Porte Aigle and Drummer plus tips on using Army Painter

I was looking forwards to doing these, and managed to get them finished yesterday. However the Army Painter was a bit of a challenge.

After dipping (using Strong Tone) , I've found that they need to be given a good shake at least six times. Just three or four still leaves too much residue in my opinion. Despite this, one of the models in the above case appeared to have some 'gathering' at the back of the legs. This may have been due to the warm temperature at the time (AP gets sticky and solidifies fairly quickly, even though overall drying time takes between 12-24 hours). Also I'd noticed uneven patches on the Porte Aigle pole and had to repaint it later on. As you can see, brighter colours become significantly duller, so I made things like flesh etc a tad lighter on the base coats. I'm ok with the final product but I'm aware I'm sacrificing quality in favour of time.

I've bought a box of Victrix British Peninsular so I'm considering doing washes next time.

Off to London tomorrow to visit the Imperial War Museum. I'll see what inspiration I can pick up along the way....