I’m not good enough to tell you which breed to use, other than start with a good RIR that has the traits you are looking for, such as good productivity. I don’t do crested birds at all so I am not familiar with the characteristics of the different crested breeds. Maybe I can still give a bit of info that might help.
The crest is dominant and is not a sex linked characteristic. It does not matter if the mother or father is crested. That gene will get passed down from either a male or female parent. If the bird has one crest gene (is split for crest/not crest), the crest will not be as big as on a bird that is pure for the crest gene. Use that in later crossings to help you decide which breeders to keep.
The crest gene is the crest gene. The reason you get the different shapes of crests is feather type and quality, comb type, and skull shape. Somebody knowledgeable about crests recently posted this. It’s also possible there are some crest modifiers that will also affect the final crest appearance, but there is only one gene that determines if the bird has a crest. Since the crest gene is dominant, if just one copy is there you will see the effects.
Start with all red birds, preferably ones with that dark red Mahogany, not the light red. Do not introduce any form of white, black, buff, or blue if you can avoid it at all. Do not add barring or anything like that. Some of that stuff you can get rid of in a couple of generations if it is dominant, but you have to hatch extra chicks to do that. Some of those recessive traits can be real hard to get rid of.
Roosters and hens both contribute productivity traits. A rooster gives a copy of all his genes to all his offspring (remembering that genes come in pairs and only one of those pairs is handed down) while a hen gives a copy of all hers to her sons but withholds the sex linked genes from her daughters. But roosters don’t lay eggs, hens do. It’s hard to evaluate what a rooster will bring to the egg laying but fairly easy to see what the hen does. I’d select my hens more on the egg laying traits and the roosters more on appearance or behavior.
Decide what traits you want your final flock to have (conformation, color, pattern, broodiness, egg laying, whatever) and select breeding chickens that come closest. This means you have to have a good idea what your final goals are. And hatch a lot of chicks. The more you hatch the more you have to choose from to get the best breeders.
Good luck with it.
