During the weathering process, the Sheridan miniature here is undergoing a pin-wash. Each section of the miniature is done separately, and the Commander's Station is still fresh from the repairs and repainting - yet to be weathered to catch up with the rest of the Sheridan. I'd be lost if I didn't keep notes on mixes and formulas - with all the delays and breaks between modeling sessions.

Photographed before the August 2010 mishap, the right flank of the "Hard Core 7" miniature. Initially, I thought I might be able to use the decal markings from Adacemy's recent release on the Jaguar Models kit, but alas, the Academy decals are not complete. They do not provide the Unit Codes for the front and rear of the Sheridan, "Hard Core 7" is too large and worst yet - Academy does not provide markings for the right side of the AR/AAV at all. Since I already had to fashion my own "Hard Core 7" gun tube markings, I just made a second set. There is a Knight Chess Piece on the opposite side of the gun tube, as well as Unit Pennant - I painted the Pennant and made a dry-transfer decal for the Knight.

Another problem presented itself with discovery that Fruil individual track links do actually stretch over time, if you use the soft wire they provide in their sets. Initially contemplating cutting the track runs off my Sheridan to redo with a gentle tug on one of them, I got a near-visible shutter of resistance and implied threat of retaliation from my miniature, that caused me to set aside any further crazy notions.

Since I had procrastinated enough to stretch the completion of this project into another decade, I figured why not add the Crew positioned outside the vehicle? Then, if I was willing to do that, then why not come up with a scenic base with a larger group of soldiers all around the Sheridan - like on patrol? This is why modeling projects never seem to end...

In August 2010, excited and heady with making steady progress on my Sheridan miniature, I began to work out adding Crew and Infantry Figures. I stopped the addition of Gear and weathering so that I could get an idea of how and where the Figures would wind up. I came up with the poses shown in the header photo at the top of the page.

Two of these Figures came from Legend Productions' three-figure #LF0107 US AFV Crew Set (Vietnam) and swapped out and or slightly changed arms and heads using Verlinden Productions parts. The other two came from Verlinden Productions #2570 US Tankers & Grunt (Vietnam) three-figure set. For the most part, swapping parts around was easy and only called for minor gap-filling before painting and finishing.

Satisified with this basic setup, I began to size up a display base for the Sheridan - when - disaster struck. I dropped the miniature off the workbench, forgetting how heavy it is. It fell gracefully, inverted, to land upside-down on the floor - and shattered in many pieces.

Stunned, a little stymied, slightly accepting of the irony and undaunted, I picked it back up and began fixing the damage. I could not repair some of the brittle resin parts in the Commander's Cupola/Station, so I replaced them. I was able to fix the damage and get it back to where it was prior to the fall in about a week or so. I began to feel it was going to fight me all the way towards completion. This time, having other models to work on, proved to be a welcome distraction and the Sheridan would sit on my shelf waiting to be resumed once again at the beginning of 2011.