I lost 10+ hours of work because of this

This is a story from when I first started creating digital art for others.

The year was 2018 and I had been working on a client project for 15+ hours. It was a complex project with 7 characters and background… two of my greatest challenges back then.

All was going well. I had been working on this painting every day for over two weeks, and it was becoming so good. I was so proud.

And then one day…

As I felt like I was close to finishing it…

There was a power outage while I worked.

In a split second, I instinctively decided to save it, and pressed ctrl + S before my computer blacked out. But that was the wrong move.

My computer blacked out while saving… and it corrupted my file.

I lost all progress.

After some not-so-mild panic, I searched all over the internet for ways to save this painting. I tried all sorts of solutions, but in the end… nothing recovered my file.

After hours upon hours of researching it, I had to accept the hard truth: that file would never be recovered again. My only real solution was using a screenshot I had taken a couple of days earlier and work from that.

This single mistake cost me 5+ hours of painting, not to mention the stress and all the hours and mental energy I spent trying to find a solution – totaling over 10 hours of wasted effort.

So what should I have done, and how can you avoid something similar happening to you?

Had I not saved when the power outage happened, maybe I’d have lost about 30 minutes of work at most. But we can’t help our instincts, so I can’t say “I shouldn’t have pressed ctrl + S”. This was out of my hands, and it might be out of yours as well.

There were, however, a few actions I should’ve taken to avoid such stress.

First, backing up files and folders. Be it in a cloud service (I use Google Drive) or on an external drive, you must have your files backed up daily.

In the power outage scenario, I could’ve recovered a previous version from the cloud service if I had it backed up.

Second, invest in your work station. If you work from your pc, like me, than an UPS is a must. Even if you live in an area where power rarely goes out… all it takes is one time for it to ruin your day.

(If you don’t know, an UPS is a type of continual power system that allows your computer to keep running for a while even without electricity.)

Ever since I started applying these two tips, I’ve never had a real problem of losing hours of work again.

Even if the power goes out, or if my software glitches and crashes, or even if there was a flood… my files would be safe and sound (although I would cry a lot from losing my pc and Cintiq 😭).

So establish a system to protect your files, and do it ASAP. You never know when you’ll need a backup 😉