[Back in the Jurassic]

Russell

🪪 Identity 👤

Full Name: Russell Fowler Velocity ^{(Ruhs-ull Fow-lur Veh-law-sih-tee)}

Name Meaning: Russell is derived from "saurus," his surname is in reference to his species, and his middle is in reference to paleontologist Dr. Denver W. Fowler (and him being closely related to birds)

Nicknames:

• Russ (shortened casual nickname)

Gender [Pronouns]: Male [he/him]

Orientation: Gay

Species: Velociraptor mongoliensis*

Age: 4 (young adult in velociraptor years)

Birthdate: May 20, 66 million years ago* (because he was a month away from aging when he jumped in the portal, his "Jurassic Birthday" post time travel is October 1)

Residence: South Laurasia University MS Dorms

Length: 6' (1.8 m)

Height: 1'7" (0.5 m) at the hip

Weight: 38 lbs (17.2 kg)

*In our world, velociraptors only lived 75-71 million years ago; Russell just happens to be an exception (and the last of his kind) in his world

🕙 Origin & Story 📚

Birthplace: Laramie, Laramidia* (Golden City, Colorado, United States today)

Birth Parents: Rinae Velocity and an unknown father

Academic Experience: 2 years of elementary school, 1 year of high school, 1 semester majoring in electrical engineering at Southeast Appalachia University, currently enrolled in South Laurasia University

Backstory:

At the moment, not much is known about Russell's backstory; all that is known is that Russell was almost finished with his second semester at SAU 66 million years ago when the K-T extinction suddenly struck. He saved himself by time traveling 123 million years into the past, landing him in the early Jurassic where he could get a fresh start.

As for what happened to him before the meteor struck? Hm, maybe he'll tell us someday...

Present (or past rather): Russell currently attends South Laurasia University with his new best friend Saura and pompous roommate Dyno. He sticks out like a sore thumb in among the Pliensbachian fauna, but he chooses to embrace being the odd one out wherever he is. Russell's a bit of a scoundrel and has the makings of a mad scientist in him, but no amount of judgement can bring him down. Seemingly the only thing that can bring him down is mentioning his past, which he seems very secretive with for the time being...

You can read about Saura and Russel's lives in my webcomic Back in the Jurassic

*Nearly all of Russell's ancestors lived in Flaming Cliffs, Eurasia (the Gobi Desert of Mongolia today), which is where every velociraptor is found in our world

🪄 Potential ⚔️

Magic Access: None

Special Abilities: RPR (Raptor-Prey Restraint) and puncturing open any drink can with that sickle claw of his (just don't ask him to disembowel anything, he can't do that)

Uniqueness: Being the first and last velociraptor to ever exist (time travel's funky like that) makes him an extremely unique dinosaur

Talents: Intimidating dinosaurs much larger than himself (it's all in the slasher smile), engineering, working with electricity, balancing, climbing, being charismatic with anyone

Weaknesses: His tiny size, his relative weakness compared to most other dinosaurs, his habit of bottling up emotions

Weapons: His teeth and claws

Other Special Items: Two photos in his pocket

🧠 Personality 💭

Traits: Charismatic, extroverted, humorous, flirty, intelligent, tinkerer, party boy, unconventional, slightly unhinged, apathetic, lazy, has no sleep schedule

Stature: Stands like a standard theropod, usually has his wings held out in front of him like he's in the middle of explaining something instead of resting at his sides

Vocabulary: Talks pretty casually and a little crazed with little "hehehe"s sprinkled in as a verbal tic

Alignment: Chaotic neutral

Affiliations: The Cola Boys (defunct)

Aesthetic: Raptor claws, velociraptor imagery, desert cliffs, lab coats, electricity, pocket watches, feathers, orange with white and teal accents

Favorite

• Color: Teal
• Food: Mammal nuggets
• Place: Saura's dorm (everything's so TALL to him)

Likes: Hangouts, meeting others, parties, dancing, messing with others (especially Dyno), big strong hunks, being himself, pulling all-nighters, expresso shots, tinkering, coming up with fun friend group names, making dad jokes, gelling up his headfeathers

Least Favorite

• Color: Gray
• Food: Anything plant-based
• Place: The open ocean

Dislikes: Talking about his past, serious conversations, isolation, silence, sleeves, pants, vegan meat replacements, lectures, taking notes, getting picked up without consent, the immense egos of large carnivores

Pet Peeves: Slow walkers on the way to class

Prejudices: Doesn't trust large carnivores like megatheropods, mosasaurids, or azhdarchids; he has especially low faith in tyrannosaurs and quetzalcoatlus.

🌠 Dreams and Dread 💀

Short Term Goals: Have fun in his new environment, finish college and earn his doctorate in electrical engineering

Life Goal: Become an electric engineering mad scientist

Highest Hope: He'll finally find peace in his new environment

Motivation: His successful time travel which gives him a rare second chance on life

Fears: Unknown

Worst Fear: Unknown

Worst Mistake: Unknown

Traumas: Witnessing the K-T extinction, but there's an unknown layer of trauma below that...

Triggers: Being asked about his past

Comfort: Simply being around others

What Would Break Them: Unknown

🪞 Appearance 🪞

Feather Color: Light orange (#F2A989 in the Jurassic/#FAAD69 in the Cretaceous/#F6A66D neutral) with red (#E56070 Jurassic/#DE534A Cretaceous/#DW5050 neutral) and teal tips (#2EBBD7 in the Jurassic/#61BBC4 in the Cretaceous/#59BFCE neutral)

Feather Style: Gelled up headfeathers and teal leaf-like tailfeathers at the end of his tail

Skin Color: Mauve (#815C7E Jurassic/#834751 Cretaceous/#7F4C5D neutral)

Eye Color: Black, yellow if drawn realistically

Body Modifications: None

Scars: None

Color Scheme: Orange, mauve, white, and red and teal as accents

Usual Wardrobe: A sleeveless lab coat

🗨️ Relationships 💬 

🌲 Family 👪

Rinae ^[mother]

Russell carries a photo of her in his lab pocket. Nothing is known about her yet.

🫂 Friends 🫂

Saura

When Russell first arrived in the Jurassic, he smacked headfirst into Saura who was eager to finally make a friend. She toured him around campus and is his first friend at South Laurasia University.

Five cretaceous dinosaurs

Next to a photo of his mother, Russell carries a photo of himself with five other dinosaurs: a triceratops, an ankylosaurus, a majungasaurus, an edmonotsaurus, and a pachycephalosaurus. Their identities and relationship with Russell are currently unknown.

💢 Rivals 💢

Dyno ^[roommate]

When Russell moved in to the dorms, he was paired with the only small male student with no roommate: the pompous Dyno Raath Lovemore III. They haven't known each other for long, but Russell already gets on Dyno's nerves.

✏️ Development 📓

Earliest Art: From April 6, 2022 (Sketch) & May 10, 2022 (Digital)

Inspirations:

• Duck (Don't Hug Me I'm Scared)
• Roy Rooster (specifically from Garfield & Friends)
• Archen and Archeops (Pokemon)
• The Jurassic Park raptors
• The Prehistoric Planet velociraptors
• How weird and chaotic birds can be

Behind-the-Scenes History: When I first came up with the idea for Back in the Jurassic, I knew that I wanted a sauropod to be the main character and for her best friend to be a velociraptor that time traveled back in time. There was just one severe problem: I had NO idea how to draw velociraptors.

I tried, oh I tried, but the results were hideous. A pointed triangular beak, way too long arms, dromaosaur sleeve wing syndrome, it was all there and it was hideous. Russell didn't even have a beak at first for crying out loud! I was SO clueless that I even took the "retractable sickle claw" literally and made it retractable like a cat's claws. It's like I took most of the paleontology presented as a suggestion rather than science. It was truly a horrendous time that I'm glad I improved out of before Back in the Jurassic launched. These design flaws are particularly evident in Russell's first art fight back in 2022; the artists did a great job, but I gave them the ugliest reference to work with!

But hey, we all have to start somewhere. The more and more I binge watched Red Raptor Writes and various Paleomedia, the more of a hang I got on drawing Russell. He actually resembled, dare I say it, a velociraptor and not some weird dromaosaur/pterosaur hybrid.

There was also time in early 2023 where I leaned too far into making Russell's beak wide and blunt like a duck's bill, but that too has been fixed in art made since.

I also fully realized by then that Russell being a velociraptor in itself was a mistake; 75-71 million years ago wasn't a rough estimate, it was a specific time period that velociraptors came from. However, Russell lived 66 million years ago, a whole 5 million years too late! Honestly, the correct thing to do would have been to switch Russell's species from Velociraptor mongoliensis to Luanchuanraptor henanensis. The problem was that by then, I had already designed, written, and named Russell with specifically velociraptors in mind. Plus the comic was already out at that point and I didn't want to make things confusing. So I figured that Russell should simply be the last of his kind, a plot point that ended up tying in really well with his story's themes of mortality and being out of place. However, he was only allowed to get a pass because he was one of the main characters; EVERY other cretaceous animal featured in Russell's story HAD to be from 66 million years ago. No more exceptions!

Just like how paleontologists constantly improve their dinosaur reconstructions, I'm constantly improving and tweaking Russell's design to make him the best raptor he can be. He can be thought of as the spinosaurus of the cast, simply never catching a break between redesigns. But like the spinosaurus, I love Russell for how he is now even if he doesn't look anything like he did when I first made him.

🎈 Fun Facts 🎉

• Russell is a velociraptor because they're my favorite dinosaur :)
• Despite Russell's ancestors coming from what is Mongolia today, he's actually never been there
• Russell was actually amazing with computer science before he time travelled, the primitive computers of the pliensbachian provide a whole new level of challenge for him
• Before his improved redesigns, I had several people mistake Russell for a pterosaur
• Russell has a particular fascination with dimetrodonand fantasizes about having one as a pet despite them being long extinct