Reaper has a Learn to Paint kit which may interest you. For brushes I just use cheap $2 brushes from my local hobby store, theyre imitation sable (which means fake hair, so not expensive) in sizes from 2 down to 000.
I would also strongly recommend looking into wet palettes if you get started- you can home make one insanely easy using some wet tissue and baking paper to keep paints from drying out.
I've made some foam core for Firefly and Salon Tycoon, but I like using this box from Art Bin for my games with a lot of figs. I'm not a big painter so it doesn't matter if I pile all the mobs together in one section.
Amazon says retail is available in a few weeks so hopefully the Kickstarter stuff ships on time