Lighting

[MiSiU]

Now this is somewhat tricky. I didn't have an idea where to put this topic, so it ended up here. Hopefully in the right place.
Now I started doing some excersizes, to get back in shape as I had quite small amount of painting in the last few years and then I came across a problem: I painted a face of a space marine with the more or less usual standard: bestial brown-bmix with dwarf flesh-pure dwarf flesh. At this stage I was quite satisfied, by thought to myself that it needs some highlights, so I went for elven flesh. After highlighting I was terrified - in the light of my lamp, that I used for painting the face looked terribly pale. Of course I waited till the next day and in the daylight it turned out to look quite well.
So here, after a longish introduction is my question: what kind of lamps should one use, while painting. I was thinking, that halogen light should be giving more or less white light, but the experience described shows that the colors in the artificial light looked different to those in the daylight.

[mahon]

daylight bulbs should be the best way to go - they should be available (even if pricey) at photo stores.

we use fluorescent lighting - 4K Kelvins temperature, 80% of colors reproduction. They proved to be good enough for painting, and don't produce too much heat. They can be recognized by markings of '840' (8 stands for 80% and 40 for 4000K). The more percent the better, and the more Kelvins the cooler light. Ours are not as cool (as far as color temperature goes) as daylight (because daylight is not white - it's bluish) but are neutral white. Not expensive and good. Not perfect because fluorescent bulbs don't have gaps in the spectrum of light, but we find them good enough.

[Demi_morgana]

as for me I use "neolux" halogen lamp with uv filter:
it's trillion times better than ordinary light bulb

[LadyEyes]

@Mahon - Thanks! Good info to know.

I have an unusual set-up at home. I have a medical examination light over one shoulder and a small halogen over the other. The metal of the medical light gives a slightly blue tinge, and the halogen has a slightly yellow tinge. Together they make a fairly neutral color. And they are very bright! The medical light is pretty cool to me since most of the heat is absorbed by the metal hood and not directed at me. The halogen is warm, though.