Tickle Artists #63: Interview with Erimoto

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

I’m Erimoto  and I’ve been drawing tickle art ever since I was in high school. It sort of led me to taking art seriously and now art is a big part of my life. Just being able to visualize my ideas is a fun pastime I like to partake in.

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

A lot of the development of my art style mainly came from my experimentation from other artists that inspired me. Artists like PirataNo3, LostOneZero, Konsome, Nada, and a big inspiration from Kusujinn, all helped me to find and develop my style. I’m able to learn just from experimenting my favorite parts of their art and putting it into my own drawings.

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

I liked to draw a lot growing up, but I never actually took it seriously to improve until I first posted a tickle drawing. A few people praised that drawing, then that was when I began to learn and improve from artists I liked. My passion for tickling started during a “developmental” time for me. While discovering stuff about myself, due to certain factors, tickling really became an ingrained fetish for me (and to be honest, kept me from delving into things too lewd). I love tickling and trying it irl really helped to appreciate it.

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

Scenarios I like to draw are either machine/robotic tickles or tickles by tentacle monsters. I really like the fictional aspects of these scenarios as it can lead to a lot of creative setups. A relenting machine with the purpose of tickling can be such an extreme or cute scenario that can be fun in figuring out how a lee would be so restricted with no chance of escape. And then tentacles are also great on the opposite aspect, tentacle creatures are able to improvise so it’s also fun to think of poses that show a lee struggling for escape but the tentacles adapting to them! These scenarios lead to fun brainstorming!

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?

I believe that facial expressions are super important in tickle art because they can convey what’s going on in the mind of the lee. The drawing of a facial expression can show a lee hysterically laughing, on the verge of laughter, or so tired that they can’t even laugh anymore! Personally as someone that likes being tickled, the facial expressions let you into the shoes of the lee, so you can see what it’s like to be tickled like them. I also put a lot of thought into the poses for my drawings. I want to show how a lee struggles and wriggles from just the poses, and due to art being static, I try to convey as much movement as I can. These are things in tickling art that I like the most, so I attempt to input them into my own art as much as I’m able to.

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

I’ve mentioned before that I like to draw very fictional scenarios, I just really enjoy thinking about the impossible in regards to someone getting tickled. A part of it is just extreme “doom” scenarios that end up with lees getting screwed. But my mind can get very creative with tickle fantasies, so having art as an outlet not only lets me create a visualization of those fantasies, but it also allows the wildest imagination to become “tangible”. I think art is important in any fetish, cause not everything is physically possible, art allows us to be able to share those impossible scenes.

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

I guess what makes tickling really interesting is the domination play? Tickling someone is sort of a dominating act to do. And that there are different levels of instensity that tickling can go from, such as teasing tickles to just extreme tickle torture. One of the best things I like from it is that as someone who likes to be tickled is how it typically leaves no physical harm on the lee. I’m more inclined to partake in tickling because of this.

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

The tickle drawings I’m most proud to have drawn are Ghosted Hotspring, Ticklers of The Galaxy, and Ticklish Spider-Gwen. The first one (Ghosted Hotspring) I’m really proud of the result, from just how well I was able to render the environment. With the hot spring itself, the ghostly hands, the three characters, and just the overall background of the building, it was a drawing that I feel was the perfect depiction of the idea I had. The other two I’m particularly proud of are from just the rendering of the characters, I’m proud of how Gamora looks as I think it’s realistic with green skin and the more unbearable laughing expression, and for Spider-Gwen, I’m proud of how I was able to emulate the style of the movie’s animation, from just eh shading and certain textures.

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

Some goals I have for the future is to practice both animation and comics. I’ve been learning how to do animation lately and while I do have a workflow for myself, I want to be able to manage my time properly to be able to produce more. It is too time consuming for someone who’s too busy sometimes, but since I have the knowledge to animate, I want to put it to use for the tickle community. I also want to learn how to do comics, it’s something I’ve been struggling with from just paneling, characters, dialogue bubbles. Comic style drawings are something I’ve just never been able to figure out during my time being an artist.

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

I think AI has been impoverishing art lately. As an artist, I’m not a fan of AI being utilized to skip the artistic process. Not only does AI lack soul, but for me personally, AI is too generalized and I am unable to find those things I enjoy about tickle art within them. The things I value about tickling that I put in my art are hard to represent and find in AI art, so I believe AI is impoverishing tickle art.

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