Interview with Quzga
Today we bring you something very special! We have interviewed a skin creator by the name of “Quzga”, who is a lovely Swedish Duck. Quzga created quite a few skins, and a lot of them saw huge popularity with the community, such as his MP5 Driller, or the AUG BACKPACKER he created with other people.
We are very grateful to bring you the thoughts and answers to a skin creator, who was featured back in 2014 in the Operation Breakout Weapon Case and recently in 2023 in the Anubis Collection Package (learn more).
Only having three skins accepted into the game so far, he has lots of potential and created some amazing skins during his time as a skin creator. Quzga has worked and collaborated with many different skin makers from the scene and he is very well versed in the lore and stories of the Steam Community Workshop.
He also likes watching movies/tv, collecting fossils and is a big fan of Jurassic Park (and ducks).
Learn more about Quzga, his story, CS2 skin creation and the process behind it!
When did you start playing CS?
Back in 2005 when I was around 9, my mom met a guy who was in a casual 1.6 clan called GoG (Grumpy old gamers), not exactly A-tier CS but they had fun.
He let me play it a few times on his PC and I really enjoyed it, I remember the first ever map I played was de_survivor, which I even made a skin, the XM1014 - Survivor based on a few years ago
After that I played 1.6 for a few years as it was popular in Sweden at the time, after the release of source I felt like the whole CS community was sort of dying and changed to COD/Halo for a few years.
2012 I came back to try the CSGO beta and didn’t like it one bit!
But in late 2013 I gave it another shot and fell in love with it.
I guess, in a way Counter-Strike has been a part of most of my life for almost 20 years…feels weird to think about it.
What was the first skin you made?
I’m not sure if I ever uploaded it in the first place, but as I’m something of a virtual hoarder I found a very old photo I can include. (Quzga has probably 100TB of Data and pictures, he saves almost everything).
Apparently, I made it on 28th of March 2014, I don’t really recall making it but I remember thinking the idea of tradable skins was fascinating to me as I loved unlocking the rare camos in COD so the second I realized you could make your own I quickly looked up the guide and gave it a try.
Three months later I posted the P2000 | Ivory on the Workshop and the rest is history.
Quzga’s first skin from 2014! What a blast from the past. You can tell that this skin was made during the early era of CS.
What is your favorite skin you made?
That is a though question to answer! Every time I look at a skin I’ve made, whether it’s 6 months or 1 year after, I find that I see it very differently and notice things I didn’t notice earlier so my opinion of my own skins changes constantly.
My favourites are probably foremost about the uniqueness of the idea and how happy I am with the execution.
I think I would probably put Aug | Backpacker as my #1 overall, patches aren’t something you see on skins and rarely fabric either, and a theme that in a way celebrates the maps of CS too feels like the perfect combo.
I really want to remaster it for CS2 in higher quality but I think the CSGO one holds up.
If I was asked a few years ago I would probably put SG 553 | KINTSUGI 金継ぎ up there too, looking back on it I’m not super happy with the way it looks in the old Lightning but feel like it has the potential to be good if I ever remake it for CS2.
MP5-SD | Driller is most definitely my favourite in terms of quality alone, I’m quite happy with that one but I am getting a bit bored of the whole driller theme having made that for years now but I do think that series works very well.
Why did you decide to make skins in the first place?
I was already interested in design and Photoshop for many years before I ever touched a skin, but before then I mostly did posters, cringy intros for COD clans, or simple photo edits.
Winter Offensive came out on 18th December 2013 and I had just turned 17 the month before, with that update Valve enabled custom skins to be uploaded but I didn’t realize that you could make your own skins until a few months later in 2014.
The concept of skins was still pretty new, especially ones that you can sell, and buy with an actual value so I was very interested in it from the moment I first got a skin dropped in the game. An M4A1-S | Bright Water in
Field-Tested, which I did not want to use, as I was afraid it would become more worn over time (Surely I wasn’t the only one).
When I discovered that not only could you upload your own skins to the game, but some could even be chosen for use by all players, I was thrilled to give it a shot. However, transitioning from creating flat images and videos to designing game skins was no small feat—especially with the only available tutorial being as perplexing as if it were written in Mandarin! Moreover, I was completely unaware that creators are compensated when their skins are selected. Imagine my surprise and delight when my first skin, designed purely for my own use as a skin enthusiast, was accepted into the game.
What were your feelings about how the community reacted to your work?
To be honest, while I have made skins since 2014, it wasn’t until the last 2 years or so that I was starting to get more than an occasional comment so to have any “reaction” at all feels very new and exciting for me.
I’ve had a couple of popular skins here and there throughout the years but the reactions to Driller, Muted Spray, and the Zeus skin all have been crazy!
And I love it! When I saw Anomaly react to it on stream and point out all the small details I thought no one would notice, it genuinely made my whole week.
The biggest negative aspect of the workshop in my opinion is that you basically work in darkness, as in you don’t know what Valve wants, and you don’t get any feedback from them either so you don’t know how to improve or why your work isn’t being actively picked.
It can be very disheartening to make items for years on the Steam Workshop without any accepts in the Game. I think the community giving you attention (good and bad) is quite important for improving and keeping your motivation high without having regular accepts. Even when OhnePixel roasted some of my skins for being Valorant, it made me smile, because at least someone was talking about it.
Where do your ideas come from? Where do you get inspired?
It’s easy, I just enter my closet, close the door and ponder my orb.
Quzga pondering his orb for skin ideas
Jokes aside, I think I get inspiration from pretty much everything, it’s about the way you look at things and perceive the world. Everything in the world has its own theme, some are more distinct and unique than others.
I really enjoy the challenge of taking something that works in one context like a drill, oil rig, first aid kit, travelling luggage, etc. and trying to turn it into a skin for a gun while keeping the theme and overall aesthetic clear.
When you look at a 50s diner what do you see? White & black checkered floor in a glossy lacquer, red leathery chairs/stools, booths & tables colored in mint and eggshell white. That’s a very distinct theme in colors and shape.
But if you turn that into a skin and show it to someone, can they instantly tell you what the theme is?
Besides watching films and TV and playing games, I find that other art forms inspire me. Often, an idea sparks when I see something in a show and wonder, "Could this work as a skin?" This approach has consistently proven effective.
Were you surprised by the skins/stickers Valve chose?
For the last case in CS2 yeah, while I was disappointed to not be accepted, I was even more disappointed by the skins Valve chose for the case.
I think after such a long period of waiting, and thousands of skins posted since the CS2 beta, what we got was pretty underwhelming. I saw many skins and thought they were more interesting than at least ⅓ of what was shipped, and it seems many designers felt alike.
Though the fact it’s pretty much all metallic/grimy skins makes me think they wanted to use the case to showcase the new lighting in CS2 as in CSGO metal was hard to get it to look right.
The stickers were cool, I find that the sticker competition seems much more intense than the skin competition. There are a lot of great stickers out there cough cough. (“Speed Demon”)
Here is the sticker “Speed Demon” by @Quzga_,@onetoxic342 & @JimWoodUK
At the moment everyone is mostly just annoyed with the frequency of case releases, and we all hope that we get an increase as CS2 gets more polished.
What themes do you like to tackle the most in skin creation?
Not sure if there’s one particular theme I focus on more so the only word that comes to mind is “grounded”.
I prefer my skins to have a clear theme but also be based on reality. Sometimes I dabble in the occasional
sci-fi skin but I try to have every part be logical, accurate and have a reason for its design.
For example, why does the grip + magazine on my Bizon defragged have indented triangles? It looks good & fits the theme + it serves as anti-friction so you don’t slip when holding it.
What is the most exciting/boring part about skin creation?
I think that making the skin and developing it is the most fun part. Painting and adding details for 3 hours can often feel like 10 minutes because you get so into it! Coming up with an idea, and expanding upon it is fun, even before you start the main design!
Testing the skin in-game and adjustments so it looks better is by far the most boring aspect. However, it’s not even 1/10 as time-consuming as it was in CSGO when you had to edit the skins quite a bit after exporting to fix all the errors and takes on the model (veterans will know this pain).
How much time goes into the creation of one skin?
I’ve never counted and it probably varies a lot from skin to skin.
I think if I have a pretty finished concept for a skin in my head I could probably finish it in a day or two but I often get stuck not knowing where to go from one point and I end up jumping between different projects until I get more ideas for it.
When you look at skin too long you get what I like to call “Skin Blindness” where it’s really hard to tell what looks good and bad. It helps to not look at it for a few days or to get someone else’s opinion.
But the actual designing aspect is never the longest for me, it’s always figuring out the design that takes the most, CS2 using PBR made it way faster too.
I think that prob shaved off like 50% of the time I spent per skin in CSGO.
How much money did you make from CS skin creation?
Enough to buy happy meals without checking my bank account but not enough to buy my own island and fill it with trenchcoat-wearing ducks...
How do you like working with other people to create items?
I enjoy collaborating with others who share a similar vision for skins, stickers, and sprays, as they often bring fresh perspectives and ideas that I might not have considered.
However, I prefer to take the lead in design to maintain more control over the creative process. While creating a skin on my own is rewarding, having a small team of 2-3 people can be incredibly beneficial for refining the design through their feedback and suggestions. Many of my collaborations have been spontaneous, where merging our ideas leads to unique and unexpected results.
Going solo can be tough in the competitive world of Counter-Strike 2 skin creation. It often means more work and less exposure. Collaborating not only eases the workload but also helps reach a wider audience, which is crucial for growth in this field.
Here is Quzga’s latest collaboration skin, the Negev | Obsolete. Our article writer Thorben helped create this magnificent skin, giving input and historical knowledge for this grounded and historical LMG.
A gif of the Obsolete.
Conclusion
A huge thanks goes out to Quzga, who answered most of our questions and that in great detail and dept.
It is quite interesting to see a bit behind the curtain that is the closed-off workshop community.
Normal Players do not know what is going on below, so it was very kind of Quzga to take the time out of his day and enlighten us and the community a bit.
Some questions, such for instance the exact pay can not be answered, as this goes against Steam TOS for Skin creators. But we thank him for giving us a rough estimate in Happy Meals.
We hope you have learned something new today and that you liked this kind of article.
If so be sure to tell us and we will try to make more of them!
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