry, a couple of coats of Plasticoat Acryllic clear was sprayed over the printed decals and are now being left overnight to dry ready for tomorrow.


Another update hopefully will be done tomorrow or over the next few days.