Incredibly Freaking Bored

And this is what the season is all about!

Being bored and falling out with family. But as I have no transport to see the few friends I do have here at home, I can get lots of university work. Watch this space for lots of lovely things... or not... depends how good they are. I'm currently working on a folding book, three canvases, working on old stuff, two tattoos and a magazine cover. So lots of things to gorp at at some point soon.

Have a very happy consumerism day

Editorial 2nd attempt.

My second attempt at the Flying the nest article brief for the Guardian. In my personal opinion this is a lot better than the previous try. This is a combination of the birds flying the nest and the heart breaking of the mother etc etc...

Website soon

I bought www.katieupson.co.uk yesterday so once I get a few things out the way I can make my very first website and start posting my work on their. So watch this space...

Soap Box Project

We were asked to redesign a soap box design for Wright's Soap. It was going to be distributed for free at next years Glastonbury (not really, just so we had a theme and audience to consider). I decided to make collectable models in the soap so you could make your own mini soap festival. This is the result, the box is very orange, the original soap was too.

Transforming Rabbit

This is the finished image all put together in the frame. I re-photographed this now so it looks better.

Any way back to this piece... This is about a rabbit that keeps transforming. His tail is curling into a new form. I don't paint so often anymore, so it is nice to know I can still do it well after a long break. I want to break into making 3D work painting on objects or creating designs to go on things. So this probably represents a style I will follow up on in the future.

Rabbit transformation

This is for the story by Kurt Schwitters "Lucky Hans" illustrated by Irvine Peacock. It isn't finished yet but I thought I would show you all. I will put the full description up with the finished piece.

Excessive Noise

I am pretty impressed with my self that I managed to get it so symmetrical by hand and with no help from the computer. All the line work is my own. The colours radiating out makes you draw your eye into the centre. This is basically illustrating the idea that you are surrounded by noise and that it may seem like a never ending cycle.

Flying the Nest

This editorial illustration was for an article about mothers perhaps feeling down because their children were leaving home. But it also said that some parents might enjoy more money and space once they have gone. So this illustration is based on the idea that the mother may be waving good bye, but that she is thinking about the future and what she could do. The line work is good, the textures are good... but I do not feel it is as strong as it could be.

Zom-bunny lives!

Well he is finally painted.

I sprayed him with matt varnish when he was dry to try and keep him nice.

I want to make a box for him to live in, like all the other toys...

Panda, Panda on the wall...

It really irritates me when work I do on a whim is better than work I need to make for a good grade... *anger*

I have been sooooooo bored for the last ooo month now, so I randomly asked my friend who was online what I should draw and he suggested that I should draw our friend Dave riding a panda.

This was a good idea, however as the drawing developed it ended up that the panda was riding him... oh well... enjoy!

(Additions and colouring will be added later, but right now this is just the inked version)

Dante's Inferno

This project was a pain in the back side for months...

Took me two attempts to get it done mainly because I was bogged down with so much other stuff.

But this is it.. it's here it's done and I don't have to worry about it any more!

Some circles are better than others obviously, that's the problem when you have to do so many images in one go. I am clearly inspired by Alex Pardee, but also Brian Ewing and Tara McPherson. I have their blogs watched on here... check them out. These are not in order but it doesn't really matter to be honest.

Download was fantastic

I have a few new bits and bobs to load up on here and some old stuff too. But first let me say this... ahem... DOWNLOAD RAWKED!

I saw a lot of bands, some better than others but I am not going to boast about it any longer... if you are interested in who was playing look at this years line up. Just wanted to share some photos of the fun we had there.

Zom-bunny

Well this is a personal project I have wanted to do for a while now. For an assignment at uni I created Fwank-en-bunny, you all remember him. Well this is his friend Zom-bunny. Basically he wants to eat you. I was bored this afternoon so I made a 3D version of him. I am going to paint him and varnish him soon but my hands hurt. Took 2-3 hours of almost continuous work, doesn't sound like much but modeling clay can be hard some times. 

Munny Funny

Well on my trip to Nottingham I also found one of these little beauties. I really want to get into painting these guys, I want to paint a load then sell them, start generating an income for my self instead of having to work in a pub kitchen my whole life. Can you tell I'm getting a bit sick of it. I think I will probably use the television to go with the Munny it self. I really need to think hard and plan hard if he is going to look great. Need some decent paints and I need to learn how to paint them to a good finish. I heard matt sealant is good, but any advice would be great. Might get an old toy from a charity shop to practice on first.

Slashslash Notts

Well a few weeks ago now I went to an event in Nottingham where I was a live Illustrator. 

The music wasn't really to my taste, however it was great to see what Illustrators and other freelance artists and creatives were up to out side on Lincoln. 

I made some badges and fridge magnets to sell (pics above, I made them in 4 different colours). I only sold 2 badges in the end but one of them was to this person on the till at Page 45. I think he was called Tom, but it turned out he liked it and is going to keep in contact with me if I have any comics or anything that I draw. This is a very useful link, and even tho I didn't sell much, I have two contacts now so if I do get going on this Illustration career I can get them to spread the word.

Apocalyptica Poster

This is the final poster from my Dream Project series.

Really influenced by Tara McPherson. I think I might take up creating my own boarders in images, I have really gotten into creating patterns.

Zebrahead Poster

The second in my Dream Project series. This is a poster for Zebrahead, and it's very pink...

This was very much inspired by Brian Ewing... and partly Tara McPherson.

Killswitch Engage Dream Project

I chose to make three band posters for a project at Uni. I chose Killswitch Engage as a band of one of them, this is the result. Influence for this piece were Alex Pardee and Brian Ewing. People who know their work will see what I mean.

Laziness equals...

I haven't been up to much recently. But here is a little nugget of fun to keep your weird side fed and happy.

Create Not Hate

This is an image created for a newspaper page where we had to try and portray the younger generation in a good light. To try and show the general public that many of these young people are actually very intelligent and create people, that first impressions can be deceiving.

Direct mail

We were asked to create an image to send through the post to make people aware of the homeless and encourage them to help. This is my response. I finally worked out why it was blue and managed to change it to it's original colour.

Cowboys...

This is for a project handed in a while ago but I had to tweak it a bit again. I seem to have to do that for a lot of projects recently. Comments welcome, I want to print it soon so any changes kinda have to be done sharpish.

Dream Project begins...

This is going to be the first thing you see when you open my "Dream Project" sketch book. It is clearly inspired by Tara McPherson but I have always been influenced by her. I originally coloured it red but like the maths book cover I played around with the colours. This in my opinion is the best of the several I made. I may post them up later if I have other opinions thrown my way. But this is the beginning of my dream project and I am really looking forward to it. The picture above pretty much tells you what I am planning on illustrating.

Maths book cover revisited

Well the tutors told me a few things needed to be tweaked. Firstly I chose the wrong colour. So here is the new one. They also said that the little character in the corner could be changed to suit an older audience. I will leave him how he is for now, but I may change him closer to the final hand in. This version does have a better contrast to the previous one, but I always lean towards purple as it is one of my favourite colours. I have to learn to broaden my colour choices a little.

Mathematics book cover

Well this was one of the most difficult projects so far in my opinion. We were given one of four book covers to illustrate. I got the maths one... this is the best I could do. But its more interesting than half the ones out there. Part of the brief was to make them more appealing to your audience. I know that if I saw this on the self of my college/school library I would pick it up and think "what the hell is that doing in the maths section?"

Any way, if anything has come from this project at least I had fun at the end adjusting the colour levels so I got different versions of the same thing. See if the tutors like that...

IT LIVES!!! *insert evil laughter here*

This is "Fwanken Bunny". Done for a project called monster mash... bet you can guess what song it was based on. I really loved painting this. I think this is a style that really suits me, I like thick out lines with thinner details inside. Some how makes it stand out more. Also these projects are not posted in any sort of order at the moment. I am just posting them if I can find the file. Once I have caught up with all my stuff new stuff will be in order... hopefully. Don't hold me to that though.

He will cut you up....

This is Doctre (this is the correct spelling of his name). 

He is a mad scientist and he made him self a new family by stitching them together.

Just watch out he doesn't do the same to you. He was made for a character project.

20 Tiny Fingers

Well this was the first project of my second year at university. The project was called "20 tiny fingers" and we had to include the mother and father and two babies. We had to use the song also called 20 tiny fingers as a starting point. Not the best thing in the world but it is a style I would have not considered if it were not for this project. Painted in Gouache, I had never used it before but it was worth a try.

Daft Punk Essay

You would think that being on an art course, art being very practical, that essays would be a thing of the past. Wrong! They are very much alive a well. The good thing is for most of them we get to choose what ever we want. And so I am currently watching my Daft Punk dvd "Interstella 5555". I'm not slacking off... seriously. It is relevant, I think that this was Daft Punk's most important era. This dvd is basically a feature length animation of their "Discovery" album. Leiji Matsumoto was involved in the animation process of this movie, so no wonder the animation is so smooth. You would expect an anime based movie to be clumsy at times. but this is so well done, I am currently watching the "Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger" video and even the hair moves . It is all in time with the music too!

If you love animation, you love illustration, and you love Daft Punk this is a must have. 

Helloski

Well then people, this is my first ever blog. This is new to me... erm... yeah!
I'm starting this blog because I felt that it would help me to start showing my illustration work.
I am currently about half way through my second year of university, and studying Ba (hons) Illustration.
I have always loved drawing, so this course is perfect for me.
I will aim to update this blog weekly, however if life becomes busy it may be less often.
I will mainly post images when projects are completed, but if there are any rough sketches to go along side I will post those too. It will mostly be universtiy projects on here, there may be one or two personal things here too.
This blog will mainly be for illustration, however if there are any significant events in my life then photos of those may appear too.
Hope you enjoy my work.