<p>The invention discloses a recording apparatus which initially causes an ink sheet (3) coated with thermoplastic ink (2) to come into contact with an intermediate transfer medium having its outer surface composed of a silicone elastomer film, and then causes a thermal-image formation head (7) to selectively heat ink in contact with the intermediate transfer medium so that the ink can selectively adhere to the intermediate transfer medium before to form a complete ink image on the intermediate transfer medium by stripping off the ink sheet from the intermediate transfer medium while temperature of the heated ink still remains above the melting point or softening point. These sequential processes are repeatedly executed for plural rounds with color inks bearing different colors in the order to form a multicolor ink image on the intermediate transfer medium before transferring the multicolor ink image onto the recording paper by tightly pressing the intermediate transfer medium against the recording paper (10).</p>
