Airbrush Action is an excellent mag for tips and tricks. As far as brush brands, it depends heavily on WHAT you're doing with them.. My standby and workhorse for almost everything is a paasche VL. pretty much handles everything without issue, and is common enough that almost EVERY professional has one, and parts are all over the place. That said, for finer work I have several Iwata brand brushes, and they're the best! they're also the fussiest and most expensive... (except the paasche AB turbo, and frankly, ignore that bastard unless you're drawing individual hairs on a miniature of some sort!) The real key for good results it to get a decent DUAL ACTION, INTERNAL mix brush.. Badger makes some, and there are a handful of others that I have not used, but as long as they're kept clean and functional there's no reason that they won't work. As your proficiency grows, so will your preferences... Flat out suggestion... Get the Paasche VL model, or the current equivilent.... the damned things are nearly bulletproof, and are adaptable to most any style of painting.
Get a good quality water trap and a high end regulator... it'll serve you well in the long run not to use the inaccurate one on the tank! Ventilation is important, as mentioned before, and I suggest MAKING an overspray catcher with a good box fan and a couple of furnace filters. (helps pull that dry paint out of the air you're trying to breathe!)
By the way, I order most of my supplies for everything but automotive work from dixie art supplies. (
www.dixieart.com) I prefer Createx paint for textile and most fine art work, but have been known to use damned near anything that I can mix down to the right viscosity depending on what I'm trying to do. Oil paints and watercolours can easily be mixed into all kinds of neat colours and effects, but the Createx line gives a LOT of different colors available and they're very consistant, so I don't have to remember how I mixed a given color most of the time.
Good luck!