After having “painted” the tracks, (see post nr. 12) they of course needed some weathering before they were to be mounted on the model. This involved few steps:

I have laid the tracks with their outer side up on a sheet of paper and applied different shades of pigments on top (the paper was just to avoid having the pigments all over my desk). I used rather lighter dust pigments – rubble dust, brick dust, European dust, as I wanted to make sure the colours will match the base I have in mind for the model – this would be set in urban environment with a lot of rubble (more about it later).

I wasn’t applying very heavy layer of pigments, just to put some dust into the holes and crevices in the tracks, where it would accumulate even in dry weather. Afterwards I have applied oil thinner on the tracks to provisionally fix the pigments to the tracks. Once the thinner dried I have checked the look of the dusting and polished the outer track surfaces that would be in contact with the ground with fingers. When I was happy with the look I applied the pigment fixer.

On the inner side of the tracks I have applied marks that would be result of this side of tracks being in contact (and being polished by) the wheels. I masked the outer edge of the area along each side of the tracks (left and right of the guide horns) with a masking tape and then applied the AK’s Dark steel pigment AK 086. (I have first tried pencil graphite but the effect was too muted, so I decided to use the pigment, as the effect is more visible, the polished area being more shiny). I have of course appplied the same technique to the wheels (though for this I have used graphite).

Guide horns were drybrushed with Citadel boltgun metal acrylic color and outer edges of the tracks were touched up with pigments as they looked too “clean”.

Outer side of the tracks was then weathered in two steps – first I have applied graphite from pencil with a makeup sponge brush on the surfaces that would be in contact with the ground (to apply the graphite in this way, just rub the pencil on a piece of sandpaper to get graphite into pigment-like form and you can apply it like any pigment). Then I have drybrushed the same areas with Citadel boltgun metal to give it more of the metallic sheen.

I will still need to touch up the tracks once they will be on the model to “marry” them with the base.

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