B - Sorry about misspelling your name. (Not that this is an excuse, but you
should see the imaginative ways my last name is spelled. But as tis said, a
Rose by any other name . . .)
I agree with you as to trying to capture texture, especially if the size
and shape of tank car rivets are noticeable to you. (And now that you've
raised that point, this will become noticeable to the rest of us hitherfore
blind - like the emporer's new clothes.)
The idea of decals is that the film is thin enough to pass for invisible
and it is superflexible so it will bend around a curve. It is a way to
space the rivets evenly. So maybe thick ink is not the way to go for this
idea.
But suppose there was a way to machine place conical rivets of styrene
or other materials onto a strip of paper, the paper coated with varnish, and
then the decal film would contain and space the miniature Madonna's bras.
Or if the decal or the styrene wrapper was printed to give the spacing, and
you use that to glue the rivets. Maybe you could used the printed spacing
and slightly emboss each rivet location to help "seat" the rivet. I'm not
sure if any of these ideas are practical, but maybe they will inspire
someone to come up with a better idea.
- John