"Quarks!"

"Shall I order the Quarks to mark out the drilling sites?"

This 28mm metal miniature of a Quark is produced by “Black Tree Design" and can be purchased as Code DW211 Quark from the Penzance-based company’s "Doctor Who" miniatures range. Described as "the robot slaves of the Dominators' galactic empire", the automatons made their first appearance in Mervyn Haisman and Henry Lincoln's August 1968 BBC Black & White Television story "The Dominators".

Initially, I was simply going to replicate the metallic colour scheme I had previously used on a Quark by "Warlord Games", as the figure had already been undercoated (probably) using some "Vallejo" Black Surface Primer and “Citadel” Ironbreaker some four years ago. In addition, it had also been shaded with "Citadel" Nuln Oil, and dry-brushed with (more) Ironbreaker to help bring out some of its somewhat roughly cast (and decidedly soft) detail.

Games Workshop" WIPs - Three Sons Of Horus Tactical Marines shaded in "Citadel" Nuln Oil

However, before I did so, I foolishly started researching just what the walking machine's 'official' palette was meant to be by looking at the "carefully produced in 1:21 scale" figurine manufactured by "Eaglemoss". Disconcertingly, this showed the robot as being predominantly grey-green with white spore spikes - a complete contrast to what I was planning. Moreover, I spotted a colour photograph of the original 'costume' taken at the 1977 Doctor Who exhibition in Blackpool which depicted yet another arrangement. Little wonder I had stopped applying my brushes to the Quarks way back in 2018...

In the end I decided against completely repainting the figure in line with the "Eaglemoss" scheme and instead decided to just tidy the miniature up by darkening the internal areas around its folding arms with an extra splash of "Citadel" Nuln Oil, and dry-brushing them with some "Vallejo" Gunmetal. I also stuck to ‘picking out’ the tiny rectangular areas beneath the bipedal machine’s sensory hemisphere with a combination of “Vallejo” Heavy Bluegrey and “Citadel” Nuln Oil.

Games Workshop" WIPs - Three Sons Of Horus Tactical Marines shaded in "Citadel" Nuln Oil

I did though apply some "Scalecolor" Speed Metal to the robot's sensors for “detecting changes in heat, light and motion”, shaded them with “Citadel” Nuln Oil, and subsequently lightly dabbed these tiny nodules with (more) "Scalecolor" Speed Metal. I also painted the Quark’s directional crystal beam transmitters "Vallejo" White, washed them with "Citadel" Nuln Oil and dry-brushed them with (more) "Vallejo" White, so they would look more crystalline than metallic.

Despite momentarily becoming horribly distracted by this brief journey back to the earliest days of "Doctor Who", I have also been steadily building and priming a number of Sons of Horus Mark III space marines by "Games Workshop". I had promised myself that I was going to keep all my Tactical squads for the Horus Heresy 'bare' when it came to gluing any additional equipment onto my Traitor Legions, But the Burning Of Prospero plastic sprues have so many extras on them that it seemed a little mean-spirited not to add the odd holstered Bolt Pistol or Legion Vexilla...