Not sure what scale and such you want to work with but I make mostly 1/72 scale tanks and aircraft, 1/700 scale ships, and have built a few 1/144 scale U-Boats and aircraft.
Trumpeter and Dragon make great models. Hasegawa is also a great manufacturer although I think a lot of their stuff was made more in the 1990s. Revell of Germany also tends to be good (although I don't like a lot of their models have individual link tank tracks at 1/72 scale).
Academy and Italeri also make good kits (I have a 109 and Spit kit from those companies but never got around to building them, but the parts look good).
Stay away from companies like ERTL (in older boxes you find a lot around), UM, Airfix (sometimes), anything Korean or Eastern European.
Tools, your going to need some. I recommend an extendable ex-acto knife. Tweezers are a must. A "Third Hand" holder with a maganify glass is nice and can be gotten cheap at places like Harbor Freight (in the US), A very fine paint bush like a 00 or 0 sized one, plus some others, toothpicks, Micro Cristal Klear (for bonding transparent parts to normal ones, since normal model glue ruins the transparency), super glue, fast drying white putty (for filling gaps, this stuff is made by companies like Squadron), a set of small files and or a cheap dremel like tool (I have an engraver that runs on 2xAA batts I got for a $1 and it works great for model making). Boxes for paints and tools are a must, you mentioned Legos, use some to build a holder with six or so slots for holding your tools you use a lot.
Oh and get a quart of enamel paint thinner from the home store, you will waste a lot of money on the little jars of the stuff from the hobby store, just to clean your bushes.
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