by Alwyn "SilencE" Kotze

As gamers we mostly give praise and recognition to the players and teams in our community who separate themselves from the rest with talent, skill and hard work. We tend to forget about the unsung heroes in our community, the guys behind the scenes whom we would never be able to function without, the management. I decided to catch up with Bravado's favourite graphic designer, motivator, love advisor and general mascot, Andrew “Chay” Cowley.





How long have you been with Bravado, and what is your role in the organisation?

I've been with Bravado for a little over 2 years now. Initially I was approached by ex-Bravado DotA player, DeMoNiK, and ex-Bravado writer, slsha, as both a designer and writer for the team respectively. Over the years my role has evolved into more of a managerial one while still doing most of the aesthetics for the organisation. Things that I do include assisting Andreas with whatever needs to be done with regards to sponsors and team management, as well as the upkeep of the website.

How long have you been active in the gaming scene? I remember the two of us playing dota way back in 2005.

My first experience of gaming actually was way back in January of 2000, when I was about 9 years old. My brother had organised a Quake 2 LAN at his house and I played against him and his 19 year-old friends. Needless to say I owned Anyway I didn't really have another taste of that type of gaming until late in 2004 when I was introduced to DotA on South Africa's Battle.net server

What games have you played since you started and what games interest you currently?

I've played DotA (some HoN in beta as well), World of Warcraft, some of the Battlefield series, Quake III/Quake Live, and some Call of Duty 4. Currently I play a lot of Quake Live with the odd DotA game in between. I'm also looking forward to StarCraft II.

Looking at Starcraft II, do you think you might go a bit more competitive with it or do you prefer to play it casually?

No I think I'll be more of a casual player. I generally play games more casually than competitively.


Chay playing Rugby for his beloved Rondebosch

Why don't you game competitively anymore?

My only real competitive experience was in DotA some years back. My main focus is really just helping the local scene in whatever way I can so that players who are more competitive will have a better experience.

So most people nowadays know you only as Chay, what's your full nick and where did you get it from?

Haha, well my "full" nick started out as chaylek, with chay being more of a nickname of that nickname. I didn't really get it from anywhere, just made it up one day.

Tell us more about you and what you do outside of the virtual world?

Outside of eSports I lead a (relatively) healthy lifestyle. I'm currently doing a BA in Creative Brand Comms specialising in Multimedia and I coach a rugby team at my old school in the afternoons. In my spare time I like to spend time with friends and my girlfriend as well as do some personal design projects and KLAP GYM HARD whenever I can!

That being said, how much do you bench and squat?

Enough

Can you tell us more about your personal design projects?

Sure. At the moment I do a lot of illustration which basically starts out as little doodles during theory classes at college and end up on my computer in Adobe Illustrator. I also like to learn just about every program to design with, more recently I've been learning Dreamweaver and FruityLoops for sound production. Don't currently have an online portfolio, but one is coming soon

Do you have any design plans with bravado in mind? If so, anything you can tell us about?

Gotcha... Currently I'm working on the team shirt designs for rAge. We also have a new website planned for the quite distant future which I've been planning. Nothing beyond that at the moment though.


Chay with his lady

Let's do a bit of word association, all the cool people do it! (say something, like "shot" or "alright!")

Alright!

Venomancer

Hydralisk

Vitrolic

*edited*

Gonna have to edit that. Anything else?

Strapping young fellow?

Favourite food

Panth-- I mean Pizza.

Favourite movie

RockNRolla

Favourite Cooldrink

Lemonade

Mmm sweet lemonade! Favourite South African Gamer?

Takbok np

Favourite international player?

Gux the model

She's quite cute yeah. Thanks for making time to answer all these questions Any last shoutouts?

A few - pacman needs new sox, kelmos needs to perform and Peekay, you're my bitch . Best of luck to everyone in their eSports careers. Hopefully we can make this scene bigger and better as each day passes.

Sounds good. One last thing though – ASL?

19, twice on sundays, Cape Town.