Hello from Canada

[yukonjohn]

Welcome. Are you East coast, West coast, North coast, or center-of-the-universe prairies? Interested in ships, cars, planes, space, buildings? Many great places to start here and lots of help from good folks on this forum. I started at Canon Creative when I bought a Canon printer, before finding out about the PM and Fiddlersgreen worlds.

Regards,
John

[Philip]

Hello alparent. Welcome aboard. Visit the Tips and Tricks section of the forum for a wealth of help and advice. For starters, I can recommend Canon Creative Park for lots and lots of free models of all kinds and for all abilities.

Paper Craft - Canon Creative Park

Come on, don't just sit there!

[alparent]

Newbee questions.
Are laser printers any good?
If not what is recommended?
What paper is recommended? Regular card stock? Photo paper? Wouldn't the ink bleed out on regular paper?

[alparent]

Just purchased an epson xp-640 at Staples.
Now I need to learn to adjust the colors....so what I print is what I see on the screen!

[yukonjohn]

We spent 3 wonderful years in the mid 90s living at the corner of Victoria and Dollard. Still miss the walks over the bridge for a pint at Major's.

The Epson is a good printer from my experience. Home laser ink always cracked for me on the bends. I use mostly 65# white cardstock (176 g/m2) from Staples.

Others will likely have printer adjusting advice - I have never mastered that.

Have fun and don't be afraid to show your results here or ask questions.

Regards,
John

[alparent]

Thanks for the reply John.
I visited that Canon site and downloaded a couple of projects.
Also downloaded stuff on PaperModelShop.

What varnish do you use to seal the ink on your prints ?

[yukonjohn]

I do not have the habit of spraying my prints, tho' many do. I have found the Epson inks very durable and I am not building mine for long life - I give most of my builds away to make room for more .

For glue, I use Aleen's Quick Dry Tacky (Walmart or Michael's) which does not seem to soak the paper much and seems to bond well with the ink.

By the way, not being around anyone else who did cardstock models when I started, I picked up the basics from the Yamaha Paper Craft site at:
https://global.yamaha-motor.com/show...ercraft/howto/
They also have some very neat models to download.

I will leave it up to those who spray their prints to suggest preferences.

John

[alparent]

Wow! That site is great
Thanks

[yukonjohn]

Not to load too much at once, but when you get used to cutting, folding, gluing and are ready for more, you can look at colouring the white cut edges. There is some good advice from Dan Boose at:
coloring edges

I myself use Tombow pens, available at many art supply stores. For 95% of my work I use just two pens - a light grey N95 for edges of light colour pieces, and a darker grey N65 for edges of darker and black pieces.

My problem is I spend more time on the computer and too little time building . Looking forward to seeing your work.

Regards,
John