About My Instagram Account and Little Toy Soldiers
I feel like I owe you an explanation about my Instagram account. It’s gotten a lot more nerdy over the last year.
You see, I have a hobby. It’s a game called Warhammer 40,000. I play it with my 15 year old son Alec and it’s been an incredible way for he and I to bond over the last couple of years. We’re both obsessed with the game and constantly discuss and argue about it. I play Space Marines and other forces of The Imperium (the relative “good guys”) while Alec plays Daemons and the forces of Chaos.
This game requires a fair amount of work. It’s played with small plastic miniatures that you have to put together with cement and super glue and then spend many hours painting them. Warhammer 40,000 (henceforth “40K”) is about futuristic armies fighting over blasted and “grimdark” battle fields. It requires the use of tape measures, measurement templates and dice. Lots and lots of dice. The rules for selecting an army, movement, combat, and winning are insanely complicated. The basic rule book alone is 208 pages and each army has a similarly long manual with its own unique rules. In addition, each army has it’s own “fluff” — it’s unique history and accomplishments within the 40K universe. Aside from the game, there are lots of supplementary novels that detail the exploits of many of the 40K factions. Some of those books have even been NY Times bestsellers. The game is expensive, time-consuming (games typically last us over 4 hours) and massively complex. We love it.
I spend a lot of my leisure time modeling and painting the armies the Alec and I play with. He likes putting together the models but has no patience for painting them, while I manage to enjoy both. I find the focus and creativity required incredibly meditative. I’m not evolved enough for proper mediation so painting provides me with similar benefits. It relaxes me after a day of emails, phone calls, problem solving, writing and pitching. When I paint I am mindful of the present. I lose myself in the model and its tiny details. Hours can go by before I look up from my work. I emerge happy.
So back to Instagram.
I am trying to better my painting and modeling so I’ve taken to following lots of 40K painters on Instagram. They produce amazing work and seeing their results inspires me to try and up my hobby game. About a year ago I started posting my own models on my Instagram account as a way of gauging my work and perhaps attract a small following of fellow 40K hobbyists. Photos of futuristic toy soldiers have displaced entertainment industry gatherings and parties. Accordingly, it seems that most of my new Instagram followers are 40K painters and many of my entertainment industry related followers have stopped liking my photos or have simply unfollowed me. That’s OK and perfectly understandable! I’m reveling in being a nerd right now, but you certainly don’t have to.
So that’s why the photos you see on my Instagram stream are so often little toy soldiers. If you’re cool with that, I’d appreciate it if you’d “like” one or comment now and then to encourage me. You see, in the year 40,000, The Imperium of Man is beset on all sides by daemons, heretics and foul xenos! I’m doing my part to stop their evil schemes, one model at a time.
