Super F*cking Awesome

I've been to see the Super Furry Animals about 3 times this year alone. I like them a lot but my girlfriend, Sarah, likes them even more. All the gigs have been good or great but they were absolutely fantastic at the Royal Festival Hall last night. The actual RFH auditorium wasn't being used but all the rest of the building was used in some form or another, there were special themed bars - one was a joke VIP bar with fake bouncers outside and mock paparazzi taking photos of anybody that was entering which would then appear on screens inside the bar, there were lookalikes of famous people milling about helping add to the illusion. There were weird little attractions like the smallest discotheque in the world (10 people max) and all sorts of other strange bits of fun and silliness.

SFA played three times over the course of the evening, each set lasting about forty-five minutes or so, their performances were interspersed with sets from Deerhoof and Adam Hussein, early on it all seemed a bit subdued but by the last set the place had really filled up, SFA were going for broke and the audience were having a wonderful time. Being right on the South Bank meant we could go out on the terrace and have a great view of the fireworks and do lots of ooh-ing and ahhh-ing. After the display we went back in and the band were still playing and building up to their usual finale of 'The Man Don't Give A F*ck' which was joyful and mind-blowing, especially with the surround sound effects zipping around the foyer of the RFH. A blissful, wonderful evening that left Sarah and me with big, stupid grins on out faces. And that's coming from an old curmudgeon who doesn't normally do anything very special on New Year's Eve and usually just prefers to have a relaxed drink with a few friends.

I also got to catch up with my oldest friend, Hardeep and some of his mates, it's been a long time since we've seen each other and it was lovely to see him, have a laugh, take the piss and enjoy the pleasantly inebriated evening together.

All this was topped off by a leisurely stroll over the Hungerford footbridge to Embankment tube station, taking the time out to gaze at the beautiful view of the river and the surrounding buildings and admire how stunning London looks at night.

A truly positive and very heartening start to the New Year, here's hoping it continues in that vein.

Happy New Year to you all!

What Are You Doing Here?

Good Dog, Bad Dog begins.

The Guardian.

Today.

Run.

That is all.

GDBD

Take that, secrecy and intrigue! The cat's...no wait that should be the dogs have been let out the bag a little over on Dave's blog. Sorry to anybody coming to this site via Dave's posts on the subject only to find my posts linking back to his. It's just our plan to have people sucked into a never-ending loop of surfing between my site and his. Mwah-hah-hah!

Well, better get back to keeping those naughty little monkeys in line, comic strips don't colour themselves you know. Have you ever had to remove a crayon from a monkey's nose? Tricky.

Up to

Hello? Anybody there? Ah, thank God, the lights are still working. The questioning name of this blog has never been more appropriate seeing as how there's been nothing to read or look at for such a long time. Like so many people I've gotten lazy about posting to my blog, I've just been getting on with life and work and all that other stuff that gets in the way of being on the internet forever and ever.

Much as I'd like to, I can't really talk about what I've been working on recently for fear of having my ice-cream privileges taken away and my toes being gnawed on by starved for a week slugs. Dave Shelton has been working like, well...a dog on this project and I've been colouring it, hopefully not like a dog - what with them being partially colour blind and all - it's true, I removed a dog's eyes and held them up in front of my own and everything was red. If we were to divulge any more information on the top secret project just yet, national security would be compromised, society would plunge into apocalyptical chaos and, worst of all, house prices might drop.

Visit Dave's blog for a very brief taster. You'll find that Dave can't talk about it much either, for fear of eternal damnation (or a severe ticking off) but at least there's a picture to look at.

I'm not going to make any insane and rash promises of posting more regularly, like once a year or an equally similar unyielding and punishing schedule, but I shall endeavour, nay...think about (in an absent-minded, dreamy and wistful sort of way) posting more often, once things have gotten a bit less intense on the deadline front.

Freshwater Fish

I'm just trying a smaller font size on this post to see if I or indeed anybody else prefers it, any comments welcome.

Here's some spots produced for (yes, you've probably guessed it) Horrible Science Magazine, various freshwater fish and some of their strange/interesting behaviour. I've had to draw a fair few creatures for Horrible Science, drawing animals well can be difficult especially when you may only have a small amount of reference or knowledge and have to draw a variety of them in a short amount of time but as I've probably mentioned before you can learn an awful lot from having to draw things that you probably wouldn't choose to draw. It doesn't hurt to have a broad knowledge of all sorts of stuff if you're an illustrator - or artist of any kind I suppose. Sorry that I don't really remember what all of these spots were about in particular and can't give you more information about them but I do remember that I enjoyed doing them and that out of all of them I think I like the Pike one most.

Goldfish

Suckermouth Minnow

Piranha

Tench

Siamese Fighting Fish

African Cichlid

Pike

Sketch

Just some messing about a bit earlier on today.

Illustration Friday - Wired

I didn't have time to finish what I was working on for the latest IF as I had some Horrible Science stuff to finish off so here's something old that fits the topic, it was originally produced for Hi-Fi Choice magazine. I can't help feeling that posting something old is cheating a bit and kind of misses the point of IF so I guess that makes me a dirty cheating hound. Hopefully I'll finish off the piece I originally wanted to do and post it here.