Maram Al-Aradi is a familiar face in the Bahrain cosplay community and has also been a judge at Dreamland Expo 2018. When not involved in cosplay, Maram tends to her day job working with the supreme council of environment and has a Chemical Engineering background. She is famous for her Grim Reaper attire for which, she says, she had the perfect persona to pull it off.
Being a dedicated cosplayer means Maram pulls out all the stops, she makes her own cosplays and even prepares props, custom built helmets, guns etc. as needed without which – she says – cosplaying would be tasteless. She makes sure she does justice to her chosen character and focuses on overall appearance. A cosplay she is proud of is her Original Character Scarlich, which is a cross between a normal human and a witch which took about 3 hours to dress up – adding testament to her commitment. Some of her dream cosplays are Miss Fortune, Dancer of the Boreal, Shyvana and Daenerys Targaryen.
Maram has also worked with her sister Marwa on a group cosplay at Bahrain Comic Con 2018 wherein they won 3rd place and they have an interesting future project of playing characters from The Avengers: Infinity Wars series.
Her motivation to cosplay, other than being a hobby and challenging herself is the words of appreciation she receives and admiration from people at conventions. She has a soft spot for kids who get excited to see her in character. A gripe she has with conventions though is the long wait in ques to enter the gaming area and having to pay the full ticket amount even though cosplayers remain a major attraction at conventions.
Maram would love to cosplay in japan, the birthplace of cosplaying. She strongly believes this is a career orientated path which helps develop talent and opens doors to several fields including voice acting, make-up artist, VFX and more.
She has no plans of stopping any time soon and hopes she can continue cosplaying all her life, especially wanting to cosplay as a family with her future husband and children.
Follow Maram on instagram @m.alaradi & Facebook – Maram Al-Aradi.
“If Cosplayers are not encouraged nor appreciated properly, the community will die in Bahrain”
The Team
- Cosplayer: Maram Alaradi
- Photographer: Ibrahim Ansari
- Creative Assistant: Haneen Al-Farwan