WWII British Infantry

That Tamiya kit is an excellent kit and is not that expensive either.  However, if you feel you need some practice, you can go with DML/Dragon 1/35 British infantry kit at $6.00 range.  good luck and enjoy it. 

I'd look at other people's work. That really inspired me when I was starting out. Get some books. Verlinden has many. Bill Horan's Military Modeling Master Class is a great book, with lots of tips on painting, sculpting and building vignettes. Sheperd Paine's Building and Painting Scale Figures is probably more useful to the beginner though.

Buy some very cheap figures and practice on first. That's what I did, and I can see the progress I've made since first picking up the brush.

Bummer, i didn't even see that. In that case, i think i'm gonna get http://tamiya.com/english/products/list/35mm_img/35223m.jpg

any advice would be helpful for my first figure models

You understand that it's a 1/48th scale kit right? Just asking, in case you were looking for 1/35th.