Quote - But I still have to set up that first material... any ideas?

Firstly, you can't assign a mapped material to another figure that doesn't have the same uvs. That being said, if it's a procedural material all you need do is set the shader up like you want it and save as a materal, not materal collection. For instance the material is a metal like "gold". You can save your gold to the library and then use it on any part of any figure that you desire. But you still have to do it part by part, because the materials names in each figure/object are different from one another. Your only choice then is to follow Robyn's advice: add your "gold" to the first part of an object then select all the nodes and then "Apply to all" No other way.

Laurie