Tickle artists #131: Interview with ButtonsMcGee123

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

Sup y’all, you can find me at ButtonsMcGee123 on DeviantArt.

I’m a fella who obsesses over tickling, but more specifically bellybutton tickling! Ever since I poked my first bellybutton I’ve felt kinda drawn to them, but it wasn’t until I visited Germany a few years ago is when the whole bellybutton tickling thing kicked off. I’ll go into more detail later on, but needless to say I did a little tickling myself to a very very very ticklish woman, in front of her HUSBAND of all things lmao.

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

I tend to try and copy the art styles of the media I’m taking inspiration from! If I’m making an American Dad/Family Guy drawing of like Francine or Lois, I’ll try to recreate their style as much as possible. Same goes for everything! My goal for most of my pieces is to make it look like the tickle scenarios I draw came from the show itself as much as possible.

As for favorite artists, the main one that comes to mind is KoochieKoochieToons!

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

I can’t lie, I used to not care much for drawing at all lmao! I really didn’t get into it until I developed my navel tickling fixation at the burg, so that’s about the time I started I would have to say. (Three years ago)

And as for tickling in general, I’ve always been a huge fan, but not even specifically the bellybutton until this moment at the burg castle fest thing! As y’all saw me mention earlier, I had the honor of tickling a blonde petite yet busty woman in her early 40’s, WHO BY THE WAY had her husband in the crowd! She had a two piece viking costume on, and her bellybutton was so inviting. It was stretched tightly horizontally like a coin slot when she stood normally, but when she was stretched, it opened up into a perfect circle with a super smooth surface resting in the very back of it. Anyway once I took notice of her navel, I couldn’t help but make it my main target! I used my fingers, a feather and it’s quill tip, a piece of hay. It was great! My favorite part was when I was holding her belly down while bending my fingertip into the shape of a crane to gently wiggle my fingertip inside her bellybutton, and she was going wild! That was the moment my obsession with navels was born. Also if you’re wondering, I think it was her husband’s birthday or something, cause he had a special B-Day looking hat lmaooo. Some kind of part hat it looked like. But yeah, he was loving it just as much as me I think.

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

Well, I love to draw mostly 2-D cartoons, BUT I will give 3-D pieces a shot every now and again. My favorite piece of media to draw art of is Total Drama not gonna lie lmao.

My goal is to have the most TDI tickling drawings on Deviant Art, all bellybutton focused!

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?

So my favorite part about tickling I would have to say is the playful embarrassment it can tend to cause! Like tickling a married woman’s navel in front of her husband!!! lmaoooo.

I can only imagine the guy was thinking “Wow, the love of my life is getting her bellybutton playfully and cartoonishly tickle tortured right in front of me by another guy.”

But it’s also the thoughts that linger within the lee’s head afterwards, especially after bellybutton tickling you know? Like, you think she’ll ever forget getting her belly and bellybutton playfully tickle tortured in front of an entire crowd and a loved one?

And it’s like, you can’t erase what happened, just like that woman in the Viking costume I tickled. No matter what, she can’t undo my fingertip tickling and exploring the back wall of her navel, and the husband 100% can’t unsee it either lmao!

That’s only scratching the surface on why I love navel tickling so much, it just seems like such a sacred place! Feet and armpit tickling art great yeah, but yeah don’t get much bellybutton tickling media out there sadly. One day I hope to be a part of the bellybutton tickling revolution!!!

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

Definitely the fact that I try to make it look like a scene ripped straight from the show! Ever since I finally got my tablet, I have been able to take that more seriously now, and y’all can expect much more!!

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

Putting myself in the shoes of the viewer, I personally would love to see a tickle scene drawn that looks like it came right out of the place it came from! I love the different art styles everyone adopts, but there’s something I feel like that’s just so unbeatable about trying to make it look as close to the real thing as possible!

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

That’s tough, but if I had to pick maybe three, I would have to say in this order…

“A Tickly Sitch” (Kim Possible)

“Starfire’s Tiny Tresspasser” (Starfire)

And my most recent of the three..

“An Incredible Tickle Scene” (Elastigirl)

There’s a lot more that I love but those are the first one’s that come to my mind right now! OH! And I also love simple poke drawings, “Gardenia’s Secret Weapon” is a great example of that!

All of these can be found on my DA Page!!

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

One day I’d love to become a storyboard artist! And as for my DA Page, I hope to one day be the most well-known Bellybutton Tickling Artists of all time!! My goal is to reach 1,000+ deviations, and to hold the largest catalog of characters for fans of bellybutton tickling! I one day want to have a selection of 500+ different lee’s to view on the page, we are currently around the 200 mark!

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

Oh 100%!! I know a lot people hate AI work, it’s understandable. BUT, there’s opportunity for so much that we’d otherwise never get to see! Like for example, I bet 1,000,000 pretzels we’ll be getting videos of like “Rachel Green getting tickled at the renfaire by Joey, Ross, Phoebe, Monica, and Chandler”🤣🤣 That wouldn’t be possible without AI, unless exact look-alikes decided to recreate it as a tape! But even with that said, there’s many things you can make happen with mere pencil and paper that AI is not yet capable of. As someone who doesn’t make money off their work, AI is a really cool addition to what we can view now! But I can totally see why it may be heavily disliked by those who work hard to get paid off their art, I can imagine it’d be frustrating!!!

Related posts:

Tickle Artists #1: Interview with Solletickle Tickle Artists #2: Interview with Kalamos Tickle Artists #3: Interview with Toermentor Tickle Artists #4: Interview with WooouTK Tickle Artists #5: Interview with TheBandito Tickle Artists #6: Interview with Dr. Random Tickle Artists #7: Interview with Restif Tickle Artistis #8: Interview with Jynthewise Tickle Artists #9: Interview with CToon Tickle Artists #10: Interview with Siberia Fetish Tickle Artists #11: Interview with Pabu-Lad Tickle Artists #12: Interview with Redscript77