Valve has recently announced the final list of skins to be included in the Dreams & Nightmares case. More than 16 thousand works made by designers from all over the world took part in the contest. Besides a $100,000 paycheck, winners get the eternal hall of fame in the players’ inventories.
This is how Dreams & Nightmares CS:GO contest winners look like:
MAG-7 Foresight skin creators Dan and Lena live in Zarechny, Russia. They still cannot believe what happened, and the feeling of triumph does not allow them to sleep peacefully at night, and even three days after receiving the letter, they hardly believed that their shotgun skin won.
Creating skins is a hobby for them. Lena is currently studying graphic design, and it’s her fourth year. She has been drawing for about eight years, starting digitally a year and a half ago. In her free time, she does freelance gigs. Dan is a power tool salesman in the daytime. But after the routine chores are over, they sit down together to work on the skins.
Lena: “We just come up with great ideas. There are lots of them in the head, actually. I hope we will work on this more closely, try to implement them all. It never happens that we can’t create a concept, but rather, we have to choose one of several ideas, which is always painful.”
Dan: “Lena is the primary author and illustrator of this work. I started making skins in 2019, but they were mediocre. Finally, I got Lena to work, and the skins became well-suited for getting into the game.”
The production is divided as follows: Dan and Lena work on the idea together, Lena draws art, and Dan combines the concept with the in-game model, makes sure that it looks good, and does “the whole technical part.”
The Foresight’s main character is an octopus. It covers the dark tablecloth of the divination table, looks at the player with the corner of its eye, and reaches for the WIN shotgun particle.
Lena: “At first, when I thought about what I should draw, everyone around was drawing tentacles and octopuses, so I thought that I could do them too. As a basis, I decided to choose animals that predict victories in the Olympics, in other games [Paul the Octopus is one of the 2010 FIFA World Cup heroes – edit]. And on our skin, the octopus is reaching the WIN sign. By this, I tried to create something cool with the MAG-7 rectangles. The Sun, the Moon, and planets hint about astrology and predictions. After all, it’s the Dreams & Nightmares case. [When applying,] there is a place to add the description, but we always just took stupid quotes and inserted them instead of giving a normal description [laughs]. Unfortunately. We had to describe the idea.”
Dan started playing CS:GO in 2014, and his first self-created workshop products are dated 2019. Lena does not play MM much, but she is a chicken-fighting specialist.
Lena: “My Steam profile says that I played only 70 minutes, but it’s actually more because I play on Dan’s account. To be honest, against bots. But I’m already a specialist in shooting chickens and bots. I also can kick the ball.”
One could submit as many skins as possible to participate in the competition. This two applied with everything they had, and any skin could’ve got into the game. Still, out of 16 thousand applications in total, only 17 skins passed.
Dan: “We were not really into skinmaking before the contest; only had about two every six months. So we didn’t waste our time on it. But when the contest was announced, it was a huge kick in the ass for us to start doing something. And during the contest, we made thirty skins. A fruitful period, we casually spent nights working.”
Lena: “For three months, we have wished for victory. Every time we passed under the bridge with trains moving above us, we thought of a victory. So thanks to Russian Railways for the good luck [laughs]. At the very end, when out of all the skins the Octopus hyped up a little, we thought that he could win.”
Dan: “Yeah, the workshop displays viewership statistics, and at the end of the competition, the numbers went up. No such thing happened to our other skins. So we began to suspect and say that if it works, this one might be.”
Dan and Lena also shared a list of their favorite skins and the ones they liked in the workshop.
Dan: “Among those who have not won, MP9 | Clown by BASBAY & CiDDi was decent, b3d also had some cool skins. Also, R4YLI & Biba do amazing stuff, converting FAMAS | Hunting Season for the contest.”
Lena: “It’s a pity that a bunch of cool skins didn’t win. I would like to see them in the game.”
When picking their Dreams & Nightmares favorite, they unanimously chose Madara.
The Dreams & Nightmares case contest has seen graphic design beginners like Dan and Lena and some super experienced artists with hundreds and thousands of works in the bag. Often, 3D artists go beyond modeling CS:GO only. However, our heroes have never tried to work on other games. But both Lena and Dan do not reject this possibility in the future.
Finally, Lena shared her emotions after receiving the letter and the reaction of the relatives to winning the contest.
Lena: “It was Sunday, three o’clock in the morning. I was frantically finishing my project because on Monday morning I had to present it. And then this letter drops to the mailbox. My hands trembled, and I began to panic. I immediately woke Dan up: “Dan, get up, the letter is here!” And while we were checking whether it was a fake or not by googling all the emails, people began to congratulate us. We went nuts when we realized that we really won. It was really cool. We did not sleep for a day after that. We woke up the parents the second we found out. They didn’t sleep with us either, and they were also happy”.
Dan: “They knew we were making skins but were skeptical about it. We didn’t know if it was possible to win, and it seems that it was. So it’s a bit of great luck to get there, and in the end to be chosen from 16 thousand works”.
Twenty-four participants developed 17 skins in the competition for the Dreams & Nightmares case, getting $100,000 per skin. Valve has not yet announced the exact case release date, but it will likely not happen until the second half of December. So creators will have to modify their products a little before they are added to the game.
Congratulations to the winners once again! In the meantime, while everyone is waiting for the release, we invite you to take a look at the skins highly rated by the community, as well as read the interview with 2Minds Studio.
