Painting Tracks

October 18, 20232 yr

When posting the building of a WW I MARK tank it was suggested to post a little tutorial about painting tracks in our modeling sections.

There are countless ways to paint tracks. You´ll find several of excellent tutorials for painting tracks on YT e.g. I adopted this procedure that works very well for all kind of tracks, so I will post it here. The colors and pigments I used for these tracks are tailored to the ETO.

Step # 1: After assembling the track links I wash the tracks with warm water and detergent. I let them dry before I apply a dark grey primer.

Step # 2: I spray the tracks with irregular spots and stripes of orange and red brown acrylic to avoid a monotone base color – drying-phase.

Step # 3: For dry mud I dab the tracks with light brown “European Earth” pigments mixed with a sandy enamel wash – drying-phase.

Step # 4: Same procedure for wet mud with dark brown “Burnt Umber” pigments – drying-phase (if you want to present straw etc. you can add static grass here).

Step # 5: With a soft cloth I wipe dark grey “Dark Steel” pigments on the tracks. After the pigments are applied I “seal” them with a coat of matt varnish.

Step # 6: To give them a metal look. I drybrush the tracks with a silver or aluminium acrylic.

The procedure will work for metal tracks (picture # 10) and rubber tracks (picture # 11) as well.

Thanks for looking!