#HelloWorld. “With the advent of the internet age comes electronic, digital creation with a feeling of isolation.” —Visual artist, illustrator and animator shelter_song (Shelter Song) “Each of my creations is like a piece of the strange cyber universe I created in my imagination, and I’m progressively revealing it in my works. They originate from the imaginary monster friends I had as a child. I yearned for such buddies when I felt lonely. They stand for a certain kind of companionship.” Shelter Song’s characters and Y2K aesthetic are inspired by creatures from Japanese animation, retro Japanese role-playing games and the hand-held digital pets craze of his youth. “My art appears to be entirely computerized, but I manually paint the 2D portion using 1-bit pixel painting techniques. Pieces in the ‘Future Game Equipment’ series are digitally sculpted. The 3D characters mimic the way that characters from old video games were created. I grew up watching the world through ele...