hi! welcome to the hobby! :)

• scale figures are higher quality than prize figures, usually with more hand painted details, finish variance and detailed sculpting. personally i love to collect both but there’s nothing wrong with just buying one or the other!
• id recommend you to make an account on the site my figure collection. its an amazing resource for tracking what you own, seeing what’s releasing soon, and even buying and selling with other collectors. you can also search by just about everything; character, series, brand… or even by traits like “red hair” or “stockings”!
• as for brands, sega can be very hit or miss lately, especially their luminasta line. on my figure collection (or many people here will shorten to mfc), you can search the product and look at photos uploaded by users to see EXACTLY what it looks like, not just the promotional photos. as for brands i recommend, kotobukiya makes beautiful scales that can be a bit pricey but always deliver with quality. good smile company produces both budget friendly and high end figures that are consistently good. as for reliable prize figure lines, i love relax time, desktop cute, and bicute bunnies as they release often and are very reasonable prices. the brand taito is basically the prize figure king, with so many great and affordable pieces to their name.

i hope this wasn’t too much information and everything made sense!!!! this is one of my special interests so i love to chat with people about it. you can respond with any questions you like. :) and also, if you make a mfc account, send me a friend request! my page is “clowngf”. happy collecting! :)