Tickling Artists #46: Interview with TottyTK

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

Hi! I’m TottyTK, or just Totty, either one is fine by me! I’m somewhat of an artist, I guess?

Definitely not professional by any means. Despite my DA account saying I’ve been on the site for 3 years, I’ve actually been on the site for a lot longer. I had two other accounts, the first one dating back to like 2014.

I’m not too sure where my tickle fetish came from honestly, I probably saw a couple tickle scenes as a kid and just found myself gravitating towards it. I remember looking up random cartoons and shows I liked on google and randomly adding “tickle” after the title and seeing what came up.

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

I’ve been drawing digitally since 2015, specifically on the program ibisPaint, all of my drawings have been created on an iPhone since I don’t have a drawing tablet. I always butcher something up when I draw so a simple press of an undo button is a lot better than having to erase entire sections over and over again. I also use 3D models with a lot of the reference poses for the drawings I do. Those have definitely helped me a lot with trying different poses!

As for artists that have inspired me, god there are a lot. Before creating a DA account, I remembered loving TickleFanatic and Mystic-Touch’s work and would always find myself going onto their page every couple hours, hoping they would post some new art. Over the years, I’ve also enjoyed art by: Bebob4999, Bad-Pierrot, and pretty much any artist that I’m following. They all got some great stuff.

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

I’ve been drawing since I was in fourth grade. One of my close friends at the time did art and would try and help me get better at it. I was very stupid though and didn’t listen to him sometimes. I do appreciate what he tried to do for me looking back and I wish I listened better. As for fetish art, that didn’t start for another few years, by the time I was in middle school and started to access the internet more often.

As I mentioned, I’ve had an interest in tickling since I was a kid but I didn’t realize there was a community for it until I was actually using the internet. I think when I discovered the community was when my interest in tickling became a bit more understood to me.

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

I don’t do it that often but I always enjoyed some sort of mummified tickling, whether that be someone wrapped in a blanket or something else like that. It’s a scenario I want to draw a bit more often. I mainly enjoy wholesome tickling, mainly stuff between some friends or lovers since I find that to be rather cute. I do enjoy some non-consensual/cruel tickling scenarios but I usually save those scenarios for more villainous characters or characters that deserve it a lot more.

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?

Honestly, I’m not entirely sure. I don’t feel like I necessarily focus heavily on a specific part.

Some drawings I’ll try to make the expression or the way their laughing to be different, other drawings, I’ll try to make it look like they’re struggling more. It just depends on what I’m feeling when I am down to draw. I definitely get stuck having an identity crisis with my art a lot of the time.

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

When it comes to illustration, you are less bound to reality and you can do whatever you want in your drawings. You can draw someone with extremely large feet, put them in positions that may not be natural. It feels like there are more options for what you can include in a drawing. I love actual photos and videos of tickling as well, they absolutely help with inspiration. But sometimes just letting your creativity run wild is a lot more fun.

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

I like how tickling can be interpreted in multiple ways. It can be very wholesome and tender, but can be very intense and cruel. Tickling can also just be something that’s very funny to see, since there’s a bit of a humiliation aspect to it. Seeing someone that tries to be tough or cocky, only to crumble easily with a bit of tickling is very entertaining to me.

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

Not gonna lie, I have a lot of self doubt with my art lmao. I wish I was more proud of the work I create but sometimes it just feels like it is not good enough. However, some that I can look at and not cringe at are: A Lost and Ticklish Soul, Totty the Belated Christmas Gift, Peach Interrogated, and Ticklish ”Psychic”.

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

I would love to do some animations with my drawings. Hell, one of the drawings I mentioned in the previous question was actually going to be animated but was having difficulty converting it into a gif. I also hope to draw a bit more in general and try some different angles than what I’m used to.

This one isn’t really an art goal but I wanted to mention it. I wish to get more acquainted with other artists in the tickling community. I have really bad social anxiety and I just feel like I

can’t make friends with anyone because of it.

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

Hoo boy, I’m not sure what to say here. I’m not the biggest fan of AI even though there is a

place for it in our world. To me, it makes people not want to even bother learning or trying to

create art for themselves. The amount of accounts I’ve seen on Twitter where they just post AI art and get thousands of likes and followers from it just feels so discouraging at times. There are uses for AI but I feel like more people will still want to look at tickle art made by actual people, since it’ll show that a lot of time was put into the piece.

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