Has you, a friend, or a loved contracted a case of Toy Soldier Brain?
Toy Soldier Brain is a term I use to describe the ever-pervasive love of tiny plastic men with guns and other related concepts that I have not managed to shake off of myself at any point in my life. At the wee single-digits of age I, still caught within the bold presumption that I was a boy, found myself very attached to the idea of being a soldier, which I then expressed through slamming little plastic soldiers together. I loved my legion of green and peach army men, and I still have a big box full of all of them. I remember cutting up old shoeboxes to make forts and factories, or using wooden blocks to make buildings to turn to pieces over the course of a battle. Green always won, that was rule. Peach and blue would always end up losing, except for one time I think. My brother and sister, both years older than me, had no interest in it, so I would play with them alone in the same spot in the living room. Foundational days, even though we don't think about it.
I aged out of those, of course, and experienced a lull in my interest in toys. Video games replaced it for several years (years that weren't very good). Eventually though, I learned of a thing called Warhammer 40k. Initially I only engaged with the video games the setting spawned, but soon learned of its roots as a tabletop game. It's then that I made my first step into a renaissance of Toy Soldiery for me. These were not mere kid's toys, these were for adults! This had a game and a hobby! Fuck yeah! I got my first sprues from an 8th edition 40k starter kit, cut the push-fit parts out with safety scissors, and enjoyed wading into the sea of tabletop nerd shit. I remember the first paint set I ever got had white and yellow that were congealed to the point of uselessness, the terrible citadel starter brush that I clogged with texture paste immediately, all the horribly thick highlighting I did on my guardsmen... Such a great time!
That beginning was years ago, and I changed more after that. Warhammer was already real expensive and only got worse, plus my interest in the setting waned. The one other friend I had who was interested in miniature stuff went in the direction of historicals, making forces designed on obscure civil wars from the 70s. I eventually went the way of smaller, but still fantastical projects, like the streamlined wargames made by OnePageRules and the grimdark comedy masterpiece that is Turnip28. I ended up finding cheaper, bulk miniature producers, which meant I could actually get more than 10 tiny fellas without selling my soul. This is where I am for now, and I have a couple projects I'd love to document for y'all! (Tomorrow at least, it is night and I need to get up early tomorrow.)