Painting Characters (No, not those characters!)

[The_Giant_Mantis]

I mean Sino/Japanese characters..

Recently, two sources have been inspiring me a bit. The first is Firefly, which features written Chinese, and the second in X3: Reuinion, which features some distorted (and occasionally upside down) Japanese, painted onto the metal surfaces and vehicles. I think it creates an atmospheric look.

Anyway, I figured since I'm a Japanese student, it might be fun to steal some of that east asian sci-fi style for my own army. The problem is, it's slightly different to painting roman writing.. it needs to look bolder and thicker, and a lot cleaner too (no wobbly lines.) If you guys could give me any freehand tips for this kind of thing (or any generally, I'm not good enough that I can't use any instruction) I'd be really happy, thank you.

Also, any tips as to achieving a slightly worn/faded effect with writing like this.. I don't want it to look like it was painted on yesterday.

To those enhanced members who remember my last enhanced post, don't laugh.. I'm a hypocrite, okay! ;P

[Swordy]

Try researching calligraphy.

[Tubal]

You could consider getting one of the decal printers to make some up for you (Griffon Games and Ginfritter's comes to mind). If you can't make them yourself in vector-format the labour cost could be a bit high though... The upside is that if you're artistically inclined vectors aren't really all that hard to work with, even I can do it
The other option is getting some decal paper for printers and just print them yourself. The quality might be lower but it's quite a lot cheaper. Just make sure you get the right kind, either for laser or for inkjet printers.

To weather decals just put them on, paint on some clear enamel, and then weather away

[The_Giant_Mantis]

Originally Posted by Swordy

Try researching calligraphy.

That's what I'm in the process of doing. Sadly, I don't have any good examples to show yet, but I was thinking a bold, simple 'spray painted' style, with all the curves straightened out.

I'm rather liking the idea with the decal paper, because it means I can play around with the font and such before printing.

I'm still trying to decide which language to use. I'd have to get a friend to translate Chinese for me, but it has a better visual look, I think, and works better with the font I had in mind.

Anyway, thanks for the ideas. If anyone has any more, keep them coming.