About
Who am I?
Believe it or not, I am an orthopaedic surgical trainee. You might be thinking: what does that have to do with comic books? Surely it doesn’t fit with a surgical career? Well, I can’t help it: I’ve always been a dreamer. From a very young age, I dreamt just as much of fantasy worlds that allowed me to escape and imagine myself as a superhero, as I did of becoming a surgeon. So why give up one dream? Why force yourself to choose when you can pursue both? It was obvious to me, and continuing my creative project alongside the tough years of surgical training became my little haven of peace and relaxation.
Genesis of the project
The story behind PAX AURORA was originally born out of my thirst for adventure and escape, something that no anime or film could ever satisfy. I had a few characters in mind, a rough overarching plot, and I would invent scenes as the mood struck me. From time to time, I jotted down character sheets and snippets of the story to make sure I wouldn’t forget them, allowing myself to keep dreaming. Nothing more.
Then, one day (in 2021, to be precise) I stumbled across this scattered scenario, written over several years. It was messy, often incoherent, sometimes laughable, but the characters and the concept were so endearing that a wild idea began to take shape: “What if your stories finally left your head? What if your imaginary world became real?”
From that day, it became an obsession. A concrete project. There was work to be done. I started by sorting through the scenario and the characters. Over a decade of creation, there was quite a crowd. I tidied up the various plotlines, keeping only the best. I wrote, crossed out, rewrote, and changed my mind a thousand times. Eventually, I shaped a story that both thrilled me and held together perfectly. I divided the narrative into sixteen volumes and drew up a list of the next steps: writing the scripts for the entire series, designing each character, creating 3D models of the characters and recurring settings, learning to paint backgrounds, mastering perspective drawing, studying how to depict credible facial expressions, learning scene composition, preparing content for social media, sketching storyboards, building a website, and much more.
It took four years to build a solid foundation for the project, and another year to bring Volume 1 to life.
Long-term project
From the very beginning, I’ve imagined PAX AURORA as an anime. I love everything about that format: the epic scenes, the music, the pacing… it’s incredible. I did consider presenting my project to studios, but without connections or influence, it would have been a lost cause. With my family and myself being passionate about comic books, I chose this medium to bring my world to life. Comics allow for so much emotion to be conveyed, and above all, it was an accessible way to create on my own, given patience and perseverance.
I’m not a professional illustrator, yet I decided to dive in anyway. Using a graphics tablet, digital painting software, and a bit of ingenuity, I manage to make up for my artistic limitations with 3D models, layers, and filters.
And even though the odds are slim, I hold on to the dream that one day PAX AURORA will become an anime. That would be the happiest day of my life.