I have a magnifier light, which makes a world of difference. I highly recommend picking one up. I got mine for like $10 at Stables or Rona or something.
For brushes, I use three:
* For most details and general painting, I use a 5/0. It's extremely rare for me to use a 10/0, although I do sometimes.
* For basecoats of a single colour, bigger areas, and stuff like that, I use a "1"
* For big inaccurate stuff, basecoating the whole fig (ie, priming), doing bases, etc, I use a big, short, stiffer brush that I don't mind ruining (I was using a 1/4" flat one, but I found I needed something pointy)
For all of it, I recommend using synthetic ones, not animal ones. First of all, synthetic is cheaper. Second, you aren't hurting animals (like sables). And finally, and probably most importantly, the synthetic ones (in my experience, at least) are more durable and keep a tip longer. I find that a $3 brush will last me ~10 miniatures before it's too bent/split to use.
Acrylic is 100x easier to work with than enamel, so I recommend that. I don't know any miniature games who use anything else (and I know quite a few). The brand of paint I use is Citadel (made by Games Workshop). You can see it a bit in the last couple pictures. But it's expensive to buy and cheaply made, so I don't recommend it. I've heard a lot of good things about Foundry's paint, although I've only ever used GW. My friend swears by Vallejo, and I tend to trust his opinion, so that might be worth a try, too.
Also, a good forum for this kind of stuff is the Lead Adventures forum,
http://forum.backofbeyond.de, if you're interested. Most of my miniature posts here are copied directly to there. I don't post much new stuff there, but the couple times I've asked a question I always get an awesome answer.
So yeah, there you go. Let me know if you have any other questions. Might be an idea to start a new thread, though.
PS: I'll post a picture of my workspace later. I was about to, something else came up!
