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This may be a stupid question, but what sort of lighting do you use around your desk when you're airbrushing?

I'm really struggling to see when paint is hitting the model and before I know it I've applied too much or even worse pulled the trigger back too far and left a watery splotch on the model.

My work area at the moment is a large room which has 2 overhead flouro tubes that both need to be on to give decent lighting, but I still struggle to see what I'm doing. Tried a desk lamp clamped to the side of my desk, but this just floods the model in light and again I can't see what the heck I'm doing.

Never had this problem with regular brush painting, could almost paint in the dark (as long as I knew what the colours would look like in the light).

Is there some trick to it? Maybe need some really diffused lighting of some sort?

Have you tried an OTT-lite with a daylight bulb? ...I use several of these.

I have a daylight lamp that sits kind of in front of my spray booth.

I use daylight compact bulbs in the light fixtures.

Regarding seeing the paint....I spray first on a paper towel (or my thumb holding the model) to judge the amount of paint coming out.

I don't do airbrushing but I use an Ottlite floor lamp with daylight bulbs for painting. I noticed a big difference in colors going for normal bulbs to day bulbs.

Room light is pretty weak, so I supplement with a cheap gooseneck (love the adjustability) desk lamp and daylight bulb. It seemed blindingly bright, at first, but I quickly got used to it and have come to rely on the flood of light. Did you give the desk lamp much of a test run before you scrapped the idea? A bit more time or a small positional shift may make all the difference.

I have a Craftsman hat with built in LED flashlights.

I'm not kidding. It's wonderful.

I'll have a crack with a different desk lamp and see how I go. The one I tried is an incandescent 40W globe and I can't easily adjust the position.