An unpainted table soccer team
Decal paper for laser printer (I bought mine on ebay for about £5 for 5 A4 sheets)
A computer with image editing software installed (Adobe Photoshop is the ideal tool).
Access to a laser printer for printing the decals.
Decal softer (Gunze Mr Mark Softer)
Enamel paints (Humbrol) and brush cleaner (white spirit will do as well)
Spray satin varnish (Humbrol)
Brushes in various sizes (3/0-1)
Wet/Dry sandpaper (800-1200)
A small adjustable cutter or an x-acto knife
Plasticine
First Things First
The team I am presenting here is Trinidad and Tobago as it appeared in World Cup 2006.
The method I followed included the following steps:
1. Printing the decals
2. Applying the decals on the figures
3. Painting the figures
4. Coating the figures
The making of the decals requires some web research. The aim is to find pictures of the team and any other useful information about the uniform. Look for images of soccer jersey’s, team emblems, even fonts for the numbers and the player’s names.
Depending on your familiarity with Adobe Photoshop you can use all the visual information to design the decals. In order to achieve maximum accuracy, you can scan a figure an insert it as a layer in your project. This will help to maintain the right scale of the decals.
You can duplicate the decal adding player name and number.
Finally, you have to insert all the decals on an A4 page file, export it as jpg and print the decal on a laser printer. The result can be seen here:
Now it is time to cut each individual decal and apply it on the figure. Note that the figure needs some finish with the sandpaper, depending how meticulous you are.
Dip the decal in the decal softer and wait for approx. 1 min before it is released from the paper. Apply the decal on the figure with tweezers and add more softer on it.
Allow at least 24 hours before start painting the figures. Finish the uniform first, filling the bare areas and continue with the skin.
The painting of the skin tone is one of them ore difficult tasks, as you need to check thoroughly the available material in order to paint each individual player and match his skin tone. I use a mixture of oil and enamel paints, which gives me enough time to “play” with various tones and rationalize the whole thing using “batch” painting methods. For example I applied the same basic tone on all figures and then I started darkening the tone where necessary.
The last step includes painting of details like shoes, and correction of mistakes. After that, the figures need a coat of satin varnish in order to make them durable for playing. For this purpose, the figures where pinned on the plasticine and they were given a couple of spray layers.
My Soca Warriors are finally ready to compete with the English national team and who knows, they may win this time!
