Tickle Artists #59: Interview with CelofanTKL

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

Sure, I’m CelofanTKL, Celo for short, a relatively recent artist. I started my first steps in tickling art in 2022, my art mainly consists of male tickling drawings, but it’s not closed only to that. I like to create drawings that entertain people, that are fun to look at, and at the same time fun to do.

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

I mainly use digital drawing using a tablet, and Krita as my software for drawing and animation.

As an artist in general, Bob Ross is my main inspiration, his technique for painting quickly based on brush strokes is the main technique I use when giving details to my drawings with abstract brush strokes that give the impression of shapes like trees or mountains. As far as animation is concerned, Richard Williams, with his book and story, did a lot for me to understand how animation works.

And regarding artists more focused on tickling, there are many well-known inspirations: Bad-pierrot, SkaeaDaimonion, Pirata3, DokiDokiMuffin, Codricor1, EveryDayComix, Master417, the list is very long, but of all of them, I really love the content of Animeshipper123, the style he uses, and the fun content he makes is what I dream of doing too. The fact that we have become very close friends is a big dream come true for me.

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

When I was studying Secondary education, I was taking cultural workshops where I saw everything: theater, dance, music, clay crafts, and painting, that was where they taught me the basics of painting, mainly I painted landscapes and drew fruits. Years passed and I was away from the art scene.

In recent years, 2021 to be precise, I started coloring sketches of some artists for personal use. I wanted to see those drawings in color, and it was an interesting experience, which made me say “What if I try to do my own things?”.

So I bought a drawing tablet and started taking the leap. I hadn’t drawn in years, let alone characters, at the beginning my drawings were very, VERY ugly. Drawing with a tablet was doing things blindly at the beginning, there were moments that made me want to quit, but I still had faith that I could do it.

Then in October 2022 it finally happened, my first tickling drawings made me feel proud, and since then I have continued, practicing and aiming to improve with each new drawing.

And regarding tickling, from a very young age my love for them was born, especially when I saw interrogations in movies or cartoons, it was something that I really liked to see. After several years, when I discovered the Internet, it was a surprise to see that many people also liked it, and they made art of the characters I liked being tickled, that was a real boom for me.

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

I am a big fan of interrogation scenarios, especially when their feet are tickled and they are immobilized or mummified. The fact that they cannot move, and receive tickling in a specific point, especially with feathers, is very irresistible to me.

I also like scenarios that can be “canon” in the universe of the characters I draw, such as scenes that lend themselves to a tickling situation but never do it, in which case I make sure that the characters receive the tickling, sometimes trying to replicate the style of the source material as closely as possible so that it looks like an authentic scene.

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 think all of it as a complete package: an excellent laugh, the wriggling, the type of relationship that exists between the characters, the scenarios where they take place, the tools, there are many variables that I take into account to represent in my drawings, so that I can convince people that this character really cannot resist being tickled, and that there is a purpose behind all that, for example an interrogation, a punishment, that there is a storytelling without saying a single word (well, maybe laughter), all visual.

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

 I think there is more freedom in the type of scenarios that can be carried out, the possibilities are infinite and are not limited by a budget or cast, we can do everything with illustrations, from fantastic to futuristic worlds,

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

Hehe, I think the fact that sometimes a simple touch or something soft can have a person at your mercy, sometimes even the toughest can be succumbing to a pair of feathers and have them tell you everything you need know.

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

Well, if I had to choose the ones that make me most proud, I could say 3 drawings and 3 animations.

My drawing of Yoh Asakura as a celebration of my first anniversary, which is a remake of the first drawing I published as an artist on Deviantart

The Phantom Thieves from Persona 5, something that occurred to me when I got to that part of the game

Sorey and Mikleo, a gift I made for Animeshipper123’s birthday, especially because of the amount of details it has, and the feathers on their feet

And animations

FootLocker by Animeshipper123 receiving a tickling punishment from The Sleepwalk Twins: Styro and Foam, my first original characters.

Pazu from Castle in the Sky being interrogated by Muska, I wanted to make it as faithful as possible to the style and rhythm of the Studio Ghibli film, I think I got a good result, maybe in the future I can improve my technique

And finally, the Color Wheel Challenge with characters that my Watchers suggested, this was one of my most titanic tasks since it involved 8 characters, each with different animations, with shading, all in harmony receiving tickles from a wheel in the center

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

I think it would be to continue improving the quality of my work, as well as varying my techniques and experimenting with different ways of drawing to stay fresh, and also having a lot of fun with my artist friends on new adventures.

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

Well, so far I am not very sure about the topic of AIs, I think time will tell us.

It took me some time to prepare everything, I hope it’s enough 🙂 , if you need anything else, don’t hesitate to ask me, thank you very much for your support :hug:

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