Perhaps one of the best known & highly respected cosplayers from Saudi Arabia, Ahmed is both highly entertaining and extremely accurate with his portrails of his favorite characters.
He is what is known as a model cosplayer – someone who does not necissarily create his costumes but rather spends time assembling them and would rather focus on living the character out instead.
We had a short Q&A to get to know the man under the black ops attire – and this is what he had to say.
Q. Tell us a little about yourself.
A. Where can I start? I‘m a video game maniac, especially when it comes to retro and old school games.
Love to be an actor and voice actor – An easy-going guy and I love life.
Q. What do you think about the cosplaying community ?
A. The cosplay community and specifically in the GCC is growing every year. We meet new cosplayers and they are just as excited as we are which makes me very happy.
People are supportive.
I remember I was about to retire from cosplaying but I received a huge amount of support from cosplayers and non-cosplayers alike. Which just goes to prove they appreciate what we do even though they’re not cosplayers.
Q. Do you attend conventions regularly? Any favorite convention and why?
A. My favorite convention is MEFCC and why is that? The number of cosplayers in that convention is HUGE! Like, international cosplayers and not only from the GCC.
Not only that, the cosplay competition is always tense, especially when you have famous international cosplayers as judges like the one in 2017 – I’ll never forget it.
Q. Any Funny stories you‘d like to share?
A. Back in 2017 at MEFCC, I cosplayed as Hanzo from Overwatch with my friends. We finished our skit and went off stage while they announced the winners.
When suddenly, a girl jumped on me OUTTA NOWHERE and hugged me tight while crying.
I remember her saying “why did you kill Genji? I love you but why?”
I was speechless. Good times though.
If there is one cosplayer that I look up to it‘s VEGA COSPLAY, AKA Saud Al-Hazani
When you were a kid, didn’t you ever wish that one day you‘d be a Super hero? Cosplay was a chance for my dreams to become a reality.
Yeeeah I can’t avoid bullets using Albert Wesker’s crazy speed but being able to wear his costume and act like him is a lot of fun.
I also love seeing many characters interacting with each other. Nathan Drake having a chat with Lara Croft or Superman challenging Tracer for a pizza or something like that.
I say this to anyone who asks me about cosplay and how to start. Always start with easy characters to enter the world of cosplay. Don’t be sad when you make a mistake, learn from it.
Always learn the characters background before cosplaying, it will help you for your skits and poses for photoshoots.
The Team
- Cosplayer: Ahmed Dragunov
- Photographer: Ibrahim Ansari
- Visual Effects: Adrijana Cernic