The story of Paul
Music, Mountains, and a Life-Changing Accident
Paul grew up in Bend, Oregon, where skiing, snowboarding, and music shaped his early life. He began on stand-up bass around age eight and later played guitar in a band. At fourteen, a car carrying Paul, his brother, cousins, and grandfather went off a cliff after his grandfather fell asleep. Everyone survived, but the injuries and sudden upheaval ended the life Paul knew in Oregon.
He never returned to live there. The accident tightened bonds with his brother and cousins, giving shared adversity a permanent place in his understanding of friendship. Stories about groups of children facing danger together later became a creative reference point for Pupilz. What began as a traumatic interruption eventually informed an imagined world about loyalty, redemption, and people who keep moving together when circumstances change without warning.
Consequences, Discipline, and Building a Trade
Paul's youth included serious mistakes and consequences that narrowed his options. He described being arrested after an attempted theft as a young man, accepting a plea without fully understanding its long-term effects, and confronting the loss of rights and future opportunities. Land surveying became a route forward. An uncle introduced him to the work at fifteen, and Paul eventually passed the professional exam that his uncle had repeatedly attempted.
He went on to own a surveying company for twenty years. The field rewarded the same traits that music and puzzles had developed: concentration, spatial reasoning, and the ability to enter a sustained flow state. Running the company gave him practical experience with liability, technical deliverables, and leadership. Those years proved that a damaged starting point did not have to determine the ending, but rebuilding required discipline that lasted far beyond a single act of redemption.
Pupilz as a Story of Redemption
Pupilz began when Paul bought an iPad and started drawing during a difficult period. The initial doodles became Groklings, characters, a comic world, and eventually a Web3 project. Paul resists reducing the work to a list of products such as games, toys, or digital collectibles because he sees redemption as the actual organizing idea. The project draws on his childhood friendships, hard consequences, horror and adventure stories about groups facing danger, and the therapeutic value he found in making art.
Music is part of that world too, including Paul's own guitar work for the game soundtrack. The current effort is to build story and IP with a reason for existing, then gather a community that understands the meaning beneath the assets. For Paul, the brand's credibility depends on showing that difficult histories can become material for connection rather than permanent disqualification.