GHQ Models Forums

Hello all.

I am painting the first platoon of what will be the full 3rd Company of the Schwere Heeres Panzer Abteilung Feldherrnhalle as it appeared in Hungary in 1945 (Tiger Ausf. B tanks with production turrets). Expect photos sometime soon.

At any rate one problem I had is painting tracks. I've painted mine dark brown with a rather heavy metallic drybrush (GW bestial brown + chaos black, boltgun metal), so that they appear as muddy/rusty with some metal showing. I'm not entirely satisfied with this (drybrushing never ever looks neat, and there's too much silver and not enough brown... although washes and dull coat should reduce the shine) and wanted to ask you exactly how you paint the tracks on your tanks.

Thank you for any advice,
Michal

Kochman:

It sounds like we have much the same vision of the effect we want to achieve. Over the years I have developed an approach that satisfies me, after experimenting with many different approaches.

What I do largely inverts what you have tried. It may also differ a bit in the specific colors chosen.

I paint the track first in the factory-new color. Then I dirty it up with washes.

So for a tank with all-metal tracks, I paint it first entirely with silver. Wich silver? Right now my preference is Polly-S "Graphite". This is a dark silver, but not as dark as "Gun Metal", which is almost a gloss black. In the past I used "Oxidized Aluminum", and that is still my preference, but I can't find that color on any of the Polly-S wracks at the local hobby shops anymore. So I've moved on to Graphite, and it seems to do well enough.

I paint the whole track Graphite. Then I wash it with Polly-S "Rust". This is a red-brown color. My wash is not as diluted as other washes -- where I normall wash at about a 10-to-1 dilution, by rust wash on the tracks is only at about 5-1o-1. I make sure to get the whole track ... edges, treads, and the upper surface of the lower run. I don't worry at all about slopping it over onto the running gear or fenders ... in fact I do so quite intentionally. But I make sure to hit the tracks themselves quite thoroughly.

Sometimes after this has dried I'll go over it with a very light dry-brushing of "Chorome Silver" or some other light-and-shiny silver. Not always, though, as this particular color combination seems to produce pretty good results for my eye.


Here are a couple of SU-152s I did last summer. I did hit the edges with the chrome dry-brush in this case, as I had it out anyways to put a bit of silver on the teeth of the drive sprockets.


Here are some Italian M13s. Same approach, but no chrome dry-brushing in this case.

Note how I don't restrict the wash to the tracks themselves. All over the running gear is OK by me. Makes the painting simpler, too.


Here is a pic of one of my T-34s from a wargame from a couple years back.

Compare the pic above with this:

An actual T-34 which has recently seen a run-about. It was driven on pavement. Yet its tracks are still covered with dust and rust, and the bare metal of the tracks is actually not too shiny, but still is very metalic in look.

There are many approaches, and no one approach is "right". That's the look I aim for, and I'm satisfied with the results I'm getting.

Thanks! That is very informative.

In fact I think I'll ape your method for the tanks, and also try using real graphite (pencil lead).