There's definitely a few scenes I really wanna doodle out and share.

If you've ever heard of maladaptive daydreaming where autistic people play out entire stories with acting music and direction in their heads, that's me. I really don't think that should surprise anyone.

I 100% call cap on the "maladaptive" thing tho, because it's literally the best thing ever. Can easily spend a lot of hours on it tho, like all things that are fun and awesome.

Been struggling with depression and self-loathing again lately actually, so it's been really nice to just kinda- pour all that into Elizabeth Afton and work it out that way. Like any good artist.

Won't share too much about the story yet, but if there was a lot of interest that coincided with my own interest I could try to convey what I've got so far in more detail, but I've tried turning my daydream stories into things other people could engage with in the past and I always loose steam and don't do much with it.

I think it's a lot easier to start a story with the idea that it'll be a book, or a game or whatever from the get go. (altho I frequently loose steam on those too)

That ain't gonna stop me from drawing the characters and doodling iconic moments from it tho!

Talking about the character design, Elizabeth is super angsty, but that's mostly her way of processing all her trauma. I won't say exactly what it is for the sake of spoilers, but let's just say her Charlie, and Susie, were all besties and she was there for the bite of 83, so yeah, not exactly a fun childhood.

The story kicks off when, 11 years after, the now 16 yo Elizabeth, along with her father William Afton, are moving back to her childhood home after being gone since 1983.

The reason for the move are vague, but it presumably has to do with Aftons "work", which he's fairly vague about. Elizabeth knows better than to press him about things she doesn't need to know. While she shows a little bit of teensy rebellion, it's pretty clear that at the end of the day, she'll do whatever he seriously expects of her.

But now I'm rambling about story, whoops.

I've liked the idea that she wears mostly dark, muted, and unassuming clothes so as not to draw too much attention to herself, but also can still be recognized as moody/emo pretty easily.

She doesn't bother to dye her hair away from it's vibrant natural color. Initially I figured this was to help make it obvious it's still Elizabeth, but it also makes sense that dying her hair, as much as she might like to, would be too much bother for her to do consistently.

While the big girly ribbon obviously wouldn't make any sense, I wanted to include some reference to that part of her design in her new one. After a bit of brainstorming, I came up with the idea of giving her braids (which fits with Circus Baby as well as pigtail girl, who I'm pretty sure ISN'T Elizabeth, but they are still somewhat associated) and including little skull-themed bows on it.

To me, fully-covering and more baggy clothes could help to visualize a sort of insecurity (this is just a visual metaphor, not always applicable irl) and it just felt like it fit.

I'm still not really sure exactly what her outfits and main outfit should look like. I know the croptop overtop the long-sleeved shirt is a little overly stylish for someone who doesn't entirely want to be noticed, but it looked really cool, and I bet Liz would feel that way too and maybe decide it's worth wearing anyways.

Obviously, you can notice the bags under the eyes. While bad (and occasionally ghost-induced) dreams are so far a major part of the story, I think in-general Liz just isn't the type of person to be able to sleep soundly consistently due to her self-hatred and being haunted by the past.

Thing is, while there IS actual haunting, her character is as much haunted by her actual memories as she is by the ghosts reminding her of them, so the "haunting" in the narrative feels much more grounded and organic because of that.

DW tho, ghosts and remnant bullshit and haunted arcade games depicting tragic events are all still very much part of the story! XD

I used much more rounded and cutesty shapes for little Elizabeth than I did for teenage Liz.

Speaking of which, while she does still go by Elizabeth (especially more formally) she is also frequently called "Liz" or "Lizzie" by those who consider her a friend, which she reluctantly accepts.

Yes, if it wasn't obvious yet, this story is angsty as fuck. There's a lotta depth to why she feels this way I'm not going into here, hopefully I can share some of that, because I'm honestly really proud of just how grounded and genuine these character dynamics feel, how unsettling for some, and how genuinely heartbreaking and how much I desperately want her to grow, and how close she is if just given the chance!

She is, fundamentally broken though.

I kind of love broken characters. They remind me of and help me process those parts of myself, and I know they can for others too! ^.^