Want to start modeling

Sure, you can start with battleships.  Just get a small scale (1/700 or so), all-styrene job, and do it.  You could also start with a destroyer or service ship of some kind.  Save the large scale, high-detail jobs with the resin and brass parts for later, after you feel your skill level has improved.  Just remember that we FNGs should be trying things we haven't done before every time we do a build - not everything in the book, just something new.  Challenge yourself up, bit-by-bit.  Lot's of good tutorials free, here and on youtube and the like.

Good scale modelling to you!

Alvinhy

Thanks for the reply!

What are the basic essential tools I should head out and buy?

Eg. what kind of glue sanding paper and paint

I use 3 types of glue:  Welding cement like Plastistruct, Testors liquid cement and CA (superglue):

1. The welding cement allows you to "weld" the seam of 2 pieces together so all you have to do is sand the seam smooth to get what looks like on piece.  

2. Testors liquid cement allows you to join 2 pieces that don't necessarily have to look seamless, or 2 pieces that have a natural seam line in between them.

3. CA glue is good for all kinds of stuff.  It allows you to attach odd parts together and its also good for attaching small parts.

For sanding you want to get various grits of wet/dry sanding pads/sticks/sheets.  Using them wet makes them last longer and removes the dust build up.  You can go from 150 grit down to 12000 grit.

Investing in a good airbrush at this stage is a good idea, too.  I recommend getting something like a Badger 150.  You might as well get a decent AB now because there's no real advantage to getting a "cheap" one.

Go to YouTube and find some of the tutorials.  There are plenty of good vids that show you the basics.

Thanks for the reply!

What are the basic essential tools I should head out and buy?

Eg. what kind of glue sanding paper and paint

Start with something smaller and cheaper.  Your goals as a novice should be to learn basic skills like gluing, sanding, painting, etc.  You don't want to "practice" on nice and expensive kits.

Spend lots of time reading through these forums, especially the techniques and painting forums.  Learn as much as you can now so that you have some ideas of what to expect as you go forward with your next few builds.  Learn from our mistakes so you can avoid them.

Any question you can think of has probably already been answered here but don't be afraid to ask questions if you aren't sure of something.

And learn to be patient.  That's something you will have to teach yourself.  When you glue something together or when you paint something set it down and leave it.  The materials can't do their job properly if you are messing around with them.