Those tracks are annoying to paint, largely because I already put them on before painting. If I had intended to show the undercarriage as muddy, this wouldn’t have been a problem, but as I want a dusty impression, I need to paint the inside of the track as well as the wheels as fairly clean. This because the wheels would, of course, clean the tracks and themselves of dust just by the tank driving.
With a fairly fine brush, I first painted the inner surface of the track with gun metal and the roadwheel tyre surfaces (but not their sides) with dark grey:
I also drybrushed the outside of the track with the same gun metal, to show the dust being wiped off the profile by the road:
Once this had dried, I painted the tyre surfaces with diluted Indian ink (mixed about 1:1 with water):
The steel surfaces of the return rollers and idlers still need to be painted olive drab for the same reason, and then some more dust added, I think. The metal rims on the roadwheels also need this treatment, because those would probably be wiped clean too.
I also applied the
decals, which isn’t much, really:
This shows two of the three
The third is a similar triangle on the left side of the turret, and that’s it.