The dark days before the darkest of days in November: Dreamhack Winter is coming up again and yet again (third!) I’ll be joining  the Dutch Intel group on the bus to Sweden. It is amazing how fast time flies since I first came there, but even though it still impresses me every time. Summer was an amazing experience even though I haven’t seen much on the outside. The inside is where all the magic is happening after all.

I’ll be waiting for that moment early in the morning, shivering outdoors in front of ‘the Great Hall(s)’. Inside the Dreamhack crew will still be setting up all our utilities for 5 consecutive days of gaming and related. And even though the bus will most likely be a pretty dirty and uncomfortable journey, it is always filled with laughter and happiness, and faces I can talk to again (I’ve seen a couple on Firstlook).

As with any Dreamhack edition I’ll bring a costume around to join the cosplay competition on Saturday afternoon (fairly late in the afternoon, around 5). This time you’ll see me with a new costume, not the familiar big bad(ass) armoured wolf. It’s going to be exciting to bring something new around, it’ll be a costume from one of my long-favoured games: Shyvana from League of Legends. Although I’ve made some other League costumes so far, this time it adds an extra challenge: to apply my body paint well in the chaos of Dreamhack. But I’m sure the contest judges will appreciate the extra effort!

Last summer I had a blast during the contest and I can’t wait to experience that again, to be in front of a cheering crowd of people who see their favourite characters come to life on stage. And of course any reward will be taken home with my greatest appreciation. Riot games (the company behind League of Legends) will also make an appearance on Dreamhack this year, so I’m sure to group up with some other League cosplayers after the contest and have some fun.

For now I still need to finish most of it, but I’m excited to see the whole picture when it’s done. Because that’s what I love most about creating costumes, from something that seems like nothing you come out a completely different and (usually) amazing appearance, as long as you dedicate yourself to it enough. The looks on people’s faces after ‘the transformation’ is the best satisfaction you can get.

Besides costumes I’ll be going for gaming as well of course! I’ve just successfully earned my propedeuse in Game Creation & Technology and have dedicated the last 6 months to building and understanding games primarily, supporting and worked for several projects. I made anything from game concepts to models, drawings and textures, basically everything that makes a game except for the programming structure! It’s a neat perspective to view games from this point of view, but I will always find the time to play games, and where possible, combine my study and games (I’m building a hell lot of Minecraft maps right now). But sometimes it bothers me that I died because I was looking at a particular interesting texture in a game.

Thankfully Dreamhack will certainly distract me from any of that with its huge population, massive sound systems and anything else that tickles your senses (including scents, for good and bad). I can’t wait to be a part of the group again! I do hope I get to learn some Swedish this time though…

~Merel Eisink/Willowcookie

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