Grabbers

More seafront amusements - this one based on the arcade on The Stade, facing the London Trader pub. It's fronted by a series of penny-in-the-slot machines, chock full of licensed soft toys that are just that smidgen too small to be held properly by the mechanical claws that are supposed to deliver your prize to you. I pass this place every time I collect some fish and chips from the Lifeboat, Hastings best chippy, and the idea came to me when I saw that one of the machines was full of Hello Kittys. I changed it to Garfield, as he's just as heavily merchandised but means more to me than any of Sanrio's kawaii menagerie of creatures.

Personally, I'm addicted to the 2p cascades inside the arcade. They fascinate me. I have a jar full of tuppennies on my desk, which I collect specially to use on those machines. I never win anything worthwhile on them - it's just fascinating to see the coins pile up and then tumble - it's like an engineering puzzle, and quite hypnotic.

Swan Lake

Back to the swan boating lake on the seafront. This isn't the first time humans have appeared in the strip - that momentous occasion was a couple of weeks back, the first time we visited this location, and before that we had some people in cars and buses a year ago. You'll see some more in a month's time. However, one thing I'm determined to do is only use people as set dressing. Smith and Jones won't interact directly with people in the strip. If ever they do, as with the humans they share a house with, it all takes place quite deliberately off-frame.

However, I've indulged myself with a pretty idealised portrait of Linda and I in the boat to the far left of the frame.

Pching Pching Pching!

This is me experimenting with the colours. Rather than using my usual muted palette, I thought that while I was on the seafront I'd use something a bit stronger. This is an attempt to reproduce the richly saturated reds and crimsons of a seaside amusements arcade - in particular the interior of the slot machine arcade on Pelham Parade. It's quite horrid, the colours clash and it's migraine inducing - so I think I captured the ambiance of the place pretty well.