Transfers for freelance stock

[ForestPines]

Hi all,

 

I'm planning to put together a small collection of freight stock for a freelance 009 layout in the early stages of development, and I've hit a snag in designing my fictional wagon livery or liveries.

 

What is the best way to obtain lettering transfers that genuinely look like signwritten lettering?  I'm only thinking of something basic like the initials of the company and a number; but all of the generic alphabets I have found look far too modern to my eyes.  Even the idea of commissioning a custom transfer sheet founders on the issue of finding a font to use which looks right; all computer sans-serif fonts I've found look far too obviously modern, and the wrong proportions for rolling stock.

 

[Compound2632]

You could try the HMRS Private Owner Alphabets?

[ForestPines]

Thank you!  That looks ideal.

[Mark Saunders]

There are a number of places that will do Bespoke transfers! 

 

An internet search will/should bring these up.

 

Mark Saunders

[phil_sutters]

If you are going to design your own you may find some useful information in this thread, which I participated in earlier in the year. http://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?/topic/119844-methods-of-making-a-private-owner-wagon-look-authintic/

[Edwardian]

You could try the HMRS Private Owner Alphabets?

 

As used here:

[ForestPines]

If you are going to design your own you may find some useful information in this thread, which I participated in earlier in the year. http://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?/topic/119844-methods-of-making-a-private-owner-wagon-look-authintic/

I had tried to go down that road, but the problem is that you have to find a font (or fonts) that look authentic, and I have never been able to find one that does. You can, I have to say, see it in your example lettering in that thread: whichever filters are applied to simulate block shading and suchlike, the base letterforms simply don't look authentic in stroke and proportion. And then this becomes the issue whenever you investigate getting custom transfer sheets printed (which of course would be ideal otherwise, to avoid wasting most of the sheet!)

[Nick Holliday]

If you haven't got a name for your railway yet, it might be easier to adopt one which could use the initials of one of the main line railways that have got transfers available. Perhaps WGR or SCR. It might be possible to come up with a combination that could offer you fancier lettering for coaches or locos, from readily available sources, as well as wagons.

[Compound2632]

If you haven't got a name for your railway yet, it might be easier to adopt one which could use the initials of one of the main line railways that have got transfers available. Perhaps WGR or SCR. It might be possible to come up with a combination that could offer you fancier lettering for coaches or locos, from readily available sources, as well as wagons.

 

I have the Derbyshire and Staffordshire Junction Railway, along with the South Midland Light...

[Edwardian]

I have the Derbyshire and Staffordshire Junction Railway, along with the South Midland Light...

 

North and South Junction Railway, West Norfolk Railway, Great Midland & Eastern Railway, Isle of Eldernell Steam Traction Company, later Isle of Eldernell and Mereport Railway - there is no end to the drivel I come up with! 

[Compound2632]

North and South Junction Railway, West Norfolk Railway, Great Midland & Eastern Railway, Isle of Eldernell Steam Traction Company, later Isle of Eldernell and Mereport Railway - there is no end to the drivel I come up with! 

 

The Irish were there before you: Great Southern and Western (not to be confused with the South Western, in either its Glasgow or London variants - both well-Drummonded); Midland Great Western; Great Northern (hasn't that been done?)...

 

I thought North & South Junction was a real one but on looking it up I realised I was thinking of North and South Western Junction - which should be parsed (North and South) Western, since it linked the London and North Western and London and South Western!

 

I'm not sure there are any unused combinations using the compass points! (With or without 'Great') Though I think the French only managed Ouest, Nord and Est?

[Nick Holliday]

I've always liked the East and West Yorkshire Union Railway, but I'm not sure where you could source the "U"!

[Compound2632]

I've always liked the East and West Yorkshire Union Railway, but I'm not sure where you could source the "U"!

 

By no means the only Union Railway - North and Lancashire, both of which did have for a while a genuine independent existence, and the Border, which was always North British.

[phil_sutters]

I had tried to go down that road, but the problem is that you have to find a font (or fonts) that look authentic, and I have never been able to find one that does. You can, I have to say, see it in your example lettering in that thread: whichever filters are applied to simulate block shading and suchlike, the base letterforms simply don't look authentic in stroke and proportion. And then this becomes the issue whenever you investigate getting custom transfer sheets printed (which of course would be ideal otherwise, to avoid wasting most of the sheet!)

I think I was experimenting more with the shading than trying to replicate the lettering very accurately, in those examples. I find that Ariel Bold is the nearest to the most common style of lettering. If you are using software, like Elements 10, you can stretch and compress the lettering once you have 'simplified' it out of 'text'. I have tried it on a couple of examples, using photographs from Richard Kelham's PO Wagons of Somerset. The curved DUNKERTON was constructed by cutting and pasting the shaded letters onto an arc. John Wainwright's lettering involved stretching and compressing the two lower text lines to get equal length sections on the two lines. The Co & Ld involved creating the little dashes and reducing the font sizes of the 'O' & 'D', but then thickening the letters.

When using modern fonts some letters are more likely to throw up anomalies - G is one such and S is another. Sometimes you just have to rebuild the letter, trimming a bit here and adding a bit there. The numbers on the JW example are not right and finding a font with nearer numbers has eluded me so far.

Edit - I think Segoe UI Bold comes closest

Edited July 29, 2017 by phil_sutters

[Compound2632]

From staring at photographs, I've reached the conclusion that a key difference is that the signwriters of old by-and-large kept a uniform thickness for horizontals and verticals whereas modern sans-serif fonts have thinner horizontals than verticals. Phil has skillfully matched this in his manipulation of Ariel Bold. A close study of the letter O should inculcate a sensitivity to this difference in proportion.

[Quarryscapes]

I had an absolute nightmare creating my Cambrian transfers, as the lettering styles changed slightly depending who painted the wagon! I ended up making something like 5 slightly different fonts, just to write CAM RYS and CAM BR IAN across different wagons! The usual problem in this case was the distinctive style of the R, which no font managed to reproduce (And trust me, I have spent a vast number of hours in pursuit of the perfect font!) 

 

The other issue is condensing of fonts - most typefaces are quite wide and sprawling in comparison to hand painted stuff which was worked out to fit in the available space. Even when the right font has been found, it can often take a good while to get it to then fit in the available space, involving resizing individual characters in a word, sometimes with the result that they no longer look right! 

 

Basically, it is a minefield! 

[Compound2632]

Maybe the only way is to do it by hand, as the signwriters did. Here are some I made earlier:

 

 

... over 20 years earlier, well before the onset of middle-aged presbyopia! (And before discovering POWSides.) Here's some I ought to get round to finishing, showing how I did it; in fact inside out! White base coat, then a Rotring pen with black ink:

 

 

Red was also done using Rotrink ink but grey was paint and fine brush. That's why there's only one grey wagon in this line-up!

[Edwardian]

Maybe the only way is to do it by hand, as the signwriters did. Here are some I made earlier:

 

Gloucester wagon selection 1.JPG

 

... over 20 years earlier, well before the onset of middle-aged presbyopia! (And before discovering POWSides.) Here's some I ought to get round to finishing, showing how I did it; in fact inside out! White base coat, then a Rotring pen with black ink:

 

Gloucester wagon sides 1.JPG

 

Red was also done using Rotrink ink but grey was paint and fine brush. That's why there's only one grey wagon in this line-up!

 

Permit me to say "wow!"

[Classsix T]

The other issue is condensing of fonts - most typefaces are quite wide and sprawling in comparison to hand painted stuff which was worked out to fit in the available space. Even when the right font has been found, it can often take a good while to get it to then fit in the available space, involving resizing individual characters in a word, sometimes with the result that they no longer look right!

 

Basically, it is a minefield!

Maybe, but I don't believe the entire blame can be laid at the door of the font foundries (for they are still called that).

Desk Top Publishing software can and will knacker a designer's best efforts if it doesn't include features such as point sizes that include decimal sizing (eg 10.8) and kerning.

That said, it's more often the case, the software is perfectly adequate, but friend pushing the buttons doesn't understand all the features.

 

Many is the time I've had to clean up some garbage containing multiple spaced, forced return, aligned incorrectly and peculiar font sized documents because the author doesn't understand how tabs work.

 

Adobe Illustrator would probably do everything Mr. Qscapes could ever want to do, but it is an incredibly powerful design tool, even as a user of studio spec InDesign and PhotoShop myself, it's an installed application I approach with some trepidation!

 

C6T.

[cctransuk]

The curved DUNKERTON was constructed by cutting and pasting the shaded letters onto an arc.

 

CorelDRAW, and no doubt other drawing software, has the facility to type text to automatically follow an arc - above, below, offset.

 

Great for worksplates, etc.

 

Regards,

John Isherwood.

Edited August 2, 2017 by cctransuk

[Classsix T]

Indeed John, InDesign too.

 

C6T.

[phil_sutters]

CorelDRAW, and no doubt other drawing software, has the facility to type text to automatically follow an arc - above, below, offset.

 

Great for worksplates, etc.

 

Regards,

John Isherwood.

The reason I used cut and paste was that I had already applied the shading. Photoshop will let you type into an arc, but when you apply the shading afterwards, it doesn't come out at the correct angle, used by the wagon painters, in the example I was copying. I expect that there are software packages that can take a shaded word and flex it appropriately, but I haven't access to one. In fact cutting and pasting doesn't take that long. You are not usually faced with a word (or words) that has that many letters on the side of a wagon and it is nearly always only one row that is curved. As usual I am always happy to see what else other methods there are and learn from them.

Edited August 2, 2017 by phil_sutters

[cctransuk]

The reason I used cut and paste was that I had already applied the shading. Photoshop will let you type into an arc, but when you apply the shading afterwards, it doesn't come out at the correct angle, used by the wagon painters, in the example I was copying. I expect that there are software packages that can take a shaded word and flex it appropriately, but I haven't access to one. In fact cutting and pasting doesn't take that long. You are not usually faced with a word (or words) that has that many letters on the side of a wagon and it is usually only one row that is curved. As usual I am always happy to see what else other methods there are and learn from them.

 

To do transfer design, I use a vector program - CorelDRAW; SO much easier than messing around with images in a photo manipulation program.

 

Type the lettering on one layer; copy and paste it to another layer placed below the first; then move this second layer left / right / up / down until you have just the right amount of shading; convert the lot to curves; then manipulate the nodes on the second layer to the corners of the letters on the first layer.

 

That way you get proper drop shading, not just a shadow of the first image.

 

If that's not clear, PM me.

 

Regards,

John Isherwood.

[wagonman]

Though I think the French only managed Ouest, Nord and Est?

 

 

 Don't forget the CF du Midi...

[phil_sutters]

To do transfer design, I use a vector program - CorelDRAW; SO much easier than messing around with images in a photo manipulation program.

 

Type the lettering on one layer; copy and paste it to another layer placed below the first; then move this second layer left / right / up / down until you have just the right amount of shading; convert the lot to curves; then manipulate the nodes on the second layer to the corners of the letters on the first layer.

 

That way you get proper drop shading, not just a shadow of the first image.

 

If that's not clear, PM me.

 

Regards,

John Isherwood.

Thanks for the info about your methods. Obviously you are using CorelDRAW in your work. I use Photoshop Elements as an amateur photographer and don't wish to buy other software for such  limited purpose. It is helpful to show both approaches, as other people will also have different software available to them.