Tickle Artists #54: Interview with Yorokiss

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

Hello, I’m Yorokiss. I’m a tickle artist and writer from Spain. I started at Deviantart 9 years ago on another account but moved to this newer one in 2016. I used to be a tickle writer only and would not start my career as an artist until I made this new account I’m on now, Yorokiss.

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

I started drawing for the first time in 2016, with my current DA account, and I had no idea what I was doing. Nowadays, I still feel like I have no idea what I’m doing. Sketch, sketch a second time, lineart and coloring. That’s all my process.

As for favorite artists, I have quite a few. If we’re talking about writers I’d say my favorite one and my main inspiration at the moment for tickle fics would be Oneortheother, I’ve even drawn some of the scenes he’s written! So he’s inspiring me both as a writer, to do better, and as an artist, giving me scenarios to recreate! Other writers that I like a lot and have inspired me are TellButShow (A BDSM writer so he doesn’t do that much tickling), to develop my bondage scenes and has sparked me a newfound interest in heavier bondage. Although the writer that inspired me the most as I started in this world was DivJustice, but he does not upload anymore.

When it comes to tickle art, there are too many artists that I like, calling one ‘my favorite’ is a hard choice. It also depends on the context, for tickle bondage I think Bebob4999 is one of the best (if not the best) ones out there, if you’re looking for more NSFW stuff mixed with tickling PolarBearNSFW is a titan. TicklishPixels is one I really like a lot as well. His renders are amazing and has a lot of pieces featuring stocks, one of my favorite scenarios. When it comes to style, I think my favorite ones would be Bad-Pierrot, Pirata03, WTFeather and Codricor1. In fact, my latest arts have been heavily influenced by Bad-Pierrot, as he has an art style that I like a lot.

But yeah, there are too many to name them all, and I’d say each and everyone of them have influenced me a bit. From ideas to new styles or even showing me new kinks. I’ve changed a lot since I started on DeviantArt, and I think all these artists, plus some of the people that I’ve met over the years, have helped me develop and grow as an artist, a writer and in my tastes.

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

Well, as I said earlier, I started as a writer. But it feels like writers are ‘second class citizens’ in the tickle art world and the passion for drawing started later on when I realized that no matter how good a story I made was, people would always prefer a drawing. Since I didn’t have the money to go around asking for commissions one after the other, I went up and bought a digital tablet with what little money I had saved up at the time and started my career as an artist right there. Truth is, in my head was like ‘this is an investment towards the future’, but I was veeeery impulsive with the decision. And looking back it was a weird one. Why did I spend 40 bucks for a tablet and started on digital? I should’ve started drawing on paper or something hahaha

But here we are now. Not gonna lie, having spent the money kind of helped in the long run, because at the start I was kind of ‘dude, you’ve spent the money, you better get something out of this’ in the times when I was about to give up. Because well, I started drawing by myself without any help, and dumbass me didn’t watch any tutorials or anything. I literally learnt from scratch. Later on I started getting some help from artist friends here and there, but overall the start was tough. I’d like to thank WTFeather here for helping me out so many times in the past when I was struggling with a sketch or not knowing how to position something in the picture.

As for the passion for tickling, that is something that I can’t even remember I’ve liked it my whole life, when I was a kid I would try to tickle others when I had the chance, so I guess it’s something that I’ve always liked.

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

Stocks and/or heavy bondage paired up with tickling. Those are my favorite ones. I can draw other stuff as well, of course, but those are the most enjoyable to me I’d say. I also like drawing these big, gorgeous dresses some characters wear (Like Mirellia, from Rising of the Shield Hero, whom I’ve drawn a few times already). They give a lot of personality to the character! They may be a pain in the ass to draw when they are super detailed, but they are so beautiful that it is worth it in the end. I’m saying this because the character I’m drawing, and their outfit also influence how much I’m enjoying drawing a particular scene. My favorite kind of ticklee to draw or write about are strong, powerful women (bonus points if royalty or aristocracy like a Queen (from old times)). There is a right ticklee for every scenario and context matters! I like drawing (and writing) things as close to the original source as possible.

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?

That depends on the picture I’d say. The picture and who the ticklee or the tickler is. Some ticklees I like ‘she deserves some punishment’ and I make the piece focusing on her laughing and the desperation. Some ticklees I’m like they could have an interesting relationship with the tickler, so I decide to focus on that aspect of tickler-ticklee in the piece. When I’ve written stories about interrogations, they usually focus on the tickling itself and the capacity of the ticklee to endure it, but when I’ve drawn pieces that emulate a video I’ve seen I try to focus on the bondage, and replicating the position/dynamism the ticklee had there.

So it all comes down to the ticklee and the scenario I’ve chosen to do. But I think doing a little bit of everything is important.

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

There is the whole fantasy aspect of it. In a picture you can draw a magical setup like a group of vines holding down the ticklee, twenty pairs of hands to tickle someone and other stuff like having a wall full of trapped ticklees. All of these, for logistical reasons, would be very hard to implement if not outright impossible. Be it because it does not exist IRL or because it would require too many people to do (I think I have never seen a video of 20 ticklers getting a single ticklee). Also you can have whoever you want starring as the ticklee and the tickler in pictures. And the background can be wherever you want. You are not restricted to how our world is. You could easily do a space piece, a medieval one…

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

Well, I’d say there are two main points of what makes tickling so interesting.

The first one is the aspect of domination. Some people like control, some like the loss of control. And I think this applies to all scenarios, from the most playful ones (where the tickler likes to see his/her partner struggling to keep control of herself as they caress the armpits or the soles of the ticklee) to the most hardcore scenarios (where this aspect of domination over another is much more visible).

The second one is what part is being tickled. A lot of people (if not most or everyone) into this fetish has a thing for a particular part of the body. Mainly feet. That’s why feet tickling art is so numerous compared to the other ones and that’s why foot tickle pieces usually have more favs/likes than other kinds of tickle pieces.

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

As of now, when it comes to tickle art, there are three that come to my mind. Girl in the Tickle Chair – Panel version, because the whole smaller panels to give extra information about the picture is something I had never done before. Then there is Feathers and Crossbones – Promo Art, a picture I did for my good friend Oneortheother’s tickle game. And finally there is The Lost Bet and the whole ‘Tickle Studio Pics’ gallery in my DA gallery. It was a fun project and something that I enjoyed doing so I may retake it in the future.

As for tickle stories, I think the one I’m most proud of is the whole ‘Queen Mirellia and Pesigo’ story (which is divided in 3 parts) and a short story I wrote a long time ago called ‘Request – Camilla is Norh going to betray anyone!’.

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

Yes, of course! I’m currently working on an RPG Maker game. The game will be following the life of a young mage in her early 20s as she discovers her love for tickling and starts experimenting. The game will implement both pictures and writing, all done by myself. It is something I’ve wanted to do for a very long time. I got around starting it last year, halfway 2023. So far I have approximately 3 hours of gameplay. It does not sound like much, but I have had to make all the maps, I’ve modified the sprites myself (I work on even the tiniest details, like making barefoot sprites for the characters for particular scenes or adding extra stuff that the base RPGMaker is not doing), I have to make the pictures accurate to what is written in the scenes… It is a lot of work, and I don’t have much time (hence why so little progress in such a long time) but I have fun doing it when I have the time to.

I don’t know if this counts as another goal, but I would love to make collaborations with some of my favorite artists!

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

I don’t have a strong opinion about this. I’ve seen what AIs can do, and so far they are quite flawed and their pictures usually look very generic with many mistakes that once you can see you can’t unsee. I don’t know how things will evolve going forward, but I still feel like people will turn to the artists for the more original and less generic stuff. They’ll still be necessary. So if any, we’ll see more generic AI generated stuff, but we’ll still be seeing pictures made by artists who will be able to tailor their pieces to what the commissioners/patrons/etc. want.

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