Waterbok, that's a thought that's been bugging me for a while too - problem is, the waterslide has adhesive on the back of it, & whilst it will still "cling" when applied wet the wrong way around, it won't be properly stuck when dry. Even leaving them in the water too long will have them peeling off when dry, unless you laquer over the whole lot.
Next thought was "Use clear stuff, print mirror image graphics, so they go down sticky side first, then paint white locally to show them up", but this would only work if you were careful to only paint white over the coloured bits (If that makes sense), so you don't end up with white showing through rather than body colour (eg like when doing lettering). If you're going to go to that extreme, you might as well just paint the graphics on & have done with it!
There was someone on here doing something similar but different, which worked really well, but unfortunately I can't for the life of me remember who it was!
- have a dig about in the old forum posts for other times it's been discussed, maybe "printing your own decals" or something.
Another option might be to use white waterslide, apply the wrong way around, then give the edges a dusting with clear (Automotive) laquer to keep them in place. THEN put the body colour on, only in light coats & let it dry properly between coats, to prevent any reactions/wrinkling. It would have to be a solvent based laquer, as lexan paints are likely to react with anything else. You might also have to wash the adhesive off the back of the waterslide, or there's the potential for a paint reaction there too.
As yet, I've not had the waterslides I've been using react with solvent based paint (It's designed to be ok with laquer, cos you have to seal the ink in before dunking the stuff in water), but I don't know how it would behave the wrong way around (re adhesive/paint reaction)
Obviously try any of this on a scrap shell first, just in case it goes horribly wrong
