While I was planning the markings (more on this later), I have proceeded on weathering lower parts of the vehicle and running gear, so that this could be assembled and the vehicle could then be tackled with all the parts intact.

As far as the tracks are concerned, I was very pleased with the tracks supplied in the kit.. They are very well molded and nicely detailed. They snap together and are essentially workable. The fit of the tracks is good, some links were bit loose, but Trumpeter provided sufficient track links, so that you can just replace these with other piece.

I have painted tracks in my usual way in earth coloured tones and weathered with mix of pigments. I created my own mix of pigments, which was much lighter than the one used for the lower hull, so there is bit of a contrast between the two parts. When mixing the pigments I found out there is one secret to adding more interest to the pigment based effects – mixing together pigments with higher contrast between them. I have used 5 or 6 different dust shade pigments and the applied the mix gently on the surface placed horizontally and fixed it with thinner or pigment fixer. I proceeded slowly and added more pigments, when I felt the coverage was not consistent. At the end I rubbed the wheels to remove the pigments from the raised surfaces. The same pigment mix was used on tracks, I have just applied this more heavily.

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