RAFAEL VELOZ GUTIERREZ: ELTINGVILLE OC INTRODUCTION POST WITH REF SHEET
If you have seen my bio since getting into the Eltingville fandom, you know that i’ve been learning how to draw and developing an Eltingville oc named Rafael. After some time (and extreme frustration trying to understand Procreate lol), I finally finished drawing him for the first time!!! :D
To go into part of his backstory:
Rafael is a 18-year-old, half Dominican, half Guatemalan nerd from Massachusetts who’s been obsessed with tabletop gaming since middle school.
He was first introduced to board gaming at 13 by a friend bringing a new card game during lunch and playing it with him and some other friends.
Rafael, surprised by how different this board game was, began wondering whether there were more board games like the one his friend brought.
He went online searching through random chat rooms and forums to search for new board games, and when he found a forum dedicated to roleplaying and board games, he fully became obsessed.
He slowly started amassing a huge collection of obscure board games by scouring through online listings, magazines, and any hobby shops he could find.
He tried forcing his friends to play these more complex games, only for him to push them away by being extremely annoying and elitist.
As he became more obsessed with board games and DnD, he went outside less and less, preferring to play his board games by himself stay online with other board gamers online and starting flame wars over miniatures and cardboard.
During this period, he also became invested in more geeky subcultures like comics, Japanese animation and manga, and writing fan-fiction for his favorite characters.
This is where Rafael at 16 meets Josh after he leaves a nasty comment on one of his fanfics. Rafael initially was enraged with some rando trashing his work and engaged in flame wars against Josh, but eventually he noticed how Josh’s own writing were not as bad as he thought and grew to respect his arguments.
As they talk more online, Rafael realizes that Josh was just like him in how his parents didn’t understand and ridiculed his interests, and became enamored with how passionate Josh was with sci-fi, wishing that he had the same confidence as him. He was head over heels for Josh, and he didn’t know it until it was too late.
This is most of the backstory for Rafael before and during the main events of the comics, but I will post and draw more about him in the future as I improve on my art! I’m excited to show him to you all, and if you have any questions about him, I’d love to answer them! :D
