Back problems

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**CREEEEEEEEED**

I don't have steady hands, so I have to rest them on the desk when I paint, which means hunching over in a terrible position for hours at a time. My back usually hurts for the whole day after.
I love painting minis, but I'm not sure I love it enough to give myself scoliosis. Is there anything I can do to remedy the situation?

**Scott-S6**

Either lower your chair or raise your desk. Bring the hand rest to your face, not the other way around.

**Gunzhard**

Exactly what he said, my painting desk is really high so I can rest my wrists while still having my hands close to my eyes.

**Nevelon**

Take frequent breaks.

And bourbon.

**PossumCraft**

And make sure you have a proper chair.
A dining table chair, for example, is absolutely not the right way to go. A decent and properly adjustable office chair will save your back. Decent doesn't have to mean expensive, either. I think I spent £50 on my office chair and I immediately noticed the difference.

Do some research on posture and correct desk/work height. There are any number of ways to raise your project (commercial or homemade) to an appropriate height to reduce your hunching.

**Zach**

I take this matter pretty seriously, and I cant recommend this enough:

https://www.amazon.com/Deskbound-Standing-Up-Sitting-World-ebook/dp/B01E1HDJ64/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1498343071&sr=8-1&keywords=Deskbound%3A+Standing+Up+to+a+Sitting+World

Something like a lightly cushioned stool will help force you to keep a better posture and take frequent breaks. But keep a concentration on pulling your shoulder blades back and down while painting, a feeling of opening your chest. And finally keep your neck back instead of zooming in with your neck.

**Gunzhard**

Nevelon wrote:
Take frequent breaks.

And bourbon.

Yes! ...Michters is my house B, but this week it's Whistle Pig rye.

**Tiberius501**

I suffer from the same thing and am definitely going to now invest in a good chair. My back and neck hurting from hunching ruins the hobby significantly so having that fixed would seriously bring back the drive to paint.

Cheers for the thread, and the guys who gave advice

**benlac**

CREEEEEEEEED wrote:
I don't have steady hands, so I have to rest them on the desk when I paint, which means hunching over in a terrible position for hours at a time. My back usually hurts for the whole day after.
I love painting minis, but I'm not sure I love it enough to give myself scoliosis. Is there anything I can do to remedy the situation?

I find it doesn't bother me as much when I'm also watching a movie, possibly because I'm looking up frequently.. possibly because I'm distracted by the movie, probably both.

**Alex Kolodotschko**

What is your general health and fitness like?
That can have a huge impact on your back. Look for some exercises or sports to strengthen your core.
Do them and you'll find that your endurance will be increased and pain will reduce dramatically.

**AllSeeingSkink**

CREEEEEEEEED wrote:
I don't have steady hands, so I have to rest them on the desk when I paint

You need to bring your desk higher/chair lower as people have said. Also one technique if you have unsteady hands is rest your elbows on something (I actually just use the armrests of my office chair) and then rest your hands against each other. That'll bring your hands up to your face and brace them together so overall hand steadiness is less of a problem.

How you rest them against each other depends on what you're painting. You might brace your wrists together, or the base of your palms together, or maybe just have the palm of one hand wresting on the little finger of the other hand. It doesn't really matter just avoid having your hands floating away from each other in space and focus on keeping them together so they can't shake and be unsteady independently.

Also, yeah, back pain is often caused by some muscle imbalance, if you can figure out what's causing the back pain sometime you can do specific exercises to fix it. I don't recommend just randomly going out and doing core exercises, rather you first need to figure out which muscles are weak and strength those and which muscles are tight and stretch them out more.

**CREEEEEEEEED**

Thanks all, I'll get an adjustable office chair ASAP.
I'll try work on my lower back as well, since that's what hurts the most.

**DanceOfSlaanesh**

I have the same problem, so I mostly paint with with my elbows resting on the table and the miniature up in my face with a straight back 80% of the time. And only rest the wrists on the table when I really need it for small detail.
Would like to rest on my wrist all the time but not sure how to solve that. Lowering the chair/raising table feels really awkward too.
Sometimes I put my feet on the chair and rest my wrist on the knee.

**Gunzhard**

Just for reference here is my painting desk - you can see it is quite a bit higher than your average desk.

**M23**

What I usually do since I don't have steady hands either is just use old paint pots with Blu-Tac on top. Then use that to kinda brace my wrists and pull my elbows close to my body

Works most of the time for painting minis

**Badablack**

Consider getting a lap table, the kind with the hole for a drink so you can slot the painting pot in. When I had back problems I would just paint in a recliner with a light behind me, it was quite comfortable.

**Scott-S6**

CREEEEEEEEED wrote:
Thanks all, I'll get an adjustable office chair ASAP.
I'll try work on my lower back as well, since that's what hurts the most.

Remember that the gas lift units are cheap, easy to replace and come in different lengths. I find the medium that they usually come with isn't tall enough for a typing chair and isn't low enough for painting.

If you decide that you'd like it to be lower then pull the unit out and measure it then go looking for a smaller one on ebay.

**timd**

Just as a reference height, jeweler's benches are 39" high. Jewelers do much of the same fine, close up work that we do when painting or building minis.

If your current desk is 30" tall you could add a 9" tall wooden box (clamped to the desk) for use as a wrist or elbow rest.

https://www.riogrande.com/Product/standard-jewelers-workbench/113449?gclid=CLWukNCu-9QCFYlgfgodOiYBHg

T

**nerdfest09**

Also I find a silicone gel or foam wrist rest for keyboards helps when you put your elbows on it to paint .

**Salabasama**

I don't have a good work space. I literally do paint in a dining room chair. I typically stick my mini on something I can hold, and then rest my arms on my chest/the arms of the chair and paint close to my face, sitting up straight and often looking through a monocle.

**Ninjapirate**

I have same issue, but working out and swimming helps alot in my case.