Denys Tsiokhla is one of the most talented paper-crafters active in the Warhammer 40k fandom, a master model maker who has created everything from Imperial Knights to Warlord Battle Titans from paper, card, and a lot of super glue. He’s also Ukrainian, and has spent the last three years making models in a country under siege by Russian invasion.
Wargamer first spoke to Tisokhla in December 2022, ten months into the Russian invasion, after we spotted an excellent papercraft Land Raider battle tank he’d shared in a Warhammer 40k reddit community. At the time he was living alone in Kyiv, his family having evacuated in the face of the initial Russian armored push towards the capital that Spring.
Three years later, and Tsiokhla is still in Kyiv, but his family is now back with him. The front lines of the ground war are now far to the East, but Russian rocket and drone attacks continue to reach the capital. As an electrical engineer Tsiokhla has been busy with the war, “electrical engineering, rebuilding electrical systems, protection, designing new stations and so on”.
Russian rocket attacks continue to target Ukraine’s civilian infrastructure. Back in the winter of December 2022, Tsiokhla built his model kits by the light of a head torch, as regular power blackouts left the city without light or heat. Model making helped keep his mind occupied. As he puts it now, when the “hands are working, [the] mind is clearing”.
He’s created “something like 10 models” since the war started, for a variety of Warhammer 40k factions, but particularly focused on enormous walkers: Imperial Knights, Warhammer Titans, the bigger battlesuits for the T’au Empire. “Most of them I gave as gifts, or gave as prizes for local auctions to raise some money for the Armed Forces of Ukraine”.
He sees “lots of communities of different kinds” for the 40k fandom in Kyiv. “Some are regular tabletop clubs, some are teaching kids to make models”, he says. Even in a warzone, kids are picking their favorite Space Marine chapters. Tsiokhla’s particular focus, papercraft, is a little different, but it’s not because of the war: “it takes tons of time to make a model, so paper modelling communities are mostly online groups”.
It’s a kernel of normality in a world that has otherwise been turned upside down. “War changes everything”, Tsiokhla says, “literally any moment a Russian ballistic missile can hit my home and kill me, or a drone can hit my home while I’m trying to sleep at night”.
“You can’t plan anything farther than a few days”, he adds. “Friends are dying, prices are rising, donations and support of the AFU is [part of everyday life]”… “everything changed, priorities changed, life will never be the same”.
“Even kid’s games are now different – they are fighting Russians and protecting their friends from hordes of zombies”, he says.
Warhammer 40k remains unchanged for Tsiokhla, who calls it “a way to escape reality and enjoy some reads”. In the last few years Ukrainian language editions of Warhammer 40k books became available, so Tsiokhla is now “buying books to refresh memories and support the publisher”.
Tsiokhla is the kind of Warhammer 40k fan I expect to meet anywhere in the world. A family man with a creative streak, a sense of community, and an interest in 40k fiction. He’s doing his job and pushing on with his hobby in spite of what’s happened to his country. He’s making beautiful, delicate models that take weeks of patient work to complete, knowing that the rocket that kills him and his family could arrive tonight.
If you’re interested in Tsiokhla’s work, check out this article about his incredible papercraft Titan maniple.
Source: Wargamer
