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Post by pboilermaker on Apr 27, 2022 17:52:00 GMT -8
www.brightfuturedecals.com/CSX modelers rejoice! Nick O'Dell has opened up a business producing the finest CSX decals available in any scale. These are extremely accurate markings printed by Cartograf and the first three releases are now available. The website itself is a treasure trove of prototype marking reference information and is something anyone interested in CS should take a look at. -Mike
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Post by Mr. Trainiac on Apr 27, 2022 18:24:43 GMT -8
Those are insane. I especially like all the warning stickers and other small stencils. You'd be lucky if a Microscale sheet came with all that. Normally you have to buy those separately.
The website is pretty well put together, and the roster shots and paint scheme examples are really cool. They are all bright and clear photos.
I also like how much you can zoom in on the sample decal image. It's nice to see exactly what you're getting. Again, Microscale dropped the ball. Half of their decal sheets are blurry or small file sizes, so you are never sure exactly what they say, especially for hard-to-read text like capacity stencils or other small lettering.
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Post by surlyknuckle on Apr 27, 2022 19:02:39 GMT -8
Nick is the man, he's been working on this venture for quite some time and has been working on CSX artwork alone for at least 15+ years in other capacities. Eye for detail. I'm rooting for some of the currently unavailable Chessie artwork sold via Steel Valley winds up finding a home here. There's also some slick decals for your car (or locomotive!) on his website too!
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Post by csxt8400 on Apr 27, 2022 21:39:56 GMT -8
I was waiting for him to make a thread here proclaiming that, indeed, there IS justice in this crazy world. That said, you can't keep a good thing hidden for long. Here is a teaser, not-at-all-indicative, of the amazing work that he has brought to life. Just cab numbers, but can you really say "just" after seeing the difference?   |
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Post by BrightFuture Decals on Apr 28, 2022 13:41:06 GMT -8
Hi guys!
Just wanted to say thanks for your support and enthusiasm over the years and I am so glad we were finally able to get to this point. The pandemic hurt everyone and we were no exception during that time, so I am very happy that we were finally able to open our doors.
My goal is to eventually have every MAJOR type of CSX locomotive and freight car artwork available on a decal sheet somewhere. I have been studying and photographing CSX artwork on the prototype, particularly locomotives, for about 15 years and I am happy that some of my work and research can now be given back to the community.
Over the years I found that there are no scale decal manufacturers who accurately depict CSX artwork. None. There are so many variations in lettering, logos, warning labels, etc. on CSX equipment and almost none of what was commercially available prior to our sheets being produced was anywhere close to satisfactory for me. I tried to contact Microscale early on to address this, and even provided them with art but I couldn't even get them to respond to me. So, with that in mind, I knew I was going to have to spend considerable time and resources designing this art and having the sheets printed just so I could be satisfied with the decals I put on my models and I thought, "Why not make them available for everyone?"
In the not so distant future, I plan on adding even more to the website and our decal product lines. My wife primarily built the website with information that I wrote and photographs I have compiled over the years and I'm so glad that you guys like it. Keep in mind, we aren't professional website designers, so it could probably be better. I honestly wish the resolution of the images with our website builder was even higher than what it is, but I may start a Flickr account just to show off some of the art when it's printed. I also spent considerable time designing paint/lettering diagrams for each major decal sheet which are shown on the website and are also emailed to the customer in high quality PDF format.
One of my biggest complaints with other decal manufacturers is that you never know what you are getting when you place an order. Firstly, you can't even see a high resolution image of the artwork on the decal sheet. Maybe the piece of art you are looking for will be on there? Maybe it won't be? Who knows until you buy it.Secondly, how accurate is it? It took me years to track down some locomotives in order to accurately photograph and measure specific pieces of art. I wanted to make sure when I put my name on these decal sheets, that the art was as accurate as possible. This involved numerous resources and friends, hand measuring artwork on locomotives, etc. I can personally tell you that this artwork is as close to the prototype as is possible within scale modeling.
Thirdly, you don't know what kind of printing errors you will find on the sheet once it arrives! Cartograf is the best decal printer in the world. Period. The meticulous care of their pressmen and the absolute pride they display for their jobs absolutely shows in the product. These guys are true professionals. When you order a run of 300 decal sheets, you get exactly 300 decal sheets. You don't get 287, you don't get 305, you get exactly what you order. Every single one of them that I've looked at is absolutely mint. I can count the number of printing errors I've found on Cartograf products on one hand whereas I have thrown away more Microscale decal sheets than I care to admit. When the decals arrive from Italy, they come in a heavy duty cardboard box, inside a black bag, shrink wrapped, and with onion skin paper between each and every single sheet. It is absolutely amazing. The saying goes that you pay for what you get, and it is certainly true with Cartograf.
Fourthly, my last complaint with decal companies is this: What color is the artwork? Especially yellows. The saddest thing in the world to me is seeing a beautiful CSX model that has been detailed, custom painted, decaled, and the yellow looks lemony. Or the blue CSX logos are 5 shades lighter than the paint on the model. Granted, some of this is just modeling, mixing paint to your liking to match decals or vice versa, but I took it a step further. In 2018 I contracted with an industrial paint supplier and purchased Imron paints that CSX used for both their new and old colors. I sprayed this paint on several sets of metal automotive drift cards. I sent sets to Athearn, Rapido, and Scaletrains to match their paints to and kept a couple for myself. When it came time to get the decals printed, I sent the cards to Italy and had the ink for the decals matched to the cards I made. I also contracted with MCW Finishes to have enamel CSX model paint matched to my color cards after Jason Quinn's glowing review of his experience using them to match Chessie paint samples. All this just to say, I hope that we can eventually become the one-stop-shop for CSX modelers and their decal needs. I think even if you aren't a CSX modeler but you're an artwork guy like I am, you'll appreciate some of the time and research it has taken to get to this point.
Thank you guys and I am looking forward to producing even more CSX decal sheets! Hopefully even expanding into CSX predecessor roads in the future.
- Nick O'Dell
BrightFuture Decals LLC
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Post by fr8kar on Apr 28, 2022 14:35:13 GMT -8
Cartograf is the best decal printer in the world. Period. This is the truth. I'm glad with all the effort you put into these decals that's who you choose to print them. |
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Post by lvrr325 on Apr 28, 2022 16:40:10 GMT -8
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Post by BrightFuture Decals on Apr 28, 2022 18:50:12 GMT -8
I guess somebody tried at least!  - Nick O'Dell BrightFuture Decals LLC |
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Post by lvrr325 on Apr 28, 2022 23:26:34 GMT -8
I was joking around but you would probably sell a whole batch of decals for that thing now that it's roamed for a couple years.
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Post by stevef45 on Apr 29, 2022 4:42:04 GMT -8
Man i wish these came out a few months ago when i was building my csx sd50. Piecing them together sucked and the colors for the sides are off and the ink lifted once i used solvaset.
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Post by loco8107 on May 1, 2022 7:17:02 GMT -8
Good to hear! Another sad part is a lot of yn2 models also never have close to the correct shade of blue and gray also. Usually the blue is too dark and the gray is too light- it seems the blue is always the color more off than anything. And the yellow is usually good but some cases not bright enough. (I don’t remember if Scalecoat has a great match for yn2) I think more of those models would sell and be rerun if the paint was better. I don’t do genesis and prefer to paint myself or add details to a well painted model, but Athearn as an example hasn’t done a yn2 GP38-2 in a long time in RTR (now Roundhouse). And of course even have the early ex Conrail repaints w/o the white roof which can be easily added by us. Would love if they did that. Definitely CSX’s best scheme. Good luck with this!
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Post by loco8107 on May 1, 2022 9:26:39 GMT -8
LOL- does it still look that way or did the paint shop get a chance to fix it? |
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Post by loco8107 on May 1, 2022 10:38:16 GMT -8
www.brightfuturedecals.com/CSX modelers rejoice! Nick O'Dell has opened up a business producing the finest CSX decals available in any scale. These are extremely accurate markings printed by Cartograf and the first three releases are now available. The website itself is a treasure trove of prototype marking reference information and is something anyone interested in CS should take a look at. -Mike Just curious- do you eventually plan on doing CSX patch decals for ex Chessie and CR locos and such? |
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Post by csxt8400 on May 1, 2022 11:04:07 GMT -8
Just curious- do you eventually plan on doing CSX patch decals for ex Chessie and CR locos and such? Yes, he is well on the way with those. |
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Post by BrightFuture Decals on May 1, 2022 12:54:51 GMT -8
Just curious- do you eventually plan on doing CSX patch decals for ex Chessie and CR locos and such? Yes I do. I have been working on that sheet on and off for several months trying to figure out the best way to lay it out. Since the patched that occurred in the 80s and 90s had immensely more variations in numbers than the Conrail and other patches of the 2000s, they may be on different sheets, but my goal is to have all of them done eventually! - Nick O'Dell BrightFuture Decals |
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Post by loco8107 on May 4, 2022 7:40:59 GMT -8
Just curious- do you eventually plan on doing CSX patch decals for ex Chessie and CR locos and such? Yes I do. I have been working on that sheet on and off for several months trying to figure out the best way to lay it out. Since the patched that occurred in the 80s and 90s had immensely more variations in numbers than the Conrail and other patches of the 2000s, they may be on different sheets, but my goal is to have all of them done eventually! - Nick O'Dell BrightFuture Decals Nice. FWIW- does Scalecoat have good yn2 colors that are at least close enough? I use their spray cans (which are good) for CR blue and gloss black shells as I don’t have an airbrush and was just wondering. |
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Post by BrightFuture Decals on May 4, 2022 8:43:04 GMT -8
Loco8107,
I personally don't have experience with the Scalecoat colors to be able to determine if they are 'close enough' to the actual CSX colors. I can tell you that the Tru Color paint line is very close when compared to my drift cards although the Tru Color paints were produced prior to my creating the drift cards so they are not matched to them. The main reason I went with MCW Finishes is because I could ensure that the paint was matched directly to my cards as were the decals, but the end user could of course use whatever paint they prefer.
If you want to experiment with different paints to see what you like best in regards to the matching to the decals with the correct colors, I can send you a decal sheet to mess with if you are interested. Get with me on PM with your shipping details and I'll get you set up.
Nick O'Dell
BrightFuture Decals
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Post by loco8107 on May 5, 2022 15:09:55 GMT -8
Thanks. I was just curious. I’m still in the planning stages for my next projects for now.
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Post by BrightFuture Decals on May 19, 2022 10:40:05 GMT -8
I also like how much you can zoom in on the sample decal image. It's nice to see exactly what you're getting. Again, Microscale dropped the ball. Half of their decal sheets are blurry or small file sizes, so you are never sure exactly what they say, especially for hard-to-read text like capacity stencils or other small lettering. To your point, I just realized that some of the decal images weren't magnifying correctly due to the large file size. So yesterday my wife and I spent the evening uploading all of the decal sheet images and paint diagram templates to Flickr and then direct linking that from our website. So far, it looks like it is working well and will display full-resolution images! Nick O'Dell BrightFuture Decals |
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Post by nstophat on May 20, 2022 14:26:58 GMT -8
To your point, I just realized that some of the decal images weren't magnifying correctly due to the large file size. So yesterday my wife and I spent the evening uploading all of the decal sheet images and paint diagram templates to Flickr and then direct linking that from our website. So far, it looks like it is working well and will display full-resolution images! Nick O'Dell BrightFuture Decals Got my order late last week, they are beautiful decals! |
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Post by BrightFuture Decals on May 20, 2022 18:57:06 GMT -8
Glad you like them, brother! The decal sheets are so pretty that it's hard to willingly cut into one. Luckily I have a bunch!
Nick O'Dell
BrightFuture Decals
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Post by zephyrgray on May 20, 2022 19:12:51 GMT -8
The website is fantastic. I knew that CSX had dumped the boxcar logo but didn’t realize that they’ve added their website (although it does look like an after thought)..Now if someone would make an accurate CSX style PTC antenna array it would turn 2022 into a bright future.
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Post by 12bridge on May 22, 2022 19:42:34 GMT -8
Plllllllleaseeeee make just a full sheet of builders/trust/etc plates!!!!!!
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Post by fr8kar on May 22, 2022 20:05:39 GMT -8
Plllllllleaseeeee make just a full sheet of builders/trust/etc plates!!!!!!  I feel that! |
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Post by trainboyy on May 23, 2022 17:03:52 GMT -8
Plllllllleaseeeee make just a full sheet of builders/trust/etc plates!!!!!! And warning labels!!! Smokebox surely can't have all of them!! |
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Post by zephyrgray on May 24, 2022 11:20:10 GMT -8
Got my 1st set in the mail. Impressive. From the shipping packet to the decal set itself this appears to be a well thought out project. Was a little surprised when I saw that the yellow looked more mustard like than the yellow that I’m used to seeing on the Pere Marquette. Then again I’ve never seen a brand new, fresh out of the paint shop CSX engine either but judging by the general data, builder plates and warning labels, those alone are worth the price.
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Post by csxt8400 on May 24, 2022 11:51:58 GMT -8
Got my 1st set in the mail. Impressive. From the shipping packet to the decal set itself this appears to be a well thought out project. Was a little surprised when I saw that the yellow looked more mustard like than the yellow that I’m used to seeing on the Pere Marquette. Then again I’ve never seen a brand new, fresh out of the paint shop CSX engine either but judging by the general data, builder plates and warning labels, those alone are worth the price. I know what you mean, until you put them on the locomotive they do look a bit odd to the eye. Even the old microscale YN3 letters looked weird to me. Many photographs online over-do the richness of YN3's gold especially, in the buff you can distinctively see the gold contrast the FRA-224 sill striping. YN3 comes across to me as a very nice regal gold, but lower on the vibrant scale. |
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Post by BrightFuture Decals on May 24, 2022 19:19:36 GMT -8
Plllllllleaseeeee make just a full sheet of builders/trust/etc plates!!!!!! I really want to do this. Specifically for CSX units of course. I have a big running file going of all of the trust plate verbiage on locomotives that CSXT assumed when it was created. I could probably fill up a whole sheet with just trust plates and builders plates! Nick O'Dell BrightFuture Decals |
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Post by BrightFuture Decals on May 24, 2022 19:24:32 GMT -8
Plllllllleaseeeee make just a full sheet of builders/trust/etc plates!!!!!! And warning labels!!! Smokebox surely can't have all of them!! You're absolutely right. All of our decals are specifically tailored to CSX locomotives but they have some commonality among other roads. The way I am grouping them now is by 'era'. So when you buy a decal sheet for CSX 'grey' scheme locomotives painted from 1986 to 1990, you get all of the warning labels and data specifically for those engines...with several 'extras' that appeared on them in the 2000s as the units aged. I definitely want to do some sheets that are nothing but warning labels/data/etc. They will probably be grouped in 15 year or so spans since warning labels that appeared on engines painted in, say, 1988, weren't the same as what appeared on the same engines in 2018. Most likely this will come after we get the bulk of our big CSX sheets done, but I definitely want to do them. Nick O'Dell BrightFuture Decals |
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Post by BrightFuture Decals on May 24, 2022 19:32:55 GMT -8
Got my 1st set in the mail. Impressive. From the shipping packet to the decal set itself this appears to be a well thought out project. Was a little surprised when I saw that the yellow looked more mustard like than the yellow that I’m used to seeing on the Pere Marquette. Then again I’ve never seen a brand new, fresh out of the paint shop CSX engine either but judging by the general data, builder plates and warning labels, those alone are worth the price. Really glad that you like the decals! You're absolutely right about the 'gold' color that CSX uses on their 'dark future' units. It is kind of a mustard yellow/gold. Almost brown. I used my photo spectrometer tool to scan the Imron YN3 paint cards that I made with CSX Imron paint for this scheme and attached the results below for you to view. When standing alone on a white background (or decal sheet) the gold almost looks brown but the contrast between the blue really makes it pop.  |
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I feel that!