Transparent glass, effetre 004 is a bit difficult as it scums really easily. 006 is much better (called crystal clear). It's a smidge more expensive, but def worth the few extra pennies. I tried CiM clear and it was 'orrible. I think Reichenbach clear is softer, and of course there is Zephyr from Double Helix but for a newbie, I would avoid this as its ££££! There are different ways of encasing, maybe avoid the single gather method where you have to heat a large gather then smoosh it around your bead and go for a method where you heat less glass, I have heard that you can pull stringer in clear and encase with that.
Dark silver plum is a great glass for pulling into fine stringer as it stays dark and behaves itself. You can also reduce it to make it look metallic (sorry don't know how you reduce on a hothead). Silver glass tends to be expensive and result in pinks and purples, irridescence, metallic lustres and other loveliness. Double helix is the main make but there are others too and they have a you tube tutorial which shows how striking and reducing works. I would first become confident with basic techniques such as bead shaping, encasing, stringer work, dots, raking and then venture into the more exotic glasses.
Raku 104 is lovely, starts off like bird poo, and strikes to a beautiful pallet of blues, golds and purples. There is a knack though, you need to heat it really really really hot so its really runny, then cool it out of the flame (or roll on a marver) then put it into the flame briefly and the colours appear. Not sure how easy this would be on a HH, so I would gain some confidence before trying this out. You may be better with Reichenbach magic, very similar but doesn't need such intense heat in the first stage.
I'm not sure there is a single resource on glass, (FH is probably the best-dredge through the old posts, and there are some excellent blogs too which trial colours and report on them), it's also trial and error. Some folk struggle with certain glass colours whilst other folk can work well with them so you need to explore what glass types work for you. It sounds daunting, but trying stuff out is more than half the fun.
