#coffeepaintart

[dontmixpaintinyourcoffee]

This one goes out to all the bitches who love some good Safehouse Era Horror. It's me, I'm bitches. I want Jon and Martin to be fucked up and eldritch but I want them to be fucked up and eldritch and loved

(Notes under the cut because I can't help myself. Heads up, I do go into some detail of how Jon gets injured so I can explain my thought process for how I designed his scars. All canon-typical and fairly clinical in tone.)

Here's how I picture Safehouse Jon!

He doesn't need glasses anymore by this point, so he should just be wearing empty frames, but I drew this before I settled on my glasses headcanons. This drawing looks better with the reflection anyways.

He hasn't gotten a haircut since before his promotion to Head Archivist. He doesn't love the weight of it on his neck, but he also uses it to fidget, and he really doesn't want to go through the whole process of cutting it. He's disliked haircuts since he was a kid (People: Bad. Small talk: Bad. Touching: Bad. Loud sounds: Bad. People talking all at once: Bad) and since his time with the Circus he's only grown more reluctant to go and get it done.

At this length his hair is naturally pretty curly but he is. Not taking care of it. I actually put a lot of effort into trying to make it look brittle and tangled (I have a lot of experience lol, my hair is quite thick and I've always hated taking care of it. Yes I am also projecting my feelings about going to a hairdressers onto him why do you ask.)

The various scars were a bit of a strange task, but anyone who has seen my takes on The Bad Kids knows I'm not averse to selective realism in my fiction. Easiest one was the neck, I always pictured Daisy making a vertical cut based on "through the voice box". The larynx is longer than it is wide, so I think Daisy would go for the method that dealt damage across the largest total surface area. Yes I am aware that I'm speaking the same way Martin does when he explains his corkscrew.

The worm scars were easy because I barely drew any. There are a few marks on his cheek, but they're just surface bites. I picture most of his encounter with Prentiss showing on his legs, particularly on the right side, with enough damage there that he starts using a cane after the incident to keep weight off his right leg. More research to be done on this particular detail.

Finally the burn on his hand from Jude. This was the weirdest one to figure out just because of the nature of the injury. How do you quantify the damage done to an epidermis by a living manifestation of sometimes-boiling wax that can heat and cool at will? I settled on it being a second-degree burn that healed supernaturally fast, containing the damage to the space Jude had direct contact with. He'd probably have some mobility issues there as well. I know there are ways to help with mobility and pain after a severe burn, but I don't know how much of it Jon would actually. Do. Like I said, definitely further research to be done on these last two.

Hey so I'm gonna ask you to stop and consider the horror of the watcher. The helplessness. The guilt. The inherent terror of being a spectator, a participant by proximity but not by action. The horror of not being able to look away, of being a bystander. Jon forgets to blink sometimes. But wouldn't it be so much worse if there were no eyelids at all? That's how I interpret the description of The Archivist being "All Eyes" :D

I love a good Many-Eyed Jon, so I whipped up my own interpretation here. I think the more he Becomes the more he starts to resemble the thing from the dreams. He has a lot more control of it in S5, but it still creeps up on him and he has to consciously go back to a human shape.

[dontmixpaintinyourcoffee]

I love her so much you don't understand

SOMEONE draw Eulalie in this 🙏🏻🙏🏻🙏🏻

[dontmixpaintinyourcoffee]

Still indecisive on what his hair texture is, but I'm getting somewhere! Side note, Martin baiting Elias into traumatizing him is one of his most badass moments in the entire show. I really love the image of him in absolute shambles, miserable and angry, falling apart as Elias leaves the room, but he knows that this time he won. Anyways, I love him sm he deserves all the things

[dontmixpaintinyourcoffee]

My girl <3

[dontmixpaintinyourcoffee]

I wanted to mess around with stamp textures and now we're here

[dontmixpaintinyourcoffee]

I gave him a solo image for your specific specialest guy enjoyment

If anyone ever draws or sees fanart of Mr Tanis you BETTER either tag me in it or send it to me PLEASEEE PLEASEEE I NEED IT SO BAD MR TANIS MY BELOVED

[dontmixpaintinyourcoffee]

I don't know how to explain how much these two mean to me. They are the non-biological-not-raised-together siblings of all time. They are so ride or die. One time a man threatened Riz and Fig got that guy to jump out a window. One time Fig pretended to be a doctor and Riz helped her successfully do magic surgery without ever coming out of hiding. They both decided together to never ever tell Gorgug that Fig did the sealing spell without ever saying a word to each other about it. Fig joins Riz and Sklonda on their murder investigation road trip. Riz ate dinner all the time with Fig and her elf dad. They comfortably hang out in hell with a sentient blood blob and a motorcycle that's secretly a dog. He's her legal counsel. She encourages him to hiss at people more. They trust each other with their lives. They are celestial and infernal, connected to the outer planes by their relationships to their fathers and then making that connection their own. Their parents are dating but honestly that's the least relevant detail in all of this. Do you see the vision

[dontmixpaintinyourcoffee]

Anyways you guys ever think about how the only person who ever really apologized to Jon for treating him like a monster was the person who traumatized him the most. And how she never asked his forgiveness, because she had no right to, but she wanted him to know that it was wrong. That she was sorry, because she should be sorry. Because he was always worth compassion, and no rationalizing or justifying can ever take away the fact that he was a person before he was ever a monster.

I think about their incredibly compelling and deeply fucked up friendship a normal amount

[dontmixpaintinyourcoffee]

Been thinking about the Wonderland Parents (especially the parents we don't see)

While I do appreciate all the opportunities that Maddie having a dead or missing mother provides for story reasons, I truly do believe that it's just as if not more likely that Hatter just pulled her out of his hat one day and rolled with it

[dontmixpaintinyourcoffee]

Idk what his dramatic rogue backstory that he 100% has is, but I think he should get to chill out in the rain about it

[dontmixpaintinyourcoffee]

This scene really struck me. Something about how unafraid of Kristen Bobby Dawn is, and how very afraid he should be

[dontmixpaintinyourcoffee]

First proper drawing of Maya!!! And still nailing down Franzy's face, I always struggle with her eyes for some reason. I think I need to study her sprite a little more, try to carve out that face shape properly.

This comes from a scene in Turnabout Substitution by @pictureswithboxes ! Get used to seeing this sentence. I have been thinking about it so much.

[dontmixpaintinyourcoffee]

The whole Gukgak family has a vice grip on my brain, so have some Sklonda.

So actually I'm having a lot of fun with designing my own interpretation of the Gukgaks, because I have always always always struggled with keeping Riz's hair consistent. And after some conversation with friends I think I've managed to come to a conclusion about it-

I think that a lot of my issue was trying to make him look as much like both Sklonda and Pok as possible, but also following through with the Timothee Chalamet hair bit. And for a while I was really struggling with that and then I remembered

"Oh yeah. People can change their hair."

So! I think that Sklonda naturally has very wavy hair, and when she took the detective job in Elmville she started straightening it. New job new me, trying to feel very professional and in charge, and it just became habit. When she quit the force she stopped the routine. Oddly enough this just made Riz look even more like her. Son like mother becomes mother like son

[dontmixpaintinyourcoffee]

The worsties.... How I love them <3

Illustration of a scene from this fic by @musashi

Let me explain real quick how I got to this fic because it's a little ridiculous and convoluted and I think that's kinda funny.

I'm not a big fanfic guy, generally. I am extraordinarily picky, I didn't get into it as a teen because I had already been blindsided by horny fanart for children's media and did NOT want a repeat of THAT experience (I was devastated to learn that safe search did practically nothing), and tbh all the fanfic websites scared me because I don't like learning new UIs or signing up for things. I just sort of missed the prime window for getting into fanfic as a hobby. Unless something is specifically recommended to me there is a high chance it'll just never cross my path.

Cut to sometime in early November, 2022. I had just recently gotten into Ace Attorney so that I could talk about it with a friend. As I often do, I accidentally became obsessed with it and shot way ahead of where my friend was, ironically making it difficult to discuss it with him. And now I'm drawing a lot of Franziska, and thinking "damn I wish she had a game". Not much longer after I posted some sketches about the concept, I got a notification from @pictureswithboxes. Turns out, she had seen my silly little doodles AND WRITTEN AN ENTIRE COURT CASE BASED ON THE IDEA!!

That story is called Turnabout Substitution, and it's phenomenal. I also have some doodles from that one, but I want to polish them before I share. Anyways, the point is I died on the spot and now, three years later, I've reread the finished story at least 5 times. About a week ago I noticed that there was a new story available, Metal Masquerade. After reading the available chapters I realized that this story has a co-author. Well, I've enjoyed these ones so much, I wonder if this person has any other- OH WOW THAT'S A LOT. Well who do they tend to focus on- FRANZISKA???!? MY BELOVED FRANZISKA VON KARMA!?!?

And that's how we got here :D

Both of these writers have such an exquisite handle on these characters and what makes them interesting, I was genuinely just as entertained by Franziska unraveling a murder case as I was by Phoenix picking up pastries from a café. They're all so full of life, every single scene I've read has been a treat. They're funny, they're dramatic, they're well-paced, introspective, and curious about this fictional world and the people in it. I cannot recommend these authors enough, and I feel genuinely lucky to have found their work

[dontmixpaintinyourcoffee]

Your honor in her defense she was on her period

So I ADORED Lisa Frankenstein! The colors were just so good the whole way though so this is the first of what I intend to be a few color studies. This movie is eating my brain

[dontmixpaintinyourcoffee]

PACIFICA!

So some design notes-

Older Pacifica! Wendy cuts her hair and they purposefully make it as wild and uneven as possible. She's still adjusting to the lack of weight on her head, but she loves it and she loves how much her parents hate it.

I made an effort to give her some face spots and a big old grin. She's not so scared of wrinkles or blemishes anymore. Some days it's hard, but she makes a conscious effort to think of them positively. (Mabel helps. Loudly.)