Another lozenge thread

[expositor]

Having surfed my old forums for the best lozenge decals it seems that my preferences deviate from what most, more knowledgeable fellows have posted.  I believe that most prefer Eagle Strike, which, well, the lowers, appear to me to be too dark, compared to Aeroscale(?), Microscale, and those provided in kits by Roden and Eduard, for example.  The ES uppers look OK, but again, the lowers look dark to me.  Am I wrong, or did I get a misprint?

Thanks!
Jim

[NigelR]

I think you may be a bit out of date.... Most people these days would use Aviattic lozenge decals which are available in a variety of scales. IMO these are by far the best researched decals on the market. Go to www.aviattic.co.uk to take a look.

[IanB]

I have to agree with Nigel. I only build 1:72 but would never use Microscale, Eduard, or Roden lozenge. I use Aviattic exclusively unless I'm going to paint over it, in which case I'll use less accurate colours.

Ian

[Brad Cancian]

Hi Jim - each decal type has its advantages and disadvantages. I personally love the colours and translucency of the Aviattic decals, but the adverse side of that is that it's far more effort to do lozenge rib tapes. I also find the Aviattic decalls difficult to trim once dry, and a little more difficult around compound surfaces as it doesn't respond to decal setter.

On the flip side, I love the way that the old Eagle Strike decals respond to decal setting solution and are easy to trim once dry. They are completely opaque so there's no difficulty with rib tapes. Yes the colours are a bit dark (namely the 5 colour lozenge) but this can be lightened up with some oversprays. Here's some that I have done with the old eagle strike decals.




The challenge now is that these are long out of production and hard to find.

Cheers,

BC

[expositor]

Hi Gents,

One of those decals I mentioned was Aeromaster, which I mixed with a site I frequented.  Nigel, you're right; I had primarily surfed Aerodrome, and most of those posts were from some time ago.  Ian, the Eduard decals in their Fokker D.VII look just about the same as the Aviattic...(well to my aging eyes)which are as you both said, quite nice.  Brad, very nice models!  Those decals look nice as well, though again I think the lowers that I have are too dark to my eye.  Being mostly interested in naval and maritime aircraft, I wasn't impressed with Aviattic's naval lozenge, but no decals have so far been all that accurate...but then I'm a color iconoclast.  I do like Roden's W-4 decals, but only because they have a grey blue and grey brown, to which I hope to add a grey violet, RLM 75, which is just a dark grey.  I think that makes a better sea, shallow water camou than brown, purple and Lightish blue; but then, what do I know?
I'm just another amateur with no expertise, but firm (?) opinions....

Jim

[WD]

Interesting. For many years, and long before Aviattic came on the scene, the old Americal-Gryphon lozenge decals were to go-to among the forums and newsgroups I inhabited. I know I still have a sizable stash, and I'm sure many others do too. Dennis recently posted a build on here using them, and despite their age, performed flawlessly.

Warren

[expositor]

The only Americal I have is the naval lozenge they incorrectly named "Kriegsmarine" instead of " Kaiserliche Marine. "
Kriegsmarine was the KuK navy of Austria-Hungary.  The AG decals were, I believe, based on Windsock's questionable
colors allegedly based on two different cloth pieces which may very well be fakes.  One of the two sets of colors on their
large sheet looks OK, but the other with two blues and a very dark brown/blue just can't be right if we believe DSA's posts
at Aerodrome.  And, some of those naval lozenge decals appear way out of scale too. 
I guess I should give those Aviattic a try....

Jim