Seams Like It Will Never End

I started a crocheted "granny pixel" blanket in March 2015, making tiny tiny proto-granny squares for  eventual assembly into an 8-bit rendering of an anime character...
I'm only 46% finished with the blanket right now.
Almost a year later.  Yeah.

My friend Honeyspoon and I had a discussion last year about the merits of seaming-as-you-go for a giant project like this one, and I still believe that biting off small chunks of the finishing work is preferable to trying to do it all at once at the end...  but sheesh, is it tedious.

This morning, I added lots more squares to the evergrowing mass of pixels, and what it amounts to is this:
his hair. is ALMOST. done.

AND his body looks like a coral reef:

It is a bit exciting to see the thumbnail of the photo and immediately see the resemblance to the original inspiration, a fuse bead creation by Etsy's ChaotikFalls.  So I dunno.  I really really want to give this to its recipient, so right now that's my only motivation.