Tonight we welcome Illustration Director TJ Buford and the return of Katya to our Archer open thread. “Skin Game” has a helluva lot of work to do to stack up to chicken & waffles strip clubs and the chupacraba of dicks, but cyborg secret agent battles in ISIS headquarters is a good place to start. TJ — like our other guests — will be here to answer any and all questions, except for ones where you ask him to draw personalized naughty Katyas for you.

Quick bio from TJ:

“I’m a South Louisiana native who came to Georgia for school and got a job working on the short lived Freakshow for Comedy Central. After that I worked on Aqua Teen Hunger Force, Squidbillies, and other various animated projects at Radical Axis before getting the chance to join the rest of the 7030 crew when they came to start Season One of Archer. Season Two had me working as the Lead Illustrator, under the illustrious Chad Hurd, and Season Three I was fortunate enough to earn the Illustration Director position. It’s my job to make sure things stay on model and look amazing.”

More after the jump, including a photo with everyone’s favorite spoken-for staff member.

I’d also like to thank the Floyd County gang (especially Casey Willis) for letting me drop by their offices earlier this week and creepily look over shoulders, play with prop guns, and request tutorials on how Lana’s boobs are illustrated. You guys are the absolute best.

Pre-show talking points…

“Archer faces a dilemma when his murdered fiancée, Katya, miraculously reappears. In Krieger’s lab.”

Krieger is the re-animator? Ante = upped.

Will Sterling still be discreetly pushing rope with Pam?

Will he be distraught over Jakov’s death?

Am I to understand it is now NOT OK to feel up cyborgs?

Do I need to ask Barry permission to use “later, taters” for all exists for the rest of my life?

Is part of TJ’s job description to be the Krieger face model…

For this episode, there was a lot of action that Neal had planned out in the storyboard phase of things and I was tasked with applying his vision to the body drawings so that they could be as dynamic as possible. We take photos, a lot like this one of me and our costume designer Kat (who coincidentally is modeling for Katya in this shot), and from this we use the photo as a base for the drawing. The drawing is then used by the animation team to bring life to the characters.

Open thread is officially here to party. Live blog with TJ Buford begins promptly at 10PM EST, but he may drop in beforehand if the conversation warrants. As always, everyone is encouraged to chat and GIF away well into the morning. I’ll put a cap on things in the AM.

Follow us @KDMaske, @TheCajunBoy, and @UPROXX for reminders. Images via FX and Floyd County.

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