Blog Entry #2 — Patience and Preparation
A Dream That Couldn’t Be Rushed
When we decided in December 2021 that the time had come to finally begin, we felt the excitement of a new chapter opening. Autmenth — the world we had imagined since 2008 — was no longer just an idea whispered between friends. It had a starting point. It had a shape.
That starting point was Last Seen. A small story, a short film, a single fragment of a much larger universe. But almost immediately, we realized something important: we weren’t ready. Not fully.
A dream is fragile if it doesn’t have the tools to carry it. And though we had vision, we needed patience. If Autmenth was going to live the way we intended, we needed to sharpen ourselves before sharpening the universe.
So we paused. Not to give up — but to prepare.
Alex — Learning to Build with Words
For me, Alex, the pause was about writing. I had always been the architect, the planner, the one who mapped timelines and structured worlds. My professional career had trained me in discipline, detail, and responsibility. But world-building for a novel, or structuring a screenplay, is its own craft. It isn’t enough to have ideas — they must flow on the page, hold tension, deliver emotion, and survive the scrutiny of readers and viewers.
So I set myself to study.
I dove into the mechanics of scriptwriting, learning how dialogue breathes, how beats land, how scenes stack one upon another.
I revisited the architecture of novels — pacing, point of view, tension arcs. A story cannot live on myth alone; it needs spine and rhythm.
I refreshed my memory of mythologies, religions, customs, and cultures. Autmenth is not a fantasy pulled from nothing. It is built on the bones of every human story ever told. To write it well, I had to immerse myself again in those old sources.
My work became research too. Traveling for projects both inside and outside Greece, I began paying closer attention to people. How they moved. How they spoke. Their habits, their rituals, their silences. Every train station, every airport, every small café was a window into human routine. And every human routine, in its way, could become material for Autmenth.
If construction management gave me the tools to build structures, these years gave me the tools to build stories.
Dimitris — Mastering Flesh and Form
For Dimitris, the preparation was physical, tactile, artistic. He had always been the one with hands stained in color, the one who sculpted and sketched when I wrote notes. His journey led him to pursue special effects with the same dedication I gave to writing.
The turning point was his time at Gorton Studio: SFX Makeup & Prosthetics Courses in England. By then, Dimitris already possessed most of the core skills — sculpting, prosthetics, makeup effects — honed over years of practice and experimentation. At Gorton, he was able to see how a professional studio operates, to refine his methods, and to upgrade his existing techniques with new tools and industry-level workflows.
What he gained was not only technical refinement but also the confidence of working within a professional environment. He absorbed the discipline of repetition and precision, the subtle adjustments that make effects believable under a camera lens, and the workflow that transforms an artist’s bench into a functioning studio pipeline.
Parallel to this, he never stopped creating independently — sketching symbols, sculpting textures, experimenting with new materials. If my notebooks filled with timelines, his filled with faces.
Together, we began to form Autmenth in silence: I shaping the intangible, he shaping the physical.
Two Years in the Shadows
From early 2022 until December 2024, our project lived in the background of our lives. To the outside world, it may have looked like nothing was happening. No big announcements. No productions. Just silence.
But in reality, those were years of quiet building.
I filled hundreds of pages with drafts, revisions, fragments of scripts and novel chapters.
Dimitris filled sketchbooks and shelves with masks, wounds, and designs.
We exchanged ideas constantly — discussing tone, arguing over atmosphere, aligning vision with execution.
It was frustrating at times. We wanted to leap forward, to begin production immediately. But we also knew the truth: if we rushed, we would break it. The universe we had carried since 2008 deserved better than speed. It deserved patience.
The Lessons of Patience
Looking back, those two years taught us lessons we couldn’t have learned otherwise.
Patience made us sharper. It forced us to accept that big dreams are not built overnight. They require foundations — in skill, in knowledge, in confidence.
Patience made us humbler. Every draft I wrote taught me how much I still had to learn. Every sculpt Dimitris made reminded him how much more could be refined.
Patience made us collaborators.
Without those years, we would not be ready now.
December 2024 — The Turning Point
By the end of 2024, something had shifted. The silence was over.
I had grown more confident as a writer, able to balance myth with narrative, ideas with form.
Dimitris had completed his diploma and worked on Music Clips, Short Movies, and in Amazon’s House of David, standing not just as a self-taught artist, but as a professional SFX specialist.
Together, we had built a foundation not just for Last Seen, but for all of Autmenth.
The dream we began as kids in 2008, the decision we made in 2021, the patience we practiced for two years — all of it converged here.
The next stage could finally begin.
Looking Forward
Last Seen remains our doorway. It is still just a fragment, a glimpse, a single thread of a vast tapestry. But thanks to the years of preparation, we are ready to give it the weight it deserves.
This entry is not about grand premieres or announcements. It is about the quieter side of creation — the hours of study, the discipline of practice, the humility of patience.
Because this is the truth: Autmenth was not just dreamed into existence. It was earned.
And now, with our skills sharpened, our vision clear, and our patience tested, we are ready to bring it to life.