My tablet pen died mid-commission and I learned to love the backup layer
Last month I was finishing a portrait in Procreate at my kitchen table in Austin, the deadline was 9pm. The pen battery hit zero right as I was shading the eyes, and I had no spare stylus. I panicked for a minute, then realized I had a saved backup file with the lineart flattened, so I redid the shading in about 30 minutes using a cheap $15 stylus from the drawer. The final piece actually looked better because I simplified the shadows instead of overworking them. Now I always keep two styluses charged and I duplicate the layer before every final pass. Does anyone else keep a specific fallback technique for when gear fails mid-showcase? I'm curious what your worst timing disaster was.
That cheap stylus saved your whole deadline huh? So did you end up keeping that simplified shading style in your normal work or was it just a one time happy accident?