That week my tablet pen died mid-commission and I lost 6 hours of work

Last Wednesday my Wacom stylus just stopped working during the final shading on a 40 dollar piece, and I realized I hadn't saved for like 2 hours because I was in the zone. Has anyone else lost hours of digital art to a sudden hardware failure or is it just me?

3 comments

3 Comments

cooper.drew15d ago

You mentioned you were in the zone for two hours without saving, which makes me wonder - do you usually rely on auto-save features, or is manual saving just part of your muscle memory that slipped that day? I've seen this happen a lot where getting too deep into the flow makes us forget the basic habits. Your mileage may vary, but for me that's always the tricky part when the work is going well.

grant47814d ago

Yeah @cooper.drew, the whole "in the zone" thing is exactly what tripped me up. What finally worked was setting a recurring timer on my phone for every 20 minutes, just a quick buzz to remind me to hit ctrl+s without breaking my flow.

the_anthony13d ago

Does the timer actually go off reliably when you're deep in focus? I had the same problem but my phone notifications got buried under other stuff. What ended up saving me was a keyboard shortcut on my specific program - mapped ctrl+s to a single key on my mouse so my hand never leaves the work. That and I trained myself to hit it every time I take a sip of coffee or water. The physical habit of drinking triggers the save reflex now.