Basic palette for a rookie

use acrylics for the body n stuff, and enamles for the face and hands and skin

If you are going solely for figures and similar I would recommend that you get a basic liquitex, golden, etc set or similar and mix your own colours.

Most of the figure Modelers I know go this or a very similar route, there are a ton of skin-tone formulas out there and every modelers has his own favorite one.

Even if you bought paints loke modelmaster or similar you will still need to mix many shades for clothing, skin, etc.

My limited experience agree with the others who pointed out that very few of the colors you will use when painting figures will come straight from the bottle, and that you can use acrylics for clothing and some equipment, but you will need a set of artist's oils to do a good job with faces and exposed flesh and wood finishes on some weapons. They blend well and dry slowly, allowing you time to "get it right". The colors you will need can be foud in sets of 6 or eight tubes at hobby shops. They are not cheap, but they will give you a decent looking result yor first time out and with practice you can produce realistic looking figures. Remember, you can convince 99% of the public that Pappy's jumpsuit is the right color, but you won't win one admirer with a pop-eyed orange faced product.

Thank you all for the hints!!!

Saul