It is not so much the question of newby or not, but how sure you are that you are going to continue to use your setup. If this is just a "phase" that you are going through, you can try out a lot of things with sandpaper without investing much. Aside from the finanical aspects, sandpaper can be used clamped onto the rods of the sharpmaker and it works well on a mouse pad to setup or maintain a convex edge. For anything else (as always just my humble opinion of course) stones are better. They come in finer grids (that is not quite true, you can get special paper from leevalley for example with micron sized grits), they "replenish" themselves and thus cut faster, they obviously last longer, and they have a very different feel because of their unique bond..... Good stones are an investment, both in terms of the pleasure that you can derive from them as well as the money you can spend on them. Can you get your knives actually sharper on stones....I don't know, you can get pretty damn sharp on those M3 mylar backed sheets that Leevalley sells. In the end I think it really comes down to personal preference.
I would recommend waterstones. For the fine grits you can also look at ceramic stones (like the ones Spyderco sells). For the rough grits diamond stones are also very effective.
Alternatively, if you want a system. The easiest (and long term probably cheapest) all around sharpening system is the sharpmaker combined with a coarse diamond stone (DMT stones are excellent).
