Welcome to the forum.
Unless you are a millwright by trade & have the machinery or access to it, you're not going to accomplish much in the short term (yr or two) buying just a mill and/or lathe & a bit of tooling. Most of the guys who build from scratch at the high quality level you see on this forum have been at it a decade or longer & probably have an investment in tooling greater than the kit bought collection that I have.
If you like to tinker/improve/modify & have some basic tools to do so, then the china model line up may be an avenue you can get your feet wet & see whether or not this a hobby you'll be in for the long term... as much as I hate on the china crap models being offered, it's still a reasonable economic level entry into the hobby for ppl with mechanical skills.