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If you really wanna get it good looking I'd recommend getting an airbrush to paint it. Cans are fine but you'll never get the right colors going that way. It's possible to just use a regular brush but it'll also come out extremely thick and unsatisfactory compared to an airbrush. Its a small investment (about $150 for a nice airbrush and another $100 for a small compressor if you don't already have one. Get one with a tank if you can) but if you do even a couple of models with it you'll never want to use a regular brush to paint an entire model again.

First off the model as it comes is way too blue, I'd recommend painting it based off the newer bandai model's box art as it looks fantastic which you can see here: TIE Advanced.

For the paint itself my personal favorite is the Tamiya line of acrylics. They are the best looking and most professional out of all the acrylics I've seen. They come in nice bottles that are great too. This is of course the best for airbrushing as thats what I would do but if you do end up going the brush route a better paint would probably be Vallejo as they are more suited towards that.

I'd honestly forgo the primer and simply do a full flat black base coat to get that blue off of the solar pannels then mask those up and do the main body. According to the supplied sheet for the bandai model the main body is 70% neutral grey and 30% white with a pinch of blue grey. For the darker parts around the ship its a 100% neutral grey. You'd use that in areas like the recesses on the wing roots, the window's frame and a few other places.

After that its really up to you how much extra detail you wanna add. You can do some dark washes to get those nice shadows, maybe add some metallic scratches and what not. Theres no limit with these sort of things.

Also as a last note if you wanna get into some more of these model's I would highly HIGHLY recommend the entire line of 1/72 ships by bandai. They are all snap together and have more detail then you would believe for their price as well as coming slightly colored so you can fit it all together and still admire it even before painting. I have the TIE Fighter and plan on getting the TIE Interceptor and TIE Advanced. They are the perfect size for putting on display (or playing with haha) and even scale correctly with other real world planes in 1/72 scale.

Bandai is (IMO) the top of the Japanese heap, model-wise - well-engineered, complex but not fiddly. Their Eva offerings are OK, but where they really shine is the Gundam stuff. Currently, they're available as 1/144 HG (no inner frames, decent articulation and detail), 1/144 RG (inner frames and high detail) 1/100 Re/100 (no inner frames, decent external detail, 'niche' MS) 1/100 MG (current ones have internal frames and high detail; older ones, not so much), 1/60 PG (big scale, high detail inside and out), and some 1/144, 1/100 and other 'No Grade' (older, low-articulation, low color separation kits), and some non-Gundam stuff like VOTOMS (we'll get there in a bit). Like everything else, newer kits will have better parts layouts than older kits. You can check Dalong.net, for visual reviews, parts counts, scale comparisons, and so forth.

In HG, most of the kits from Char's Counterattack, Unicorn, Build Fighters/Try and Iron Blooded Orphans on are excellent kits, with prices running from £6 up to £35

In RG, (IMO) the best kit, in terms of detail, design, and durability is the RG Gundam Mk II AEUG, priced at a very reasonable £15.

MG run from £16.75 up (Ball is love; Ball is life) up to the mind-blowing, £95 Sazabi ver.Ka. Yes, it's pricey, but it's one of the best-engineered models you'll ever build. 37 runners of multicolored, snap-fit glory.

PGs are well out of your price range, all well over the £100 mark.

Outside the Gundamverse, Bandai also does 1/20 VOTOMS; but slightly over your cap at £65 They also do Macross kits (the current series is Delta; kits are just now being released), but their transforming requirements make them a little explodey. They also do Yamato and other spacecraft; I don't have a lot of experience with them.

Past Bandai, Kotobukiya does some excellent Armored Core (among other properties) kits; they are a little finickier fit wise, and a little pricier, coming in at around £45 and up. They work best for experienced modelers who aren't afraid of complex painting jobs. Hasegawa does non-transforming Valkyries; they will need glue and paint to look good. Hasegawa also does the love-to-get-grubby, need-glue-and-paint-and-patience Maschinen Krieger line.

Beyond that, you start getting into smaller makers, and resin kits, and imports direct from Asia, and probably out of your area of interest.

I use an iwata HP-BCS.

http://www.iwata-medea.com/products/iwata-airbrushes/eclipse/

Its great because it will take any paint I have thrown at it without thinning. It feels like an industrial airbrush with the thick paints I can use and it's really nice not to have to worry about thinning paint. This can also be a bit of a problem because it will also throw paint chunks if you have contaminated or old paint.

This brush does have some disadvantages. The needle does on occasion needs a touch of lube to keep it working well and it took me a long time to figure this out (herp derp). The double action is nice but it makes it a little harder to clean but I've never really had a problem cleaning it so this is mostly what other people say about the double action brushes.

That said, It might be nice to have the style with the top feed hopper, something like the HP-CS. A design like this would mean I would waste less paint and make it easier to just drip some in and go. With my brush you need to fill enough of the bottle to allow the pickup hose to reach the paint and this wastes paint when It comes time to clean the bottle. I also find I am poring paint back and forth a lot, and all that can lead to paint contamination and spills.

As for maintenance I use mostly water cleanup paints so I just run water through it. For the occasional deep clean I use this magic stuff called. ["Brush Cleaner and Restorer" from Winsor & Newton] (https://smile.amazon.com/Winsor-Newton-Brush-Cleaner-Restorer/dp/B005M4W1VK/ref=sr_1_6?ie=UTF8&qid=1511330111&sr=8-6&keywords=paint+brush+cleaner). It has very little smell seems pretty non-toxic (and is labeled as such) and will remove any oil, enamel, acrylic, or wax paints I have ever used. I can't say enough about this stuff. Just soak the needle and spray head in this stuff for a while and wipe with a q-tip and your brush (air or hair) will look like new.

In conclusion, with my experience with the just the HP-BCS, I would probably not buy it again, but instead get the HP-CS. Its pretty much the same brush but that top feed style seems much easier to clean and would waste less paint, especially with the dropper style paints like Vallejo sells.

The viper models (old or new) have nice balance between the number of parts and the ability to get creative with painting. Star Trek ships are a bit limited since they are so clean and large scale they tend to be too simple.
I haven't tried the new reboot Enterprise though, that might be better.
I liked the Pegasus rocket a lot, it has a diorama base too
http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B004A8ZHHO
I painted mine in steam punk metallic colors and it stands out.

Thanks! It's a kit, and fairly cheap at that. Super easy build, really not much to it. Most of the time spent was weathering and painting. I messed up by airbrushing the coat on the top hull a bit too thick, but thankfully it wasn't catastrophic.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00JDMWVSU/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_HKI0Ab50RYFQN

For 20 bucks, go for it! . I'd do it myself if I didn't have such a backlog.

In the vein of starting on a new hobby, start with something more basic to get your skills built up, try this one first. It will give you a little experience before you tackle something more difficult.

I'd like to see a Kit of the following:

[Updated/re-engineered APC from Aliens.] (http://i.imgur.com/r0ERJV1.png) the original Halcyon kit was a mess out of the box, wrong tire tread designs, the body was completely hollow and not reinforced in any way so it was quite weak. The kits are so old now the plastic is very brittle and warps when painted.

A proper and fully detailed Omega class Destroyer from Babylon 5

OF-1 Daedalus From the game Image Fight (this is a capsule toy, about 2 inches long/wide.)

R-Gray 02 from Raycrisis. They have the r-gray 01 as a kit but for some reason the 02 never got a release!

The Event Horizon and the Lewis and Clarke

bunches more but at work and can't spend the time looking for them :-(