SHIP LABELS TUTORIAL

Let's face it, it's hard to identify a 1/2400 model, however great the sculpt can be. From 1 meter, it's not that easy to tell a Kagero from a Fubuki destroyer. So you'll need a way to identify ships. Of course, you can be content with scribbling the ship name under the base, but it's not handy to pick up the model to check its name under the base. It's better to have the label on the upside, but then, it needs to be nice not to detract from your work.

It's not that hard : all you need is a color laser printer, and a computer equipped with Excel (or any substitute) and good old MS Paint. First you need to write the ship name in an excel box, like this.

1 Okay, now it's better to have different colors to differentiate nationalities, I picked this light blue grey for the Royal Navy, but the choice is yours !

2 Then give the box thick sides, you'll need them when you cut off your label,

3 I prefer a right side alignment (nothing political, eh!) for the ship name because I'll add a flag to the label. These models represent ships on which brave men fought and died, however misguided and criminal their leaders were, adding a flag to the label is but a small tribute to remembrance of their sacrifice.

Fortunately, the Nimitz ships lists are topped with flags, you can pick it from there, using the snipping tool, and edit it with MS Paint. You'll also find lots of other sources on the web if you don't play these rules.

Now the hardest part, resizing the flag so it can fit your Excel box. Copy, paste into the box, et voilà !

Make as many labels as you need with Excel, then copy and paste them into MS Paint.

That's the trick : copy and paste them into a Word file. Now resize your MS Paint work, say to 66% and paste it into the Word file. Resize it again to 50%, and paste it again : this way, you'll have 3 different labels for each model, and you can pick the best sized one to fit your base.