Skinning your drone – a review

[DJ Wes]

I recently applied a DecalGirl skin to my Mavic 2 and thought I’d let other people know of my experience in case anyone finds it interesting.

After seeing a post here in this forum from someone else who had “skinned their drone” I decided to look at DecalGirl skins for my drone. I don’t know whether or not it’s a silly thing to do but I wanted to have a look. DecalGirl was offering a 25% discount at the time which made it that much more enticing to buy a skin. After looking at many skins, I selected the “Hot Rod” skin design because it reminded me of a car I once owned – a 1967 Camaro that was orange with black racing stripes.

The skin arrived in less than a week. I watched the video of skinning a drone from the DecalGirl web site. It didn’t look too hard. I applied the skin pieces in the same order as shown in the video. After doing so, I found I had to re-adjust the skins at the ends of the legs under the motors. So, my first suggestion for anyone else doing this is to apply the leg skins before applying those that wrap around the base of the motors at the ends of the legs.

I found the skin material to be fairly strong and forgiving. I don’t know if anyone has ever torn a skin when pulling it off of the sheet. I didn’t. The skin felt like it was very strong and there was no danger of tearing. While applying the skin pieces to the drone, one sometimes has to peel the skin away and re-apply it so that it aligns perfectly. This was easy to do. The adhesive allows the skin material to be pulled away and re-applied without any negative affect.

The whole process, including the remote and two extra batteries took a little over an hour. I wasn’t in any hurry and I took my time. I weighed my drone before and after to see how much weight the skins added. Before applying the skins, my drone weighed 902 grams. After applying the skins, my drone weighs 917 grams. That’s 15 grams of skin. I don’t know how many seconds that will shave off of the flight time for one battery. I’m guessing not much.

I do have some 3D-printed leg extensions. I had to re-design these slightly where I increased the size to 102% so that they fit over the newly skinned front legs. My 3D-printed extensions for the rear legs continued to fit ever after skinning. They are just slightly harder to get on now.

I found the most difficult skin piece to apply was the skin on the face of the remote controller. It took several re-adjustments to get it aligned perfectly.

Overall, I’m very happy with the look of my newly skinned drone. There are a lot of edges. For now, the skins are holding well. Time will tell how well the skins hold up to repeated handling.

Thanks for listening.

 

[kadras]

I just applied a DecalGirl skin to my MP1 this weekend. Pretty much same good comments as your experience. I took much longer than an hour, and I didn't skin the remote. Mine didn't come with leg skins though I don't know if I would have applied them.

 

[Toyer]

View attachment 67878

I recently applied a DecalGirl skin to my Mavic 2 and thought I’d let other people know of my experience in case anyone finds it interesting.

After seeing a post here in this forum from someone else who had “skinned their drone” I decided to look at DecalGirl skins for my drone. I don’t know whether or not it’s a silly thing to do but I wanted to have a look. DecalGirl was offering a 25% discount at the time which made it that much more enticing to buy a skin. After looking at many skins, I selected the “Hot Rod” skin design because it reminded me of a car I once owned – a 1967 Camaro that was orange with black racing stripes.

The skin arrived in less than a week. I watched the video of skinning a drone from the DecalGirl web site. It didn’t look too hard. I applied the skin pieces in the same order as shown in the video. After doing so, I found I had to re-adjust the skins at the ends of the legs under the motors. So, my first suggestion for anyone else doing this is to apply the leg skins before applying those that wrap around the base of the motors at the ends of the legs.

I found the skin material to be fairly strong and forgiving. I don’t know if anyone has ever torn a skin when pulling it off of the sheet. I didn’t. The skin felt like it was very strong and there was no danger of tearing. While applying the skin pieces to the drone, one sometimes has to peel the skin away and re-apply it so that it aligns perfectly. This was easy to do. The adhesive allows the skin material to be pulled away and re-applied without any negative affect.

The whole process, including the remote and two extra batteries took a little over an hour. I wasn’t in any hurry and I took my time. I weighed my drone before and after to see how much weight the skins added. Before applying the skins, my drone weighed 902 grams. After applying the skins, my drone weighs 917 grams. That’s 15 grams of skin. I don’t know how many seconds that will shave off of the flight time for one battery. I’m guessing not much.

I do have some 3D-printed leg extensions. I had to re-design these slightly where I increased the size to 102% so that they fit over the newly skinned front legs. My 3D-printed extensions for the rear legs continued to fit ever after skinning. They are just slightly harder to get on now.

I found the most difficult skin piece to apply was the skin on the face of the remote controller. It took several re-adjustments to get it aligned perfectly.

Overall, I’m very happy with the look of my newly skinned drone. There are a lot of edges. For now, the skins are holding well. Time will tell how well the skins hold up to repeated handling.

Thanks for listening.

I’ve been looking at getting some, thanks for the honest review!

 

[Sassy]

That was an interesting post. I too checked out DecalGirl last night and was impressed with the number of designs. Your post regarding the application of the skin has sold me. But I'm going to let my jewelry making wife apply the skin. She has more patience a good eye and steady hand. The hard part is picking out the design.

 

[jspil]

View attachment 67878

I recently applied a DecalGirl skin to my Mavic 2 and thought I’d let other people know of my experience in case anyone finds it interesting.

After seeing a post here in this forum from someone else who had “skinned their drone” I decided to look at DecalGirl skins for my drone. I don’t know whether or not it’s a silly thing to do but I wanted to have a look. DecalGirl was offering a 25% discount at the time which made it that much more enticing to buy a skin. After looking at many skins, I selected the “Hot Rod” skin design because it reminded me of a car I once owned – a 1967 Camaro that was orange with black racing stripes.

The skin arrived in less than a week. I watched the video of skinning a drone from the DecalGirl web site. It didn’t look too hard. I applied the skin pieces in the same order as shown in the video. After doing so, I found I had to re-adjust the skins at the ends of the legs under the motors. So, my first suggestion for anyone else doing this is to apply the leg skins before applying those that wrap around the base of the motors at the ends of the legs.

I found the skin material to be fairly strong and forgiving. I don’t know if anyone has ever torn a skin when pulling it off of the sheet. I didn’t. The skin felt like it was very strong and there was no danger of tearing. While applying the skin pieces to the drone, one sometimes has to peel the skin away and re-apply it so that it aligns perfectly. This was easy to do. The adhesive allows the skin material to be pulled away and re-applied without any negative affect.

The whole process, including the remote and two extra batteries took a little over an hour. I wasn’t in any hurry and I took my time. I weighed my drone before and after to see how much weight the skins added. Before applying the skins, my drone weighed 902 grams. After applying the skins, my drone weighs 917 grams. That’s 15 grams of skin. I don’t know how many seconds that will shave off of the flight time for one battery. I’m guessing not much.

I do have some 3D-printed leg extensions. I had to re-design these slightly where I increased the size to 102% so that they fit over the newly skinned front legs. My 3D-printed extensions for the rear legs continued to fit ever after skinning. They are just slightly harder to get on now.

I found the most difficult skin piece to apply was the skin on the face of the remote controller. It took several re-adjustments to get it aligned perfectly.

Overall, I’m very happy with the look of my newly skinned drone. There are a lot of edges. For now, the skins are holding well. Time will tell how well the skins hold up to repeated handling.

Thanks for listening.

Decal Girl is the best in the business in my opinion. Nice job on your drone. I havevt noticed that design on the website, but I think it looks awesome and suits your Mavic well. Here is a picture of mine.

 

[Level]

A skin is one of the least expensive and most underrated of all possible upgrades. A careful choice can mean the difference between hassle free flying or having the craft knocked out of the air by a bird of prey.

I have my MA continually visited by eagles and hawks that fly a significantly long distance to get a closer look . . . and they move away without ever interfering with my flight. This is always a very reassuring outcome since there are frequent occasions where a downed craft could not be recovered in these rugged Andean mountains.

The general idea is to have it look unlike anything else that flies.

 

[Inspirephil]

There’s also Wrapgrade, Mighty Skins, and I have tried Decal Girl as well. I finally stuck with Wrapgrade because it’s a brighter design which I can see my M2P better while it’s up in the air.
All the other ones are great it just came down to personal preference.

 

[Inspirephil]

Plus I didn’t want to cover the whole drone

 

[naiku]

I found the most difficult skin piece to apply was the skin on the face of the remote controller. It took several re-adjustments to get it aligned perfectly.

100% agree with this! Even though it's one of the flattest pieces to apply, it's also the largest and needs to be lined up with all the buttons and LEDs on the controller. Mines not quite right, needs to be moved towards the top of the controller at most 1mm.

Here's mine...

 

[A.O.]

Well I see I'm over a year late to this party but my DecalGirl skin is in the mail on its way and this was a good read.