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4Sep2006 Filed under: Photos & Animations Author: Charles Guthrie
I’ve been working on my new comic “Changing Gears” for over a month now and I am getting steadily better at drawing what I want. I took drawing classes at one of the colleges I attended but they taught mostly expressionist and abstract styles of art, which may or may not be best for drawing a graphic novel or online web-comic. In many ways I’ve started over again from the beginning skill-wise.
The character Camile, a living doll made out of both human and mouse cells, is soon to be introduced into Changing Gears and I have yet to finalize her appearance. The above picture was the one I think so far is best matching what I was thinking she’d look like, but it’s still not quite what I was looking for.
In the end, there is only so much my skill is going to allow me to be able to do, so I’ll probably have to do the comic for a while before I can get any of it looking the way I want. 
janet
September 6th, 2006 at 12:47 am
that looks like a “furry”
I like her name.
Charles
September 6th, 2006 at 10:30 am
Yeah… “Furry”, “Anthro”… I prefer to use the term [URL link="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transhumanism"]Transhuman[/URL].
Charles
September 6th, 2006 at 10:58 am
Wait… does the name Camile, (Kah-Meel), have two L’s? Or is Camille pronouced (Kah-Mil-La)?
…
Or is there supposed to be an H in there somewhere?
Gadgephile
September 6th, 2006 at 12:12 pm
Its spelled camille, but it can be pronounced in many different ways:
http://www.behindthename.com/bb_gen/arcview.php?id=59821
http://www.clubmonaco.com/082006/favoritethings_2.asp
http://www.japanesetranslator.co.uk/your-name-in-japanese/?forename=Camille&style=0
her name could be pronouced kam-eel kam-ee or even kam-iru
She needs a pair of goggles ontop of her head! [:scgirl:]
Charles
September 6th, 2006 at 1:43 pm
Really… So I guess her full name would be pronounced Kahm-ee La-Bray? Or how would “Labrat” (Lab Rat) be pronounced with French intonations?
It would be interesting to have her interject French words into her speech but I don’t know any French at all… though I suppose I could just use [URL link="http://babelfish.altavista.com/"]BabelFish[/URL] and hope for the best.
Then again, I don’t know if I would want to have to write her speech bubbles with French phonetics; that could get a bit annoying.
“Ah hahv feexed zie air-ventolashion seestum.” I don’t think so, but the occasional “Aidez-Moi!” might be acceptable. [:coffee:]
DKG
September 7th, 2006 at 1:48 am
You may want to look at Wikipedia’s [URL link="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_French_phrases_used_by_English_speakers"]LIST OF FRENCH PHRASES USED BY ENGLISH SPEAKERS[/URL] to give your femme fatale Camille’s speech that je-ne-sais-quoi.
Charles
September 7th, 2006 at 2:42 am
Hehe… well, Camille, as much as she might think herself to be a femme fatale is in reality more of an ingénue with many the gauche gaffe and the occasional faux pas and is even sometimes an “enfant terrible”.
I was perhaps thinking that Souris might be a better last name for her. It means “mouse” in French, is an actual last name French people have, and Camille Souris sounds kinda neat.
I still don’t think I am going to give her an accent. It’s too much work and it’ll get annoying. Perhaps a slight French accent could be implied, I just don’t want her to seem like a reject from the “An American Tail” stage cast.
DKG
September 8th, 2006 at 5:23 pm
Eh bien, there’s still “zut alors” and “merde”.
Charles
September 9th, 2006 at 11:57 am
Ha! Merde… Well, it is true that a foreign language can serve as a means to sneak in some blue language under peoples’ noses.
I was planning to use the word “frack” as a general curse word throughout the comic. This is not stolen from Battle Star Galactica; I’ve been using the word “frack” for years before I ever saw BSG, especially when referring to technology stuff (i.e.: “The server’s totally fracked… and I mean proper fracked”).
As I’ve been going over the characters’ dialog in my head I have been giving Camille’s voice a Gallic lilt wihtout even thinking about it, so in some ways my imagination has chosen for me, as it often does.
This Changing Gears comic may be the silliest thing I have ever done, but as stated in earlier posts it will build skills for future endevours even if this does not work out.
My dream goal: That Changing Gears, Elvis, and Camille get mentioned on WikiPedia or get their own pages. [:coffee:]
Anonymous
September 11th, 2006 at 9:40 pm
Camille’s voice? Is this going to be animated? Are you looking for some voice actors?
DKG
September 12th, 2006 at 2:17 pm
According to the [URL link="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_fictional_expletives"]Wikipedia List of Fictional Explitives[/URL]“frack” (now “frak”)was used in the early 80′s computer game “Frack!” in a speech baloon whenever the caveman character got killed. It was used in the original Battlestar Galactica in the late 70′s.
Charles
September 15th, 2006 at 4:14 pm
No, it’s not going to be a cartoon… I wish I had that kind of time and skill, but no. I may be making a game out of it sometime in the future, but that is still up in the air.
I’m having trouble finding the time to do my comic enough already. The last issue was late and was almost entirely done by taking bits of older issues and piecing it together (and it shows, worst looking Changing Gears episode ever…) The next issue has the introduction of Camille and I am going to try to draw the entire comic in pencil and ink and only use the computer for cleanup purposes. Hopefully I’ll not be too busy to get it out by Monday but we’ll see.