Boston

I'm from Massachusetts, and Boston is one of my favorite places in the world. I've walked down the street where those bombs went off hundreds of times.  Even though most of my family is still in that area, the people I know who were most affected by this were some of my friends in Baltimore. My best friend has a toddler in a preschool in MD and one of his teachers was in Boston watching her Mom run the marathon. This young teacher is one of the critically injured now fighting for her life.  The world and the country are smaller places than they used to be, and these horrible tragedies affect all of us. I don't have any words of advice except to hold onto your loved ones and live every day like it could be your last. Make you time here count, and be good to those around you.

Travelin'

I've been neglecting my blogging duties this week, sorry! I've been on the road visiting some friends in Baltimore and then some family in Florida. And look who took me to Disneyworld! My buddy and yours, the incomparable CatInHat.

We look skeptical of that San Francisco backdrop...  We had fun and went on the Star Wars ride multiple times. He didn't even make fun of me for buying action figures! He's such a sweetie.

X-Tremely Hot

I'm a gigantic comics nerd, but I've become selective in my old age, and pretty much only follow artists that I really like these days. I don't read many of the X-Men books anymore, but this cover of X-Treme X-Men #9 caught my eye...

Jesus, that's a sexy image. I've always been hot for both Marvel's Hercules and Wolverine, and here they are in all of their half-naked hairy glory. I bought the issue because of the cover alone.

Imagine my surprise when I read the book and realized that it takes place in an alternate reality where Herc and Wolvie are GAY LOVERS. Holy crap! There's a couple I never thought I'd see happen in mainstream comics.

Congrats, Marvel! You managed to turn me on AND break down barriers in the comics publishing industry at the same time.

LAST CALL at AchillesHeelArt

Just a reminder, today is the last day to order a 30 day membership before we close at the end of the month, on October 31st 2012.  After today, our billing system will be gone, but we will continue to update for the last 4 weeks of this month.

When we're finished on the 31st, our member's only section will have more than 600 tickling drawings! So, $17.00 gets you access to all of them today.  That's about 3 cents apiece! Not a bad deal.

I also want to remind everyone that this blog will continue, and that I will continue to use it to post male foot and tickling pics from my collection, reviews of other sites and much more.  If and when I do more tickling illustrations in the future for other sites or as private commissions, I'll post info and previews of them here.

It's been a wild 5 years, and once again I'd like to thank anyone who ever joined and supported our work! I wish I could keep the site going forever, but I need to push my career in another direction.

Keep Laughing,

Achilles

Beach Feet

Yup, these are my puppies!  I'm at the Jersey shore right now.  Great time to be here when the crowds are gone, the rents are cheap and the water is still warm!  I took these pics stealthily on the boardwalk in Ocean City. Enjoy!

He's No Saint

Some of you may know that I'm an avid video gamer.  Right now I have a PS3 with a stack of games I haven't had time to play.  I picked up Saints Row III on the advice of friend months ago, and finally decided to try it out. So far, I'm liking it.  It plays like Grand Theft Auto with more satisfying shooting and better mission variety.  But what really sets it apart is its insanely deep character creation.

You create the character you wind up playing throughout the game, and you can control everything from sex to race to body type to how high the cheekbones are.  What's even more staggering is that the character appears exactly how you created him in all the game's cut scenes.

I pretty much decided to turn my avatar into my dream man.  He's a huge tough guy with facial hair, a big jaw and a heavy brow.  Yeah, I like cavemen.

I also discovered that it's possible to remove the default set of clothing he comes with, so he can be run around the city mostly naked.  I have no problem with this.

 You can even remove his shoes and make him barefoot!  If only you could control the size of the feet...

Eventually, you wind up at a clothing store where you can choose from a huge variety out outfits to put your character in.  You can even have your character cross dress!  I decided my buddy needed wristbands, boxer briefs and flip flops.  That should be enough to protect him in a firefight...

My gruff guy speaks with a cockney accent.  That's another thing: you have the option to pick from 3 different voices for each sex...which means that every line spoken in the game was recorded in 6 different voices and accents.  Crazy.

So please contact me right away if you resemble the guy above, and you have big, ticklish feet!  :)

Ticklebuddies

Sorry that I've fallen behind on my blogging duties.  I've been on the road, and was visiting relatives in Florida.
And look who I spent some time with!  My old pal, the one, the only CatInHat.

It's always great to see him, and he even wore the shirt I sent him for Christmas several years ago!  This picture makes me think A: I wish I got to see him more often and B: I have a GIGANTIC noggin.  Seriously, I think his head would fit INSIDE mine.

:)

Da Bears

For those of you who are fans of men of the furry persuasion, you should definitely pick up Euro-Bear magazine issue #89.  They did an article on AchillesHeelArt, and featured some of our most bear-tastic artwork in the article (artickle?).  

I'm honored to be featured in such a great magazine, and I hope it sends lots of new foot and tickling loving bears our way!  Now to go work on more drawings of hairy men...

AchillesHeelArt.com: Now With More Boobs

As some of you may have read on TheBigTickleBlog already, we've expanded our site!  Today you'll notice that the entire site got a bit of a facelift, and there is a brand new section called "The Athena Galleries" which features F/M, M/F and F/F tickling illustrations.

Now, I'm expecting some outcries like "Sellout!" and "Girls are icky!", but I wanted to explain that this was a necessity in order to keep AchillesHeelArt.com running.  I'm afraid we were never quite the success I'd always hoped we'd become, and it has become a matter of either expanding to draw in more members, or shutting down altogether.

I'm sure most of you would rather we stick around, so I'm hoping you'll give us the benefit of the doubt. The way the new site is designed, the M/M content and the female oriented content is not blended together.  Yet, members have access to everything if they so choose.  The Athena Galleries is its own separate section, so you don't have to view those drawings if you don't want to.  

I'm hoping everyone can play well together, and that this helps make us more of a success.  Instead of 2 drawings per week, we'll now be adding 4: two on the Achilles side and two on the Athena side.

For our inaugural week, we adding the 9 pieces listed below to the Athena section, to give you an idea of the kind of variety you can expect.  

From upper right corner:

"Legend of the Shrieker" by Achilles F/M  Didn't we all want to see tickling happen during that famous bondage/torture scene in Legend of the Seeker?

"Frost's Feet" by Azazello M/F Electro binds and tickles the haughty Ms. Frost using his electrickle power.

"Babebarians" by Wez F/M Two badass chicks tie and tickle a barbarian on his helpless muscled physique.

"Pillow Fight" by Gigi F/F Brand new artist debuts with a tickly slumber party scene!

"Royal Revenge" by CheshireCat F/M Fan favorite CheshireCat has Bowser at the mercy of various video game heroines. 

"Dark Willow" by Sloth F/F Poor Buffy never realized just how powerful and how mercilessly evil Dark Willow can be.

"Liberty Page 1" by Mr. Zikkon F/M The first page in Zikkon's brand new superhero tickling epic!

"Negotiating a Raise" by Blithwulf F/M This sexy French maid makes good use of her feather duster...on her employer's helpless feet!

"Girl Swirl" by Nomar ?/F A group of sexy young women cavort with a strange, tentacled tickle beast.

Also this week, we added two drawings to the Achilles section.  BearoticArt gives us a window into the secret society "The Order of the Feather".  This mysterious hooded cult draws laugh after laugh from their helpless sacrifices.  Also, CheshireCat plays with "Toes N' Tails" as two of his furry characters have ticklish fun with their long toes and prehensile tails. 

That's it for this week!  Next week we'll start our new regular schedule of 4 drawings per week!

Enjoy!

Achilles

I'm BaaaAACK!

Some of you may have noticed my absence over the past couple of weeks.  I was away on a rather unexpected trip, helping my Dad relocate to the sunny state of Florida.  Unexpected because his house up north sold about 5 minutes after they put it on the market.

Sadly, while I was there, I had VERY limited internet access, so I got behind on my blogging duties. I'm back home now, and will get up to speed again shortly.  In the meantime, here are some really hot feet.

Old VHS Tapes for Sale Round 4

I've listed more of my older VHS tickling tapes for sale.  I had a lot more of these than I'd originally realized.  You can check out the auctions HERE

Here are a few screencaps from some of the tapes I'm selling.  I've got more than 20 videos listed.

Old VHS Tapes for Sale Round 3: Bob Jonestravaganza!

I've listed the third batch of my old VHS tickling tapes for sale this week.  This time, most of what I'm selling are old Bob Jones tapes, which were some of the first m/m tickling videos commercially available in the mid to late 1980s.  I'm also selling a few from other producers, and even a few F/M tickling videos this time. These are the original tapes from my collection, not copies.  You can find the auctions by clicking HERE.  Good luck!

Old Tickling VHS For Sale: Round 2

I've listed more of my old and rare VHS tickling tapes on ebay again, since the last batch was such a success. Once again, these are older, VHS tapes that are of decent quality.  I'm not making copies of them, these are the original tapes. Once they're gone, they're gone. You can find the auctions HERE.

Most of these are tickling videos from producers that are long out of business, so act now before they're gone!

Save BORDERS!

It's not often that the closing of a retail store makes me sad. But there's something about the big chain box bookstores that I find very comforting. I love browsing through a Barnes & Noble or a Borders, sipping coffee, being around books and music.

Now, it seems, Borders it teetering on the edge of bankruptcy. It's looking like they're going to have to shut down their remaining 200 stores and fire 11,000 employees.

It may be too little, too late, but I'd encourage everyone to visit their local Borders or go to Borders.com and buy something immediately. Maybe that blu-ray you've been putting off buying, or a box set of a book series you've always wanted to read. 

Also, spread the word and tell your friends and family to do the same. 

I know that this country would be a lesser place with fewer book stores. It's time to show our support for the things we love.

Achilles

I'm in a Book!

The folks over at Bruno Gmunder have a new book dedicated to artwork of sexy bears called "Big Love". I was invited to submit art to this publication, and they chose 6 of my drawings!  They, of course, only chose the ones that depicted bearish, hairy men being tickled, but I was thrilled to be part of this project!

My drawings are the only tickling related ones in the book, but I can attest that the hundreds of other illustrations are very hot.  I've included a few screen captures from their site to give you a sample.  If you're a fan of hairy men, you'll love this book.

So, drop by Bruno Gmunder today!  They have a lot of other great books of photos and artwork.

I'm Obsessed

Now and then a singer comes along that I completely obsess over.  The latest is Sia Furler, from Australia.  A lot of people know her as the "Breathe Me" girl from the final scenes of the show Six Feet Under.  I had pegged her as the wispy, depressed girl from that song.  I never knew she had such a powerhouse voice until I discovered this KCRW set from a few years ago.  She just kills it in every song.  Her in between banter is hysterical, too.  She seems to be a bit of a whack job.  There are 8 songs total in the set so, if you enjoy these, look up the rest from the same user on youtube.

Two Great Tastes That Taste Great Together!

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A Certain Lack of Achillesosity...

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An Apology and An Explanation

Hello all,

I received a bit of bad news today. Many of you probably realize that creating tickling artwork has not been my full-time job. I've working in the arts in another capacity for a company for the past 11 years. It was my first real job in my field after graduating from college. When I started there, it was a privately owned company of about 75 people. While it was a corporation, it never quite felt corporate. There was a genuine feeling of working with a family.

Almost two years ago, the company was bought out by a larger corporation, and the original owners and managers were eventually fired. We went from working in a charming, historic townhouse to moving locations into beige, soulless cubicles. In the past 4 quarters, the company has gone through 3 rounds of layoffs. 14 people were let go today, including me. While I expected that our bad financial year would mean more firings, I honestly believed my knowledge and experience made me too valuable to lose. I was wrong.

This economy is affecting everyone, so I know many of you are probably in the same situation or know someone who has lost their job. I would only ask that members of AchillesHeelArt be patient with us over the next few weeks as I get my bearings again. I was completely blindsided by this development.

The good news is, if you're a fan of the work in my gallery, you can expect to see a lot more of it in the coming months. I suddenly have a lot more time on my hands to produce some good stuff.

Thanks for everyone's patience and understanding in advance,

Yours,

Achilles

Bye, Billy

Yeah, he was kind of annoying. But he was one very handsome bear of a guy. Bye, Billy.