Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

Hey all. I'm getting old! There I said it.

I was curious if any of you "seasoned" hobbyists have had problems with your hands, wrists, shoulders, and/or back from sitting at the painting table? I am even more curious if anyone has any suggestions of how to keep the pain from effecting how long you can paint and how well you are doing it. I've worked grunt jobs most of my life so I have seen a bit more wear and tear than the average person but I'm getting more and more frustrated by the fact that I can't sit and paint for longer than 15-30 minutes without pain and numbness. I can power though the aches but I can't be accurate with the brush once the shakiness/numbness starts.

Any tricks I'm missing as far as posture, lighting, seating, etc? I'd appreciate any tips because my relaxing hobby is starting to feel more like work...

I always thought it would be my eyes that would fail me first.

Have ergonomics ever been a problem for you? How long have you had these grunt jobs? Do these jobs put you through the same repetitive motions without taking a break? If it becomes a real problem, I'd see a doctor.

I feel your pain.
Posture, you want to be sitting as straight up as possible, this could mean raising your painting table to chest height.
Lighting, your main light should come from over your off shoulder, if you're right handed you want your light from your left, an additional light right over your work is good also.
Seating, personally I use my computer chair, but you want comfort and good support.

Try out different size brushes, it really makes a difference to your hands, I've been using Model Expo brushes because they have a thicker barrel to them.

Take small breaks, for your body, hands, and eyes. have multiple things going on so these breaks are easier.... do 10 mins painting, watch a video, do 10 mins, get up and move, do 10 mins, grab a snack....

these things have helped me out a lot, just gotta try different things and see what helps.

 CuddlySquig wrote:
Have ergonomics ever been a problem for you? How long have you had these grunt jobs? Do these jobs put you through the same repetitive motions without taking a break? If it becomes a real problem, I'd see a doctor.

The ergonomics of painting is so different from working at a computer, I've struggled to find a position/posture that feels comfortable. I'm a stay home parent now, I'm not working all day and then coming home to paint but I do have lingering shoulder and back problems from a decade of concrete work. I've never had to cut short painting time until the past few months though and I have been doing it for years. I appreciate the comments and I am reading more on ergonomics. Resting my arms on table creates strain in my back and shoulders as I hunch forward more, while holding the model up in front of me makes my arms and wrists get that shaky numbness I referred to.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

dpal666 wrote:
I feel your pain.
Posture, you want to be sitting as straight up as possible, this could mean raising your painting table to chest height.
Lighting, your main light should come from over your off shoulder, if you're right handed you want your light from your left, an additional light right over your work is good also.
Seating, personally I use my computer chair, but you want comfort and good support.

Try out different size brushes, it really makes a difference to your hands, I've been using Model Expo brushes because they have a thicker barrel to them.

Take small breaks, for your body, hands, and eyes. have multiple things going on so these breaks are easier.... do 10 mins painting, watch a video, do 10 mins, get up and move, do 10 mins, grab a snack....

these things have helped me out a lot, just gotta try different things and see what helps.

I did find that wrapping one of my brushes in a paper towel and then taping it down like a pad around the barrel helped to lessen the pain in my hands a bit. Good tips thanks. I will see about raising my work space.

I usually do it until I start feeling sore then I take a break for a bit and come back. I also have problems with my fingers going numb on me. Happens from time to time. I just set my brush down and wring my hands out tell the feeling comes back and go back to work. Everything else I just use Advil or Icy Hot at the risk of smelling like an old guy but then the white hair kinda gives that away anyway.

Yeah, I've had similar problems. I've raised my desk/lowered my chair to improve posture and try and not sit in the exact same position the whole time. The limiting factor is still my hands, holding both the brush and the model for long periods of time inevitably leads to soreness and cramping. Make sure you do some stretching exercises (and just general exercise) from time to time, though personally I found it's always a bad idea to do painting while my body is recovering from exercise (so if I go for a jog or do some weights in the morning, it's a bad idea to paint for the rest of the day, but rather do the exercise after painting).

All the local GW stores have painting tables set up for customers, and I really like the environment of painting with other hobbyists and get more done, BUT, the ergonomics at those tables are terrible, they're always vastly too low and you can see everyone is hunched over like a question mark.

Have a good chair that forces a non hunched posture. Raise your mini so you dont hunch maybe bluetack the base to a paint pot for single minis or maybe use a pin vice to hold it still in place so that you dont have to hold it and paint?

Check your grip get brushes that fit you. Maybe get a heatpad for your back and knees, keep a comfortable space and try to have something soft for your arms and elbows to rest on?

all these i use to combat my arthritus and cp pain well that and oxycodone
The final thing I would suggest is keep hydrated, my pain is much worse when I let my body get dehydrated.

@wowsmash: thanks for that, was getting worried about the numbness... now I know I'm not alone!

@AllSeeingSkink: You may be onto something, I have been painting more late in the day after working out and/or chasing kids all day. Muscle fatigue may just come quicker for me than it used to.

@jedi: Hydration for sure... I may have been slacking on that since it has been very humid here recently.

Good stuff guys and this will all be going into my presentation to "she who must be obeyed" for a new table/chair.

I"m not "seasoned" as you suggest but I've had some painting cramps as well (usually around the 2-3 hour mark). I've found that taking a quick break and doing some minor stretches/general movement every 5-10 minutes helps keep joints/muscles from cramping. I also don't paint "on the table". I hold the model I'm painting so I can find a comfortable position and so I can brace my hands against each other to help keep my lines straight.

Have you ever given thought to investing in a painting studio like BlueTablePainting?

Sitting strait is good and a higher table as some have mentioned. Army painter has triangle handle brushed I love to use. They help with hand cramps. For the model I'm painting I use a small grenade shaped bottle. It is a small sake bottle. I use sticky tack to hold the model on top. Easier to rotate when hold a larger item

I am going to try tacking a model to something easier to hold while painting, that might allow me to rest my off arm on the table while still being able to control and rotate the model. I have been assembly line painting 10 and 20 models at a time recently though so tacking each one is a bit time consuming as I work down the assembly line. All the ideas and suggestions are appreciated. If anyone has a paint station setup that they want to share pics of that would help even more!

The biggest burn and cramps come from keeping my arms up and my elbows in... I put my elbows out and I lose accuracy, I rest my arms on the table and it's too far away. Taller table/shorter chair and something to manipulate the models with should be a big help. Thanks!

After a couple of painting sessions I had a similar thing, cramping in the arms from holding my arms up to paint. I realised it was because I changed desks and chairs and there was no longer place to rest my elbows. Try and arrange your desk so you can rest your elbows on it such that your hands (ie. brush and model) will be close to your face so that you aren't holding up your arms, the desk is supporting them, then have your wrists or hands supporting each other (which will reduce shaking).

Watchmakers use very high desks, close to shoulder height so that the watch can be sitting on the table, their arms resting on the table and their face close to it for delicate work. I've never tried it for painting, but it might be an option. Google watchmaker table and you can see what I mean, I'm not sure if it's the best arrangement for painting though.

But yeah, if your muscles are tired from work/exercise/kids and you try and paint you'll cramp up easily if you sit in the same position for any length of time, especially if you're sitting in a position where your arms have to support their own weight in one position for a long time.

I have terrible posture when it comes to painting.

For the last 6 months I've been using a riser to bring my painting surface up higher so that I slouch less. I paint with my right forearm resting on the table for stability, so the lower the table the more I slouch. The riser fixes that by bringing my arm up higher and closer to my eyes as I generally paint about 12" away from them.

Here is a pic of my riser on my old keyboard tray.

Brilliant! Thanks for the pic. I'm looking for a stop gap riser to use until I get something better. Raiding the kids room for little tables is the first option...

Looking forward to trying the new techniques and posture today.

I rotate between painting for a bit, and sitting in my recliner watching TV or reading a book. I have horrible painting posture, all hunched over. I could probably teach myself to sit better, but it's the way I've been doing it for years. I have one of those magnifying glass stand things, but never got the hang of it.

You might want to look into liquid painkillers. The problem is having enough to relax, but not so much to impact your work. I'm partial to rum and cokes or martinis myself.

I use a Ottlite which reduces strain on the eye's..... I feel your pain also....10 yrs in the airborne infantry and 9 yrs working as a prison guard have taken its toll on my head, neck, arms, and back.... I work at my tool desk which I made, and also sit on a adjustable stool....

Going out on a limb here and stating numbness in your hands that hasn't been there previously in 2 years of painting is time to see a doctor.

When you said you get the shakes after 20 min, sometimes that is related to muscle fatigue of painting and goes away, but if you are a veteran painter....meaning you've done it for a while without large breaks...this shouldn't be an issue.

seriously...see a doc. Numbness in your butt maybe...not hands. (41 year old guy here).

Oooh, that whole muscle fatigue thing reminded me of my early days when holding a brush for long periods of time killed my hands.

Oddly enough I'm going thru it again with my airbrush as I haven't used it anywhere near as much as 12 years of hand brushing.

@Aerethan: that's genius. don't know why I didn't think of something similar. did you build the riser yourself or ... ?

Sad story. My dad built it for my step mom when she was bed ridden from cancer to eat off of and what not.

I had no idea what it was, so I commandeered it to save my back.

Good point, jgemrich. Putting it that way, sounds like a check at the doc might not be a bad idea.

I have had two surgeries on my right shoulder, and one on my left (that one less than a year ago). As my doctors put it, I would have made a great pitcher because my shoulders move very well, then I overdo it and they get ripped apart. Anyway, yeah I've had to deal with shoulder, neck and back pain quite a bit when I ramped up the amount of painting I was doing over the summer. The hand cramps were awful! Edit- I was getting numbness in one of my hands, too, but it went away when I backed off the painting.

I started breaking up the sessions a bit, taking aleve or ibuprofen before starting, and being sure to regularly shift position. I did batch painting, too, so once I got done with a row, I'd lean back, do a full stretch of shoulders, hands, arms, back and neck. I just worked it in to the batches, as another step to be completed, and it got me through.

One thing I've seen is a "paint stick." Its just two pieces of wood, nailed in the shape of a T. Put double sided tape on the top, stick your models on, and hold the bottom of the T. Gets the models up to eye level and is easier to hold. You can do the front, then spin around and do the back. Works great for priming, too.

I like the idea of those watchmaker tables, too.

I would also look at how you hold your models. Do you have them on their plastic bases and paint from there? If you do, holding the model like that can be really uncomfortable and put your wrist in a really bad position. What I ended up doing to avoid my hand cramping is basically pinning every model and sticking it in a wine cork. Then I can have a much more natural postion. I can turn the model upside down side ways, hold it in many different positions that I just could not do well or at all when just holding the plastic base. Plus it got me to learn to make some really nice cork bases that look really nice for each model.

dpal666 wrote:
I feel your pain.
Posture, you want to be sitting as straight up as possible, this could mean raising your painting table to chest height.
Lighting, your main light should come from over your off shoulder, if you're right handed you want your light from your left, an additional light right over your work is good also.
Seating, personally I use my computer chair, but you want comfort and good support.

Try out different size brushes, it really makes a difference to your hands, I've been using Model Expo brushes because they have a thicker barrel to them.

Take small breaks, for your body, hands, and eyes. have multiple things going on so these breaks are easier.... do 10 mins painting, watch a video, do 10 mins, get up and move, do 10 mins, grab a snack....

these things have helped me out a lot, just gotta try different things and see what helps.

This is a nice idea but when I try it my ADD kicks in and I do other stuff haha. The only pain I have is in my back because I'm leaning over my desk to paint. I try to take small breaks which help, but if I sit there too long is starts to hurt.

 Tyno2025 wrote:

This is a nice idea but when I try it my ADD kicks in and I do other stuff haha. The only pain I have is in my back because I'm leaning over my desk to paint. I try to take small breaks which help, but if I sit there too long is starts to hurt.

That's probably the easiest thing to fix. Just lower your chair and/or raise your desk and your posture will improve. There's no need to relearn or retrain yourself, just place your desk higher so that when you rest your elbows on your desk, the model is at an appropriate eye level with proper posture so you aren't hunching to see it. If you're struggling with light (I found I used to hunch to get the model under my lamp) then just reposition your lighting so it illuminates the model when it's raised higher.

Something that will help with your hands is to get a big wad of silly putty (like 3 or 4 'eggs' worth) and work it in your hand. This will strengthen and stretch your hand and over time (as in over a month or doing this for 15 to 20 minutes a day) your hands will feel better.

Like everyone else says, posture and good lighting is extremely important. Having moved to a new place and no longer having a dedicated place for painting, I certainly feel it now and really need to get a new bench for painting at.

I've been painting a lot ever since college (art school), and I always take 2 minute breaks every now and then. Don't paint straight without rest: you'll get burned out.

It's like closing your eyes every 30 minutes for 30 seconds when working in front of a monitor. I spend a whole day in front of a monitor, painting miniatures 5-8 hours a day and my eyes are still 20/20.

Take a break every now and then.

 jgemrich wrote:
Going out on a limb here and stating numbness in your hands that hasn't been there previously in 2 years of painting is time to see a doctor.

When you said you get the shakes after 20 min, sometimes that is related to muscle fatigue of painting and goes away, but if you are a veteran painter....meaning you've done it for a while without large breaks...this shouldn't be an issue.

seriously...see a doc. Numbness in your butt maybe...not hands. (41 year old guy here).

I appreciate your concern, I will bring it up at my next visit.

I have always assembled and based my models and then started to paint them, I do think that holding them by the bases is part of the problem with the hand cramps/shakes.

I'm hoping a combination of table height and using something to hold the models will give me my endurance back. Maybe a clamp or vice to hold the model up in front of me so I can rest the off hand too.

There may also be some psychology in it, since I am painting some stuff for other people my heart may not be in it as much... it's more work than fun before I even start. Getting back to work on my own stuff and taking a new approach to posture and technique sounds like it might help.

I really appreciate all the comments and ideas. After I get done batch painting some stuff I will focus on individual models and a higher level of painting. I doubt I will do huge amounts of infantry ever again.

I'm not doctor, but there really isn't a reason for numb fingers outside of onset of carpal tunnel from the posture. If you're resting elbows on knees and forearms on the front of the desk, I'd stake anything on that. Because the alternative is you're having a minor stroke every time you paint, and I reaaaaally doubt that.



Automatically Appended Next Post:
lol, just noticed "I'm not doctor" and I'm keeping it that way for emphasis.