Prep on the car continues, still have some light work to do really but not a ton. Mostly it involves taking things off for access.

I've had it in the air (with the opposite side supported on stands from the last post) for a few weeks and am almost done blocking the lower body (from the character line down) to 220, re-priming and repairing things I missed earlier.
Nice to work standing up.

While that is going on I'm planning the next steps to prep the rest of it, and am starting to get my topcoat game together.
I am not going anywhere near the car with base/clear without 100% confidence, and will not learn a tool or a material on the car.
(Learning/trial and error happens somewhere else, on things that don't matter)

Alot has happened but most of it is captured in pictures, and are just details slowly coming together as they should.

I bought my basecoat in sufficient quantity (PPG 2016, the original color which is A4 silver), Boxed the two gallons (mixed to avoid variance between one gallon and the next),
bought myself a new clear gun for X mas because I was concerned my existing tools couldn't shoot the high solids clear I wanted, bought a small amount of the clear,
started to practice on scrap.

Two attempts got the setup for base where I wanted it, four attempts got the clear about as good as I will ever get it.
Notebook with all the details has been started + pics of the notebook saved as well.
However....just like a race vehicle, it's all in the combination. this is all in my comfy 70 degree heated shop...and in spite of this self-schooling I'm positive future temp and humidity conditions could cause me big problems, so I will do another test closer to the big day when base gets applied to the car to stay dialed in, and will try to have more than one activator on hand.

Wish I had a local hookup for mis-mixed colors and whatnot, it'd be nice to get my hands on some extra gray and silver metallics, even stuff that is the wrong shade for my car....just to practice with metallics and spend more time on them. They can be tricky to shoot but when you hit it just right, pride of workmanship gets kicked way up and it feels good. The A4 silver has a TON of metallic (I believe aluminum) in it and is easy to mess up and end up with it looking bad if there is a setup or technique error. Solid colors are much less stressful.

The tools laying on the floor by the practice panel show the reflection, and it's a good enough starting point for me.

My goal is nothing rougher than late model OEM levels of orange peel, that only needs nib and polish to be presentable, and no more.
If it ever gets completely cut and buffed, I'd rather do that years down the road, but I may chase it sooner. Still developing an opinion on that.