When the ol' lady died, she left 'em rich.

Heck of a week, hence update so late that it's early. I've got a lot to do in the next few weeks, the most pressing is to finish my dissertation, and not in a way which involves me writing 'pony pony pony' seven thousand times.

Working on models, made out of various things found in junk and charity shops, at home, and in the Sad Patch, the skeevy bit of ground behind our uni building where everyone dumps stuff. This time round the Sad Patch yielded some bits of circuitboard, rusted metal, and a headless toy pig.

Firstly Newton, who is gloriously posable due to having arms made from bits of umbrella.


Then there's little Clay, who is eternally over-cautious and wears a boxing helment at all times, he also has no legs yet.


Next step is to finish and photograph them. Bonus - while looking for junk I came across a Mr. Black/Blik (depending on whether Doug Tenapel's brilliant comic Gear or his later light-hearted cartoon show CatScratch is your poison of choice) McDonalds action figure. It's wonderfully sculpted, which is unusual enough for something from Mickey D's.

Expect perhaps a longer update for next week, when I will hopefully have finished my dissertation and collected my brain from the box I put it into when I realised that I only had three weeks left to write the bloody thing.

Looking forward to Sweeney Todd.

Still Alive; Sketch Dump 1 and Dean Moriarty

Evidently, Neil is worried. I know just how he feels.

Arriving at this first Sunday update in a state somewhere between Panic and Denial - not at having to update the blog, rather that a whole week could have passed between this time and last. Regular updates compress time; they make you realise how small a week can be if you stake it through the tail end with a milestone, even one as flimsy and cut-price as an update to a blog. Blogs are the pound stores of the milestone world - it is fun to go in there every so often and see if anything cool catches your eye, like fake Oreos, plastic junk with which to construct robots, or an entire set of Super Robot Monkey Team Hyper Force Go figures (true story, folks - SPRX, Mr. Gibson, Otto, Nova, and Antari all in one fell swoop, courtesy of Wizard!) but the world is not going to end if you don't.

Unless you're relying on pound stores to eat. Or you work in one. I'm pretty sure the metaphor still holds water, but I don't feel like testing it to the full extent, sorry.

With my dissertation due on the 1st of February, most drawing work, curricular and otherwise, has halted for the moment. I have my reading done, now all that remains is to write the bastard. This is proving rather more of an issue than it needs to be, due to that old horror, Blank Paper Syndrome. I had to read both On The Road by Jack Kerouac and a Walt Disney bio by Leonard Mosley (no relation of Max, to my dad's relief) as set reading this week. Not being too used to reading on demand, it feels rather like I minced them in a blender and then force-fed them into my ears.

On to the doodlies.

I'm pleased with this one 'cause she looks female, if not quite the right age. I dig dreadlocks, even if I'm not sure how to spell them. She looks too sweet for the character I was aiming for, though, who's more the cross tweenage rebel type.Different Neil here, with goggles and utility belt. Something seems to have given him cause for query. Note feet - feet are more detailed than on usual Neil, and I like them that way. He's a hero; he deserves toes, goddammit.

Lastly;

Work on a superhero. I'm at a disadvantage here because human bodies aren't really my thing, but one promise I've made for 2008 is that, by golly, I'm going to learn.

New series of Kingdom starts tonight, so I must off and prepare. <3 Stephen Fry, people. <3.

Presenting Flanagan's All-New, All-Singing, All-Dancing, Fully Automated Great Expectations Good Times Blog

Quite soon, this blog will be up and running, when the author is running on something a little more substantial than jetlag, chocolate peanuts, and the prospect of watching the 1995 film version of Stella Gibbons' Cold Comfort Farm in half an hour's time. Flanagan's Anima will feature drawings, the occasional poem of dubious merit, and dispatches from the front lines of my fields of expertise - contemporary illustration, academia, and goofing off at a professional level.

In the meantime, here are two picture photographs of the lovely Ms. Meow Meow, captured during her epic stagedive at the Dresden Dolls' New York New Years' Eve show for your enjoyment. It was the first stagedive I have ever seen in which the diver managed to travel across the audience, through a series of hoops, then over to the bar for a whiskey before returning to the stage with both whiskey and sang froid intact, and nary a foot on the floor the entire time.

Slainte mhath.