Emory Kjelsberg, Real Human Artist
LightNews LightNews
banner
emorykj-art.bsky.social
Emory Kjelsberg, Real Human Artist
@emorykj-art.bsky.social
2.1K followers 500 following 210 posts
Freelance Fantasy Illustrator | He/Him | 26
Commission inquiries — emory.kj(at)gmail.com
emorykj.com
Posts Replies Media Videos
emorykj-art.bsky.social
Patron Saint of Hating ChatGPT
An anthropomorphic coyote in peasant’s garb stabs a massive pencil into a shattered, sparking ChatGPT logo. The coyote is grinning, with patchwork wings splayed behind them, and their pose is reminiscent of St Michael Slaying the Devil. Behind them is a marble archway, bursting with pencils, paints, and creative implements. Same image but with a black background behind the marble arch. An anthropomorphic coyote in peasant’s garb stabs a massive pencil into a shattered, sparking ChatGPT logo. The coyote is grinning, with patchwork wings splayed behind them, and their pose is reminiscent of St Michael Slaying the Devil. Behind them is a marble archway, bursting with pencils, paints, and creative implements.
November 19, 2025 at 6:52 PM
emorykj-art.bsky.social
Beautiful baby Baba Yaga books…
Emory’s hand holding Tales from the House of Baba Yaga — a 40 page, 5x7 staple bound short story illustrated by Emory. Interior shot of Tales, featuring an illustration of Vasily stealing the Firebird. An interior shot of Tales, featuring a blood red witch holding a soldier by the throat.
November 7, 2025 at 5:12 AM
emorykj-art.bsky.social
Sending out some zines and playmats today 🩵
Photo of a rolled up playmat, secured with an elegant strip of black paper marked with gold and a leather cord. Stamped on the paper holding it in place is the logo for Emory Kjelsberg Illustration. Photo of a sage green envelope stamped with the Emory Kjelsberg Illustration logo, leaning against a rolled up playmat.
November 4, 2025 at 3:33 PM
emorykj-art.bsky.social
Hey gamers, I just posted some playmats up in my store!
A 14”x24” playmat depicting a tavern scene full of anthropomorphic fantasy animals. In the foreground, a grinning coyote serenades a lordly gothic raven, and a clownish chipmunk scrabbles up a wooden post. A 14”x24” playmat depicting a warthog-headed man charging through a magically animated wave of mud. He wears leather chair with metal studding, and a red rope harness around his chest and arms. He clutches a glowing thigh bone. A 14”x24” playmat depicting a colorful clownish tiefling and air genasi, soaring through a black-cloud sky on paper airplanes.
November 1, 2025 at 9:44 PM
emorykj-art.bsky.social
Ancient Greek weaponsmith for a Spartacus-inspired pbta game I’m helping playtest —
A sketchbook page featuring a couple sketches of a very muscular blacksmith. She is mostly bald with a free scraps of dark hair, a scar on her upper lip, an underbite, a long and broken nose, and narrow eyes. Her arms are bare, and she rests one on the handle of a massive hammer. The text labels her “Agathe/Malleus. She/He. Descendant of Hephaestus.”
October 25, 2025 at 6:35 PM
emorykj-art.bsky.social
Just posted a handful of these zines to my store —

www.emorykj.com/store/book-o...
A colorful stack of handmade zines, resting on black paper marbled with silver and gold. Book of Hours is a surreal medieval zine about enduring labor, featuring animal characters and hyper-detailed interiors. The same black marbled paper can be seen peeking between the pages of the zines.
October 25, 2025 at 3:02 PM
emorykj-art.bsky.social
So many hours for something so small…
The front cover for Book of Hours - A cluttered and colorful digital illustration, featuring a top-down view of an anthropomorphic coyote sleeping on the ground. Above, a large shovel creates the horizon line for a rising sun, and a space for the title. Below, with an illustrated capital W, reads, “Wake. You must tend the fields. The lords are coming to visit.” The borders of the image are highly illustrated. The left side featured a cream-colored stone pillar, carved to look like two dog-headed men holding up the weight of two heeled shoes. The right border features a stone tower with a conical red tiled roof, the foundation of which is a modern orange prescription pill canister and a medical vial of injectable liquid. The lowest border is a grey stone wall, with a sickle on one side and a Wacom pen on the other, wrapped in an ergonomic orange grip that Emory uses when he draws, to help stave off the carpal tunnel. An interior spread from the Book of Hours zine. The left page features a messy set of arched panels, depicting the coyote peasant digging with a shovel, and then with his hands. A portafilter rests on the top half of the frame with the words “Turn the soil,” inscribed on the handle. The coyote is tearing into the earth, which is seemingly laced with deep red roots/blood vessels, and then through the borders of page itself, tearing through cardboard. Below him is the caption, covered up by torn cardboard and other encroaching border elements, “Your body in the earth. The earth in your body.” The left border features coffee beans, a hand dangling to a broken ladder, a cracked hourglass with blood and dirt spilling out of it, protest signs, a toppled traffic cone. The pages are divided by a set of spinning wheels, specifically the Spinning Jenny, an invention that spurred the Industrial Revolution in Europe and destroyed the livelihoods of cottage industries, sparking some of the earliest labor revolts and unions in Europe. The right page features the coyote staring down into the landslide he’s dug out. There are rocks, and a peculiar set of animal masks amongst the rubble. Behind him, the mouse blithely chastises him with words read from a scroll. The banner captions for this page read, “The villein says you’re not digging correctly (according to the lords),” and “You must be digging correctly when the lords arrive.” The borders on this page have been overrun by the landslide of earth falling out of frame. The foundation of a white tower with red tiles crumbles out from underneath it, into the sliding rubble. A photograph of Emory’s Clip Studio Paint window, zoomed in on the “Work Time” feature that tracks how long you’ve been working on a file for. It reads “94 [hours] 01 [minutes]”
October 21, 2025 at 3:52 PM
emorykj-art.bsky.social
Book of Hours — what started as a prayer book for the modern day worker quickly spiraled into a surreal medieval zine about enduring labor.
This is the cover —
A cluttered and colorful digital cover page illustration, featuring a top-down view of an anthropomorphic coyote sleeping on the ground. Above, a large shovel creates the horizon line for a rising sun, and a space for the title - “Book of Hours.” Below, with an illustrated capital W, reads, “Wake. You must tend the fields. The lords are coming to visit.” The borders of the image are highly illustrated. The left side featured a cream-colored stone pillar, carved to look like two dog-headed men holding up the weight of two heeled shoes. The right border features a stone tower with a conical red tiled roof, the foundation of which is a modern orange prescription pill canister and a medical vial of injectable liquid. The lowest border is a grey stone wall, with a sickle on one side and a Wacom pen on the other, wrapped in an ergonomic orange grip that Emory uses when he draws, to help stave off the carpal tunnel.
October 20, 2025 at 5:32 PM
emorykj-art.bsky.social
Hello hello #PortfolioDay
I’m Emory Kjelsberg, a freelance fantasy artist who illustrates for ttrpgs, card games, character portraits and more!
A humblewood wrangler monk flies through the air as she lassos a dinosaur! A large, masculine figure charges at the viewer, mud curling in a massive wave around him. He has a warthog’s head, and is bedecked in leather, red rope, and splatters of mud. Two foxes dance amongst a crowd of gala goers. The scene glows with golden light.
October 14, 2025 at 1:46 PM
emorykj-art.bsky.social
Business expenses can be cute and fun, actually.
September 13, 2025 at 7:22 PM
emorykj-art.bsky.social
🩵 QRP with something watery 🩵

More oily than watery, but it is a beach. This is a weird old one from Regalia for the Wretched.
A crane-headed woman pulls herself over the rocks on a grey beach shore. Her head is oily black, with pearls in the eye socket, and golden six-pack dividers strangling her neck. She holds a large pearl in her beak. Nets and buoys from fishing boats drape across her. She has four arms, and only one leg is visible stepping into an oil pool in the sand. The whole painting is mostly a cool grey, with some sickly pale yellows for the buoys and a dull, toxic rainbow glimmer in the oil.
September 11, 2025 at 3:58 PM
emorykj-art.bsky.social
They can’t let me keep painting —
September 4, 2025 at 3:55 PM
emorykj-art.bsky.social
Absolutely banger comic; really excited to get some mileage outta this panel -
September 3, 2025 at 3:40 PM
emorykj-art.bsky.social
Policeman removing a “No King! No Tyranny!” sign in Lexington Center -
September 2, 2025 at 2:23 PM
emorykj-art.bsky.social
September 1, 2025 at 8:16 PM
emorykj-art.bsky.social
No more apartment means I get to do THIS —
A shot of Emory’s bedroom wall, which has been painted with white and blue and pick clouds, and an elegant handpainted tree leaning to the left.
September 1, 2025 at 4:02 PM
emorykj-art.bsky.social
Artists and organizers Nova and Mali are hosting a silent auction to raise money for Gaza Soup Kitchen!

My piece, the Ambassadors, from Classics but Make it Gay Volume II, is one of dozens of beautiful pieces being auctioned off as a professional giclee print.

www.32auctions.com/Novaandmali2...
A cropped picture of The Ambassadors, with Prints for Palestine printed in the lower right corner. The Ambassadors is a portrait of two Renaissance era men, taken from Hans Holbein’s painting, embracing each other. One wears a richly furred coat and is grasping the green curtain behind the two of them, pulling it down to reveal a night sky behind them. The other pushes his hand into his chest. A gold necklace encircles the two of them.
August 16, 2025 at 8:47 PM
emorykj-art.bsky.social
July 30, 2025 at 7:31 PM
emorykj-art.bsky.social
July 30, 2025 at 7:30 PM
emorykj-art.bsky.social
July 30, 2025 at 7:30 PM
emorykj-art.bsky.social
Some insect tokens for my friend!
I’ll be at GenCon this weekend, working with the Story Engine at their booth 1217. Feel free to come say hello!
Three brightly colored miniature mtg tokens, each hand painted in watercolor and gouache, of 1/1 insects. The first is a bumblebee on a bleeding heart flower. The second is a blue dragonfly. The third is a fluffy white moth. All have some metallic gold accents.
July 30, 2025 at 6:35 PM
emorykj-art.bsky.social
Heralds of Play, commissioned by @arcaneanthems.com for his new single, “Taking Back Playful.”
Had a ton of fun with this one!
A brightly colored tiefling jester glides on a large paper airplane, through a grim dark landscape. They hold out a spear with a banner trailing off of it. The banner appears to be blue, but on closer look is actually less of a fabric and more of a portal through the black clouds of the sky, to see a blue sky and whimsical fantasy world beyond it. Behind them there is another figure, an air genasi, also riding a paper airplane and blowing a trumpet full of golden light.
July 18, 2025 at 12:24 PM
emorykj-art.bsky.social
Hello #PortfolioDay! My name is Emory Kjelsberg, I am a digital fantasy freelance artist, and I illustrate for books, ttrpgs, card games, and more.
July 8, 2025 at 11:55 AM
emorykj-art.bsky.social
The rats thus far, including some linocut block-printed ones!
Red and black linocut block-print rat tokens, with gold detailing.
June 30, 2025 at 9:15 PM
emorykj-art.bsky.social
June 24, 2025 at 12:06 PM