Tickling Artists #25: Bebob4999

1) Do you want to tell us something about yourself and your art?

Sure thing! I am Bebob4999, and I have been active as an artist in the tickling community for many years. I started my journey on forums such as Tickle-Theater and Tickling Forum, and then moved on to other platforms such as DeviantArt. Recently I have been drifting between different platforms a bit, and I am not as active as I used to be, but I am still around and am working on things at a leisurely pace. I like to see myself a bit as the James May of tickling art, super slow but (hopefully) with interesting content. As for my work, it’s all still traditional art, and I think that’s one of things people know me for. I’ve been In the scene for a long time! Hopefully, not too long;D

2) What techniques do you use to draw? Do you have a favorite artist that inspires you?

I am a very traditional artist, still scratching pencils and inks on dead trees to make my art. I have tried working with digital tools several times and I am practicing it, but I am so used to traditional methods that I always end up going back to them in the end.

If we are talking fetish art, I have been hugely inspired by the early artists such as BAC, Scavenger and Tomato Dragon (Pawfeather nowadays). But there are so many amazing and talented artists that continue to inspire me time after time, on a daily basis. On the non-kink side, I have been heavily influenced by artists such as Franquinn, Moebius and Jes Goodwyn. Science fiction art, concept art, traditional inking, those are the things that made me want to draw!

3) How much was the passion for drawing born in you? And the one for the tickle?

I have picked up pencils when I was a very VERY young Bebob and never stopped. I was always drawing as a kid. It was literally one of my favorite things in the world. When I discovered my tickling kink I started applying it there. I don’t know where it originated from and ill probably never will know, but I became aware of it was with the small tickling scene in the Disney Tarzan movie. I had no idea why, but I wanted to see the scene over and over and I would secretly watch it on our VHS when I was home alone. Then as I got older I discovered the fetish on the internet, and at some point I started drawing to both contribute on forums. It ended up becoming a part of me that continues to this very day.

4) What are the tickling scenarios that you prefer to draw?

I can enjoy pretty much every imaginable setup or scenario as long as I can have some fun with the drawing as a whole. I do a lot of non-fetish illustrations too and you often get things that at first glance seem very uninspiring, but part of the challenge for me is to make it fun for myself to work on the project. If I had to pick favorites, I have a huge passion for historical and contemporary scenarios where I can do some research and go to town on creating a scene, as well as mad scientist settings and laboratories with evil tickling experiments. I also really like coming up with outrageous bondage, such as straightjackets and mummification, a thing I am often commissioned for. It has become a little bit of a calling card you might say. But all in all, I can find enjoyment in any possible setup!

5) What are the aspects of tickling that you intend to represent with your art? Example: the laughing, the wriggling, the relationship between tickler and ticklee?

Good question. I guess I like to try and make an image that in itself tells a little story, or creates a little scene that allows my viewer to travel into the tiny little world I created for a little while. I always like to add elements surrounding the tickling scene that imply the little things that happened before, or might happen afterwards. Stuff as discarded shoes, tools that are yet to be used, ticklers showing some really passionate delight about what they are doing or a ticklee that hasn’t yet been broken by the torment. Naturally I don’t always succeed, but I try to achieve it. I also like to create a scene with backgrounds, so that the scene is a bit more complete, and the viewer is sucked in even more.

I also have a bit of a personal and specific kink for tickling that is aimed at completely submerging the ticklee into the session. Machines, tickling experiments, interrogations, stuff like that. I create those scenes by focusing on some very improbable but intense restraints, or perhaps add-ons to the scene that show that whoever has captured our poor victim and is tickling them has invested into the entire thing big-time and isn’t planning on ending the session soon.

In the end, almost every aspect of tickling is interesting to me when it comes to what I try to convey with my work, and there’s a lot more to explore in all those area’s. And that’s quite exciting to me!

6) Online there are countless photos and videos of tickling sessions. In your opinion, what do illustrations offer more than images of real scenes?

Illustrations can visualize impossible or improbable scenario’s and fantasies. Magic, machinery, aliens, time travel, a world without taxes, it’s all possible with art. And it allows you to explore your fetish more or less tailored to your own tastes. When doing commissions, you sometimes can tell a customer is really looking for a way to get a very specific or particular part of their interest on paper, something they just can’t find in real life. With certain characters or perhaps aspects that are impossible to recreate in reality. Art has always given us, amongst its many functions in life, a way to escape somewhere else, and that is no different in fetish art.

7) In your opinion, what makes tickling so interesting for fans of this phenomenon?

The tickling fetish is so incredibly diverse and big, I think everyone has their own reasons to be into it, and their own unique palette of aspects they find attractive or unattractive in it. So it’s hard for me to come up with a good answer here.

For me, it’s the incredible range tickling can provide emotionally. It can be super gentle but also very dark and intense. It is heavily based on human touch and interaction, and has a certain intimacy to it that I really enjoy, despite the fact it can be quite “evil”. But it also has some light-heartedness to it, and all of those flavors can be applied in so many different fantasies both in real life, as well as in art and stories. I guess it’s the playful nature of the power dynamic, its huge range in tone and emotion, and the many ways it can be represented. You can switch between the most intense tickle torture to something lighthearted in almost all settings, and it sort of never loses its playful nature, if that makes sense. I can’t put it in words in a way that explains it correctly, and since it means something else for every single person with a tickling fetish it might not make sense what I am trying to tell here. But then again, the fact that everybody experiences the fetish in their own way is what makes it interesting too.

Hard question, I am not sure if I answered it correctly but I tried!:P

8) What are your works of which you are most proud?

Heh, this might be the most difficult question so far. As an artist I am my own worst critic. I usually don’t like what I made myself. But, I think I would say my Sketchy’s, the sketch books I did over the last years. I got to go to town on the pieces and I can see a steady line of improvement throughout all three of them in the way I make and compose pieces. The Sketchy series allowed me to come up with themes and scenario’s that inspire me and I can definitely see the fun I had making them when I put all the images back to back, and that makes me very satisfied.

9) Do you have any particular artistic goals for the future?

Hard to say. I have been in this world for a long time, and whilst I still make work it has become a little bit of a side-show to my offline activities. Recently I got a lot of inspiration for some new personal projects which will probably be booklets or series I would like to make, and I really at some point want to do a comic. So I don’t think I will stop soon, but I think at some point I’ll sort of retire? At some point, which we haven’t reached quite yet! If anything, I just want to keep on trying to get better.

10) Do you think AIs will end up enriching or impoverishing the art of tickling representations?

AI is such an unpredictable thing, but it’s here now and it’s here to stay. I won’t lie that I think AI replaces a lot of work in all imaginable aspects of human society, and making images is among them. We are only at the very beginning of AI’s potential. Last year it could make a crunchy image of Gordon Ramsay smelling a giant potato. Today it can generate images based on the styles of famous artists and art-styles, be it wonky and uncanny, but definitely recognizable.

I think it can (and will) be a very powerful tool for creators, but it will also heavily impact said creators. A lot of jobs and work can be influenced or downright replaced by AI if we let it, but time will tell. I don’t think AI can replace human imagination, but it can support it with weird and unexpected angles or fresh takes by letting it ‘’work’’ over things you came up with yourself. I use AI to come up with concepts for drawings already. I think if we embrace it instead of fighting it, but don’t replace our own creativity and work ethic with it out of laziness then it could definitely be a valuable asset.

We should be careful with it, but don’t fear it either, and then it might just be a great step in the creation of art.

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