It's good you just started and to see you have passion for art.
What is the actual challenge? Making outline sketches of them or building forms after outline sketch or both?
Have you read any book related to drawing, or crearing an object or a portrait? Go and download this book "The natural way to draw and study it". There are other books you will need to read but you can start with this one.
Also make it a task to practice/study the nose and human hand. Do different sketches and keep practicing until you discover your mistakes. The more you practice, the better you become.
You can do that for a whole one week.
For the paper for standard portrait, every artist's taste varies so the paper they use varies too. For me, I use needle poin paper. Some use stratmord, while some even use embossed paper. Just explore different papers and find the one that will be suitable for you.
I would get the book and also practice more on the nose and hand. Thank you so much for the advice, I'm grateful.
You are always welcome.
Cheers...