Tank Tracks paint color

[TankTracks]

As a newbie to 1/285 I'm finding the differences in painting vs. 15 mm quite interesting. For instance thinning your paints way down is required. And I'm using more washes.

But I find color choices to be different too. The old standby Gunmetal Gray for tank tracks I think looks awful. What do other folks use? I could just leave them the base color but as I am painting Afrika Korps the light sand color is just too boring.

I tried a Polly S Railroad "rust" color I had handy but it just looked like another brown.

Any ideas?

[chrisswim]

i use black, gunmetal or black ink from a 'flat' marker.
Have black, rust, grey, metal color on some different figs that I have picked up over time.

[Mk 1]

I've tried many approaches over the years. Here is what I've settled on...

For tanks with metalic tracks, the best color I found was a Polly-S color called "Oxidized Alumninum". But I can't find that color anymore. So instead I now use Polly-S "Graphite". It is a gray-silver (rather than "Gunmetal", which is more of a black-silver).

For tanks with rubber tracks (or rubber pads on their tracks) I use Polly-S "Grimy Black". This is also the color I used for vehicle tires. It is black with a bit of gray and/or brown in it.

For tracks I then apply a heavy wash with Polly-S "Rust" all over the tracks and the running gear, and even slopping a bit onto the hull. This is a relatively orange rust color, lighter than many others I've seen. When I say heavy I mean lower dilution. For my overall black washes I usually dilute 10-to-1. For my wash on the tracks/running gear I dilute only 5-to-1.

Also, I put a touch of dishwashing soap in my washes. By "a touch", I mean that I just touch the brush to the gooped up nozzle of the dishsoap dispenser. No more. No scooping or dripping it, just touch the gooped up nozzle. It helps release the surface tension in the wash so it flows more smoothly, but too much and you'll get suds in your wash ( ).

Here are some examples:


These Soviet SU-152s had metal tracks, and so are painted with Graphite and then washed with rust. In this case I also did a dry-brushing with Polly-S "Chromium", just because with no rubber on the roadwheels or sprockets KV chassis were known for the bright bare-metal on their tracks.


For a point of comparison from the real world, this is a Russian T-80UM with the Kantemirov Tank Regiment on excersize two years ago. Bare metal tracks have been a constant with Soviet/Russian tanks since their first designs.

If you look at th color of the tracks on this tank, and then at my SU-152s ... well, that's what I'm trying to achieve!


For rubber-padded tracks, here are my US M3 Lee medium tanks. You can see the effect of the black tracks, with the rust wash over the running gear.


Note also how the rust wash has slopped onto the hull a bit. Not an accident -- rather the effect I was looking for.

That's my approach. May be a bit more work than some care to do. There are many approaches, some more and some less involved. I remember one of our best painters, JB*, who used to just paint a mud or dirt color all over the tracks and running gear and leave it at that. In truth, there was much validity in his approach too, but I like my way for my purposes.

Hope that helps.



*JB - WHERE ARE YOU?
Anyone know what's happened to that boy? Ain't heard from him around here in the longest time!