Any one do this ? If so how to go about it I have gotten hold of a kit almost completed with the tracks already glued on the the running gear so cant remove to paint they are LTL never tried this method of painting tracks so hope to get some ideas as to how to approch it TIA for any suggestions

John,
A lot depends on the model itself, as some techniques will lend themselves better to different types of suspension systems. Also, is there any paint on the hull or lower suspension at all? If not, there are several ways you can go about doing this. I prefer one of two methods:

Method 1): Spray a dark shade over the entire suspension sytem, then using an airbrush, highlight the suspension items with the basic vehicle color. When this has had a chance to dry, pick out the details with a brown or burnt sienna wash, and drybrush the tracks with various shades until you get the desired color. Then highlight the tracks by drybrushing the metal color of your choice.

Method 2): Paint the entire vehicle suspension in the base color, and using successive thin washes applied with a wide brush, "stain" just the tracks with a dark brown, black or burnt sienna wash, then highlight the metal parts of the tracks by drybrushing with the metal color of your choice.

For either method, you can "hide" mistakes and sloppiness with careful detail painting with a brush, or simply cover it up with "weathering" in the form of dirt, mud, or dust, either with pigments, or airbrushing. But if you are careful, you shouldn't have too many "mistakes".

VR, Russ

I tend to paint mine on mate. I use enamels for this,as any over paint can be removed after about 10 mins with thinner. It works for me. You can see my stuff on fb Matt.E.Models. To see how it stands up.

Thanks for the quick responces I will try them out

Some suspension systems lend themselves to complete removal of the wheels and tracks as one piece. I recently finished a DML Marder based on the PzII Chassis. I assembled the indy link tracks then draped them over the mounted but not cemented wheels, drive sprockets, Idlers and return rollers. I cemented the return rollers and road wheels to the tracks and when dry removed the entire assembly as one piece. After painting the base color and camo on the wheels I hand painted the rubber rims then the tracks.


G