shel kahn

YouTube video by KO_OP KO_OP Game Reveal & Presentation

We're excited to announce YOUNG SUNS: a new narrative-rich co-op life sim set on Jupiter. Experience life in an optimistic future full of colorful characters. Play solo or with up to 3 friends. Visit planetoids, ruins, and stations. Craft and decorate. Help society heal.

youtu.be/rVEWbp1FiKg?...

Huge congrats to the KO_OP team - Young Suns looks so great! I got to stick my oar in for a month towards the start to do a few art concepts, and it's amazing to see what has come to life since! This is going on the wishlist *immediately*

please share and join us tomorrow to see what we've been up to for the last few years. It's the future of KO_OP 🥺

my holiday stock arrived finally so soon - soon! - there will be so much more on these shelves!

things are happening, Toronto....!

A sketchy and textural drawing of a white woman with red hair in a white two piece bathing suit sitting on a rock in the sun, with water behind her and bright colourful shadows.

Gonna take this week to share some highlights from the year I spent learning to paint with oil pastels! I had dug out an old set of mine from my teens after watching a gouache artist share some of her oil pastels on youtube, and this study was my first serious foray with the medium since ~ 2002.

A photo of an oil pastel painting on grey paper on an easel. The painting depicts a street at dusk with bus and car lights streaking by against a dark blue sky and silhouetted apartment buildings.

One of the first things I try to figure out with any new medium is what it can do better than other mediums, and the blendability of oil pastels does make working with certain light effects extremely fun!

A chunky and painterly portrait of a man with long blond hair, short wispy bangs, and a beard with two braids coming from his chin.

One of the most surprising elements of oil pastels for me was how much the substrate affected the painting. This study was my first done on wood panel, and compared to absorbent paper, using them on wood prevents the oils from being absorbed, and the pastels work so much more like paints!

A vertical painting of a stream with a rocky bank and a looming forest behind it, the sun peeking through the trees.

This is the biggest oil pastel painting I've finished so far, at 22" tall. It is a study from my own photograph, and there is a large watercolour underpainting propping up the oil pastels, which really helped give me some incredible colour vibration that, sadly, the camera really can't capture.

A colourful and soft portrait of a golden dog, a labrador mix with a liver nose and floppy ears and extra fur around his neck, in bright light against a greenish blue background.

After I had a handle on the medium, I painted some gifts for family, pet portraits, and this is for sure my favourite of the batch. Oil pastels are so wonderful as a way to be soft but painterly, abstract but rendered, colourful but realistic....

A still life painting of some oranges in glowing sunlight, with very chunky, painterly brushstroke style application of the oil pastels.

Still life studies are always a good way to practice a new medium, and oil pastels are no exception. Finding the balance between blending everything into soft oblivion versus letting each mark be a brushstroke that stands on its own is hard! And fun. And worth practicing.

A sketchbook page showing a rough sketch of kids playing in a wading pool with a tree and a picnic bench in shadow in the foreground.

Oil pastels are also a fantastic medium for plein air work - all the powerful opaque colour of gouache, the blendability of oils, and the throw-in-a-box-in-your-bag ease of pencils or markers. I use them in my royal talens art creation sketchbooks and they hold up better than I could hope!

A soft and vibrant painting of a tiny island with a tree, a rock and some flowers, floating over glowing crystals in water that blends seamlessly into the horizon.

One more oil pastel painting for good measure: I always have to do a crystal island in a new medium, and this one, painted on a wood panel for maximum softness and painterliness, is one of my favourite islands from this year! Oil pastels have been so rewarding, and I hope you enjoyed this art tour!

"Simple as jailbreaking an iPhone!"

[HMU for art requests i have some freelance availability soon]
#cyberpunk #yuri

hell yeah hell yeah

Image tryptic, left: a human skull resting in front of a stone with engraved symbols, with artists name Goran Gilgovic; center: a Black woman holds a hat to keep rain off of her face and the yellow snake that entwines her body, with artists name Jabari Weathers, right: a wolf looks out a snow-covered lair, framed by swords left leaning against the shelter, with artists name Shel Kahn

We are very happy to announce some of the artists that we will be working with to envision, explore and enhance Swords Without Master: @goblinprincete.bsky.social, Goran Gilgović, @portablecity.bsky.social (of course) and Erin Vest! Preview page has more info.

www.kickstarter.com/projects/unw...

YouTube video by KO_OP KO_OP Game Reveal & Presentation

Join us tomorrow at 12 PM EST for an exciting announcement of our upcoming game! youtu.be/rVEWbp1FiKg

I met a dungeons and dragons game designer on a cross country train while it was stranded in the middle of nowhere for a day.

A soft and vibrant painting of a tiny island with a tree, a rock and some flowers, floating over glowing crystals in water that blends seamlessly into the horizon.

One more oil pastel painting for good measure: I always have to do a crystal island in a new medium, and this one, painted on a wood panel for maximum softness and painterliness, is one of my favourite islands from this year! Oil pastels have been so rewarding, and I hope you enjoyed this art tour!

oh and they don't freeze as easily as paints! though i haven't stress tested them down to too low a temp yet. Drawing with these with gloves on does not appeal.

oil pastels or the art you make with them won't be harmed by a little water either, which is great! but one lesson i have learned at great personal cost is: do not, under any circumstances, let them get sandy.

A sketchbook page showing a rough sketch of kids playing in a wading pool with a tree and a picnic bench in shadow in the foreground.

Oil pastels are also a fantastic medium for plein air work - all the powerful opaque colour of gouache, the blendability of oils, and the throw-in-a-box-in-your-bag ease of pencils or markers. I use them in my royal talens art creation sketchbooks and they hold up better than I could hope!

we couldn't get off the train bc of snakes yeah

my career has origins going back to first grade and also exists largely due to the kindness and support of many game designers in multiple fields of work, but that train encounter was pretty pivotal, i think.

Hey anyone got any K-Pop Demon Hunters or Percy Jackson merch in their online stores? Shopping for our niblings right now and buying from artists and not dropshippers is important to us 🎉

Bonus points if you're Canadian!

Drop your shop link below~

I met a dungeons and dragons game designer on a cross country train while it was stranded in the middle of nowhere for a day.

A still life painting of some oranges in glowing sunlight, with very chunky, painterly brushstroke style application of the oil pastels.

Still life studies are always a good way to practice a new medium, and oil pastels are no exception. Finding the balance between blending everything into soft oblivion versus letting each mark be a brushstroke that stands on its own is hard! And fun. And worth practicing.

the shape of a running (?) animal (??) made out of cubes and planes of meat, loosely hung together, sometimes not connected. it has a mouth of flat teeth that runs from its head into its chest (????), a row of dead white eyes, bug-like limbs and a pointed proboscis in a nose-like arrangement

Another version, this one a little more abstract, that i scrapped.

Travel watercolours from Holland! Amsterdam, specifically.