[Smiling Toby 😇💖🌞]

Hello there! I hope you’ve had a wonderful week. ✨

This month has been a whirlwind of travelling, organizing, planning, catching up on work, and reconnecting with my craft. Before my holiday with my husband and family, I was teetering on the edge of burnout. Perhaps "burnout" is too strong of a word, but there were definitely days when I felt pretty awful. Working on my drawings felt like such a drag, and I just couldn’t enjoy it, even when I was working on personal projects. There were a few days when my energy was so low that all I could do was lie on the couch and feel like... well, not great. 💩

Thankfully, I managed to pull myself out of that funk—mostly by pushing myself to keep moving, and with a lot of help from my husband, too. I was able to slowly get back into the groove and work on a few things before heading out of the country. The trip was wonderful. I won’t go into too much detail here because this post would get way too long, but the important thing is that it really helped me recover and regain the strength I needed to continue doing my job—and, most importantly, to enjoy the time I spend making art.

Now, you might be wondering: "Yeiko, what does all this have to do with the illustration?" Well, I’m not entirely sure, haha. But I guess I wanted to draw a smiling, happy Toby because I’m feeling happier and in a better place now. I actually started working on this during the last convention. It was smaller and calmer than DoKomi, so I felt more comfortable taking out my tablet and sketching whatever came to mind. And of course, it had to be Toby... because he’s my comfort character. But you all know that by now. Nothing new there. 🙈

Anyway, let me know what you think in the comments! I really hope you like this cute boyo, and that he somehow brightens your day~ It might be a small and simple piece, but I feel like it carries so much meaning... And I really, really missed that. 💖