My tablet pen died mid-livestream and the chat thought I froze for a solid 3 minutes

Last night I was showing off a portrait I'd been working on for two days, doing a little speedpaint session for maybe 12 people in the Discord. Right in the middle of rendering the hair, my stylus just stopped sending signals, so I kept tapping the screen with nothing happening and I was too confused to check the battery. The chat kept typing 'you alive?' and 'is this a performance piece?' while I sat there staring at my own frozen brush stroke. Turns out the pen had 2% left and there was an update pending, so I had to end the stream and frantically charge it while repainting the same section from memory. Has anyone else had a tool die at the absolute worst moment, and how do you handle the awkward silence when it happens in front of an audience?

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umasullivan10d ago

is this a performance piece?" got me good, I would've just muted myself and stared into the void right back. My stylus died once during a client call demo and I kept tapping my screen while explaining that "the brush is being extra stubborn today." Honestly the trick is to lean into the frozen face, hold it for like ten seconds, then say "welp, battery" and laugh. Your chat will remember the dead air more than the actual portrait anyway, trust me. At least you can blame the update, I just had to admit I forgot to charge it for three days.