Yep from what I’ve read I’ll have to do the full body in a single shot after spending several hundred man hours sanding down the old paint job and prepping the surface. I’m hoping in Southern California’s weather I won’t have much problem with rust between the prep and actual painting.

I don’t care so much about getting the matching perfect - “it was my first time” is a perfectly cromulent excuse in my social circles - but I do want the paint job to be good enough so that I’m not redoing it every year or two (I hate sanding). What should I exepct?

I don't think I can help much more, sorry. The shop I worked in was completely automated and worked on new builds. In most ways, it's much harder to do a one-off repaint of an assembled vehicle.

Only advise I can give is to get some cheap paint and some kind of panels and start practicing.

Sometimes the local tech school will give you a deal on painting. Students do the work and it will have flaws, but better than you can do without practice