Across the Internet I go by the name Chamzel.  Chamzel comes from my two Everquest characters Chamcham and Zelgadis, whose names were put together by some online friends of mine.  Here's some real information about me, though...

Name: Joel                         Age: 21                         Hair: Blonde                         Eyes: Blue/Green

Marital Status: Single/dating    Live w/Parents: Yes       Job: Clerical Assistant (job description open)

Interests and abilities: Story writing, art, game design, messing around with computers

Other:  I'm not a super fat lard who sits around at his computer all day, or a really skinny boney one either, for your information.

If I'm not at work, college, shopping, or visiting my brother's place, I'm usually at home doing what I'm supposed to be doing - Writing this story!  I also keep all of my instant message programs on all the time so I can talk with all the people I know across the internet and help them through any situation they seem to be in.  I have been called a "jack of all trades" by many people I have come across.

Besides pure entertainment of writing fantasy type stories, it has actually been something I have dreamed of doing all my life.  This story is just a part of what I am pushing for.  I actually started this all back in the second grade when I was inspired by cartoons and video games, and I started drawing little characters of my own.  These characters first started out as a representation of myself, who used two long swords, and my older brother, who used two sais (you know, the things Raphael from Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles used), and a giant fly monster that we fought.

As time passed and I met more people, I added more characters.  Actually they all looked exactly the same with the exception of their weapons and what picture they had on their shirts (They all had a picture of their weapons on their shirts).  When I reached the fourth grade I met a kid by the name of Ryan, and we got along as best friends.  He and I tried being the best artists we could be at our ages, and we also started writing stories about all the characters we developed under the title "Thieves Team".  Why call it "Thieves Team"?  Because thieves just sounded so cool when we were kids.  Mind you, when I was in fourth grade the Power Rangers were just starting out in America, and we were really amazed by that show for a while, too.

So Ryan and I started writing our stories, and they started out as short story homework assignments.  The first story I ever wrote, and I still have it, involved Ryan and myself taking a vacation.  Along the vacation we encountered some bad guys, in which case we would morph into power fighting abilities and jump into giant robots.  By the way, we were also into something called "Mechton", that my older brother was into.  But we just thought it was really cool, so what does it matter?

The stories that followed involved how all of the characters we developed got together and how they fought evil.  We made our own bad guys, too, which were the people we didn't like in school.  The whole series, which I had planned out five or six different ones but only got through with two (for a good reason, too), started out as the world being enslaved by a guy called the Evil King Jonathan.  Ryan and I would figure out a way to dig a tunnel out and escape, in which case we would build a giant ol base encampment to rest and recover at while we prepared for our attack on Jonathan and save the world.  So the story generally goes out there.  We saved the world and thwart the Evil King Jonathan each time.

As time passed I started trying to do different things with my drawings, like draw armor and different hair styles on my characters.  When Ryan and I went our separate ways in middle school, and when he moved out of state when we got into High School, I started to kick back on most of our horde of characters to focus on a select few.  Focusing is good if you want good character development and detailing!  Well, the characters were down to the following characters, if I remember - Joel (myself), Ryan, David (my older brother), Alan (my younger brother), Adele (a younger girl we used to know that lived around Ryan), and Ruben (a half-dragon that we made up).  This was good, because they each had their own special looks as opposed to looking the same in all cases.

When I got into high school I started to watch and pick up some styles of anime.  Late middle school and early high school were the days when I finally started drawing characters with necks, joins, noses, ears, and generally real figures.  My motto at that time was "Be original if you want to be the greatest."  I picked up a lot of slack in high school for being a silent "loner", if you would say.  I didn't go up to anyone to start a conversation, but I would respond slightly if someone were to talk to me first.  A lot of jealous people would come up to me and show me their imitations of other drawings (like stencil paper over other drawings to obtain their own works off copy righted material) as well as my own.  I was truly the school's easy target for anything anyone wanted to make fun of, and so I started to grow angry and full of hate.  This influenced my stories and drawings, causing me to put in more emotions and gut-ripping action.  Boo hoo for me, yeah, I know.

I never knew any girls back then, though.  So I had to rely on my own imagination and what I saw on TVs and around the internet to learn how to draw females as well as I can today.  What you see on the characters page and the front page is the best I can do lately.

In the middle of my freshman year I began writing a story out of boredom.  Every day I kept writing it until the day I left for the summer, and when I got back they still had the story saved for me to continue writing.  So I finished the story, I believe, mid-way through my sophomore year in high school.  At this time I had dropped Adele and added in another female character I thought up out of the blue by the name of Sella.  If you don't know any women in life that you would add in properly to your story based on real people, then you just need to make some up.  I also added in a girl named Selina later in the story, who was the daughter of Sella.

You might say that this story was a copy of Dragon Ball Z with a lot of it's content going on.  I had just started watching and was trying to research information on the show long before it really started coming to America on TV.  Or you could say it was a big copy of something else, since Dragon Ball Z isn't the only series based on a bunch of people who can fly around and shoot giant beams at each other.  Let's not forget the cabbit I added in (Cat + Rabbit, watch Tenchi Muyo), from all the 'Cabbit Wars' that went on in the anime chat rooms on AOL.  Each of my characters were defined their own unique character traits and abilities, but they still weren't fully original in the sense that one was different from the rest because of this.  The story itself was 78 pages long at 12 point font all together when I finished it, and it was called Neon Project: EARTH, for no real reason at all.  I think it's kind of stupid now, so I'm looking for something else to call my stories.

Well, not too long after I finished this story I started writing a sequel to Neon Project: EARTH.  It was to be about the future and what happens after after the world is saved.  The main character was the long descendent of the main character, Joel (me!), who had too much human blood in him as time went by to be able to realize his would-be potential.  All the other special power characters in the first story were mostly dead by the time the second story would have come around, but a couple were going to make their own appearances.  Anyway, I never got through with the sequel to the story, and in fact I only completed a few chapters.  By looking back at the first one, the chapters were probably not that long either.  I most likely didn't finish the second one because I was too afraid of loosing sight and memory about the original story I wanted to create and public all together.

A few years later I had begun to get the urge to write a good story again.  I looked back at my first long story, Neon Project: EARTH, and thought how much better and more detailed I could make it.  Not to mention all the additional scenes I kept imagining.  It started with Koichi, the wandering swordsman.  Originally he was never meant to play an important role in the story.  He was only suppose to show up at random times as an anonymous traveler in the story.  Then I started drawing these different pictures of a young lady and started messing with her color tones.  I showed them to a friend of mine and said "What would you think would make her look the most unique for a story?  Normal skin, blue skin, or green skin?"  Needless to say, we thought green skin on a good guy would be the most original idea out of blue skin or white skin.  This character was originally meant to be a stubborn princess in a castle that Joel would find himself in, who would eventually begin traveling with Joel and the rest of the crew.  The way she was intended was when ever they arrived at another city she would pause and wait for Joel to properly announce her to the city folk.  But she ended up the quiet and polite one known as Celia, while Koichi ended up her stubborn protector.

In this new version of my story I also started defining the special core characters' as a race called Guardians.  They were given a nature to live by, a nature they were known by and mistaken for, as well as their own language and native names.  In addition, they were also defined to how they weren't so invincible, even though they sound like they are.  A group of invincible heroes may sound entertaining at first, but after a while it just gets dull and ridiculous for the reader.

All in all, the reason I write this story is because the main character is who I wish I were.  He travels a world that I wish I lived on in a reality that I could only dream about.  It has been said that this story shows my idea of my own utopia.  My perfect world, and my perfect adventure.  However, it may sound strange, but the character I wish I were also wishes that he were an ordinary person like me.

Time and time again, people have come up to me and said "That's not original at all.  That looks just like Cloud/Goku/Gourry/etc.  It's nothing but a big rip off!"  Well I will tell them every time that I didn't get any of my designs from any characters outside my own imagination.  It is all just an odd coincidence.  In fact there was this game for the Playstation called Azure Dream, I think it was, and the character on the front of the game box looked EXACTLY like my main character!  Well, except he had a fourth strand of hair and his hair was red.  I never played the game, though.

The more anime and other cartoons that I see, the more I see that my own characters aren't as original as I had hoped.  A friend who lives in Japan showed me a link to one of her most favorite series of all, and the main character looked exactly like my character!  With the exception of the fact that theirs was more professional and better detailed... But it was the same!  A teenager in common every day clothes with long spiky hair and a sword.

But, uh, no.  I do not get anything about my story from copying any other series.

This is a rather funny subject to me.  I write this story intending it to be for a mature audience that likes and can handle a lot of blood, gore, action, sickness, and even some romantic love scenes added in left and right.  Let's forget the fact that there's quite a number of funny scenes in my story, which makes it part comedy, to.  The average person who contacts me on a regular basis about my story happens to be 14 year old teenage girls.  Even though I'm shocked to know that my hopefully blockbusting hit story is really only attracting people from that gender and age range, I talk with them a lot on a regular basis.  They're a good group of people, actually, and I really consider them to be much smarter than I am.

Don't worry, I graduated from high school with flying colors, and it was a good high school, too.

I haven't been asked this yet, but I'm sure I will at some point.  Or maybe I won't be asked because people will be too confused to want to ask.  Throughout my story you will read about the characters making weird faces and suddenly falling to the ground.  This doesn't happen naturally to people in regular stories and real life, it's true, but here's the deal.  As I write this story of mine I actively think out everything as it happens as I write it.  That is, I imagine, say, a group of characters walking through a city.  I'll imagine what all the characters might be doing, what the weather may be like, the buildings around them, and whatever else is going on around them, and I'll write it out just like I see it in my mind.  In addition I also think them out like a cartoon show, so whenever there's some gag or surprise or what not that goes off along the story the characters react accordingly.  If it were to be animated in an actual cartoon you would see it in its entirety and really laugh your socks off if you didn't get it before!

Most of the core characters in my story are shaped and modeled after someone I know in particular.  Here's a list...

Joel - Joel, myself, me, I.

Sarralyn - No one.  I don't know many women in real life as a good friend, so I take all the female personalities I've known across the Internet and put the good and kindly ones together to form Sarralyn.

Koichi - No one... except perhaps my own (at times) stubborn and angry attitude that wishes to be the best in every way, shape, and form.

Celia - Again, no one... Except a combination of the different female personalities I've met through the Internet.  She's my work of art that is supposed to be a completely different heroine than the average female character you'll see in any story or series.

Ryan - My old Elementary school best friend.  He and I started this whole character and story gig, and I continued it even though he moved away after Middle School.

Lynn - No one... Good question, though!  She's a combination of the slut factor of some women I know across the Internet... from all the sexual desires that I've listened to from all of them.  It could turn out to be a fun character!  (No offense to those who think I'm talking about them)

Stephanie - A real life friend of one of the readers of this story who sent me an instant message (yes, I do answer them, and I am on all the time I'm at home!) talking about how she liked my story.  After I got to know her and she introduced me to Stephanie, even though Stephanie hadn't read my story yet, I started developing Stephanie into a character because I had something short of a picture of her.

I keep all of my old drawing pads.  They date back to like my fourth or fifth grade years, and there's about ten of them that are filled with different ages of style and different forms of figure studies.  Here's some that I scanned in.

  Joel, third generation style... haven't developed those knees or elbows yet!

Joel, fourth generation, right after I started attempting anime.

  Ryan, fourth generation, when I first brought him into anime.

  Joel, Ryan, and some others... second generation... umm...

  Celia's first model, a long time into my anime style.

  Perhaps one of Koichi's first designs.  I know I did it when I was a Junior...

  Sarralyn's first design (before she got a name), Joel next to her in one of his old designs.

  Koichi, some time in my Junior year, too, I think.  Fighting off an infestation of Mavmeras.