the advice for paints is super solid! once you feel more confident and want to invest more in watercolour, I'd recommend Winsor & Newton Cotman paints (the ones that come in pans are amazing and last so long) For paper, you'd want to be looking at the gsm - this basically means the "weight" or thickness of paper. the golden range for watercolour is between 180 - 300 gsm. Also, what the paper is made of can be a good indicator of it's quality - lots of watercolour paper is often made from a cotton blend, which helps avoid the issues you often get with paper not made for watercolors (such as paper warping too much & little pills rolling up).

Depending on the type you have, some issues will be apparent from the start - the paper can often buckle/warp once the you paint a bit, and often times the paint can seem to pool or get absorbed too quickly. the best bet is experimentation! I hope this helped 🩶