Best Of New Brass EP-2 assembly & Mod clinic

[peteski]

Ron,
here is a sample of Document RR Roman from railfonts:

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This is pretty close. Some editing will be needed, but no much.
First two lines are unmodified. Bottom line is stretched horizontally and an outline added to thicken the strokes..

[u18b]

Pete!
Thanks for what you found.  And I may use that.

But let me document what I did as well..... hopefully that it will help someone do this for themselves one day.

Several posts coming.

[u18b]

Now, I use multiple operating systems.  Sorry if that confuses people.

Mainly,  I use Linux Mint- latest version.
To be honest, I really do not like Windows unless I just have to use it (and I do).

So I'm starting in Linux.

Here,  I have a disc with a lot of fonts on it.
This is the fonts directory.



Let's start in the R directory.  Railroad and Roman stuff may be there.


What you will notice is that even in the simple file manager, Linux gives a simple preview of the font.

You can clearly see that most of these are not an option.
But a few are possibilities at first glance.  I marked them in orange.

Raleigh looks like it might have worked (red) but I saw that the stems were about the same (one should be thin and one fat).

Romanab (pink) should also be out because the crossbar on the A is too low.

That leave two possibilities- green.

I'll simply click on one.

When I click on Revival 565, the Linux font viewer starts.


From here, I can see about all of the font. 
Most of this I don't care about.

So I zero in on the capital letters.



From here, I can see that the I and the H look good.
But the terminus of the E is not even.
The K is wrong- but I'll worry about that later.
So I'll keep looking.

I open the next possibility


With this opened up, I see that the middle part of the E is not centered.
This one is out.

So I go through the whole Font directory (a few hundred) and pick out the best ones at first glance.



This two NEWS fonts look pretty good, so I click install.



More coming.

[u18b]

I then start up Corel Draw version 9 running under Linux WINE Windows emulation.  It does not run perfectly (cutting and pasting does not work at this point), but it is fast and can get me going.

I type out the herald in the default mode.



I then select the herald and change the font to the one I just installed.



I repeat the process for the other font.



I then select a herald and compress it (make it not as tall).


I then stretch the herald.


This is the rough draft.
Both of these are possibilities.
I save the file.



As much as I don't like Windows, I now need to start it up because we need Corel Draw fully functional.



more coming

[u18b]

I fire up my Windows XP inside Virtual Box (still in Linux).

I need to simply copy and paste the files in the Windows XP system/Fonts directory.



I start up my file in CorelDraw9.
I then use the Object manager to create a new layer.


I make the new layer.
Move it under the Herald I'm working under.
And then import that previous cropped prototype photo.
I lock the prototype layer and go back to work on the herald.



I can stretch the herald letters higher, lower, longer until they are about close.
I then use the node tool to spread the letters out.
When I do that, it is clear the  entire herald is not even.
The boiler room letters are very stretched out, and the cab letters are closer together.



So I cut and paste and make three separate words. 
THE
MILWAUKEE
ROAD

The font size (7) is the same.
Height and stretching is about the same.
I then use the node tool to get the cab letters where they need to be.
(obviously, I'm right on top of the prototype letters.)



I now look it over.
Not bad.


But the K is all wrong.
The Es could be stretched even more.
And some of the stems seem a little heavy.
And even though it is tiny, I'm not sure that curly end to the R should be there.

So the next step will be to actually edit the font.

Out of time for today, I'll have to come back to this later.   The drama will continue then.   

[peteski]

Wow, that is some tutorial Ron!   
To me the word MILWAUKEE is taller than the other 2 words. That is how I represented it in my sample. I simply used upper and lower case letters in the font I tried.

[u18b]

I think you are correct.
Thanks.

I'll correct it tomorrow.

There is a font editor for Linux called

Font Forge I am experimenting with.
Should be able to modify the K to get it right.

And I downloaded a RR Roman font.  Thanks.

[wcfn100]

There is a font editor for Linux called

Font Forge I am experimenting with.
Should be able to modify the K to get it right.

And I downloaded a RR Roman font.  Thanks.

Is a font editor really necessary.    You should be able to edit in Coral Draw.

I'll assume you don't need the RR Roman anymore.

Jason

[peteski]

You're welcome Ron.  Unless you are planning on using that font on many other projects, there is no reason to modify it. It is just as easy to just convert the text to curves in Cored Draw, then modify the letters which need to be modified (just for that project).  To me it is also easier to convert text to curves then manipulate the spacing between the letters.

The font I ended editing as a font was called Procor (it was custom made for a gasoline tank car project).  Since I had multiple road numbers to be made, it made sense to edit the font itself.

Since you are using Corel Draw, it looks like you will actually do all the artwork yourself (and document it thoroughly here).  All I'll have to do is take your artwork, edit is slightly to accommodate the Alps MD printer requirements and print it on some decal film.   This is turning out to be an easy project for me.   As I mentioned to you earlier, the best way to accurately draw the artwork (size-wise) is to scan the actual item you'll be decaling and use it as a guide (like you are using the real loco photo as a guide now).

[Iain]

Holy, crap, another Linux user!

Oddly enough, I am going through the same thing with NS fonts.  Unlike the richer Class 1s, NS seemed to change fonts every couple of years.  Also, the font on the Baldwins as delivered looks different from the font used in the repaints during the '50s and they're all different from the fonts used once the gray scheme was introduced.

[u18b]

All that went above was good.
Hopefully, it will help someone.

But I decided to go a step further.

I actually created my first font.
So I will be posting some step by step instructions later on.

This was hard, but I kind-of liked learning a new skill.

Later on, I will be able to send Peteski
--a corel draw file I created.
--and my Railroad Fair TrueType font.

He can install the font.
And then open up the Corel Draw file and see exactly what I see on my computer.

From there, it will be all his Alps work.

[u18b]

Here is how I created my own Railroad Fair font.

I used a program called Font Forge.
http://fontforge.org/
Freeware   

It is very intimidating, I confess, but I got the hang of it.

Opening up a TrueType font that is pretty close to what I want (see above postings)....
This is what you see.



You double click on a letter, and it opens up the editor.
In this case, we are clicking on the A.



All those little red dots are control nodes.
You click, hold and move.
If you are used to a vector program (like Corel Draw) you will eventually get the hand of it.
For decals, I felt the Serifs were too thin.

So I made them fatter.



You can zoom in...



...and then click and drag to select specific nodes and/or groups of nodes.



Here is an important letter.  The  E


The serifs and brackets were too thin.
The crossbar is above the midline, so I want top lower it.
I also want to make the crossbar fatter.

Like this..



No matter what font I previewed, the K was all wrong.
The prototype shows that the right descending leg joins MUCH closer to the terminal edge.



Like this.
That's better.



Here are my letters (glyphs) I have drawn so far.
I only cared about the letters in THE MILWAUKEE ROAD.

But I did a little more.
There are two different version of the road number.
So in the lowercase line, you can see the modified E and P for  EP2
as well as the E3 road number.

I also modified the # sign and the $ sign for the white numbers in the number boards.



Later, I may go back and make the silver letters for the nose.
They are very different from these.

[u18b]

Wait!  We haven't saved the file.
The creates a Font Creation Master file (the one you actually edit each time-- and I made LOTS of revisions).



Now that I'm finished, I actually generate the fonts in a TrueType file.




These decals are VERY specific for this loco.
So I'm naming it  RailroadFairE3EP2.ttf




Now as I said before, I've been working in Linux till now.
So I fire up Windows XP and copy this file into the /windows/fonts   directory.
It self-installs when you copy and paste.




Now, time to go to work!

[Kisatchie]

Hmm... after following this
thread and seeing all
your many skills, I was
wondering... can you play
the banjo too...?

[u18b]

I fire up my previously made Corel Draw file....

And type the herald in the default font.




I then change the font to Railroad Fair and size the letters- in this case, 9 point matches the drawing perfectly.

.....well almost.  The letters are not staggered the same.

So you select the word, change to the SHAPE tool ( F10) and a bunch of lines appear at the end of the word.
Grab that and stretch the word.




Here, you can see what to grab right at the very end.
The word is about right in overall length.



Yep, this font looks great, but the letters are still not placed perfectly.
Overall, the length is exact.



So with the SHAPE tool still selected....
You can move an individual letter by grabbing the control dot just to the left of that letter.

So here, I'm going to move the  I  and the L  over a bit.
The A and the W look great already.




Now, I can thank Pete for noticing that THE   and  ROAD   are slightly smaller.
So I type them out and then reduce them to  85% of what they were  (15% reduction).




Wow.
A lot of work to get to this point, but it finally looks good.  And these letters are pretty close to what they should be.
Hardly ANY stretching or compressing (like above).  These fonts look about the way they should.



And yes, at some point in the future, I'll make this file available to any a$$hat that wants it.   

Now to go back to work getting stuff finalised for Pete.