My best advice is go to your local auto paint store and talk to them about everything you are asking. I painted cars for 15 years and I can tell you base coat and clear coat are more forgiving than they used to be and epoxy primers are way better...the key to a killer paint job is countless hours of preparation to get the body straight and then countless more hours sanding and taping...then painting becomes the easier part of it all. You can get inexpensive paint guns that will serve you well, but in order to use them, you need an air compressor that has at least a 60 gallon tank and a lot of water traps before your paint guns get the air...if that is not feasible, and you don't care how it gets painted, take your car to the local highschool auto/body class and let them do it for you as a class project, or the same goes with a local trade school. Rattle cans are good for a lot of pieces, but they don't have enough pigment/solids to last very long in the elements and you will have several other paint overlap issues if you paint your entire car that can't be color sanded to fix. Even your hood will not flow out properly in flat black because rattle can paint dries much quicker that spray gun mixes of paint because of the reactive reducer used that allows different drying rates relative to the temperature, etc. You can also think about a flat black body wrap/decal for your hood...as long as you sand it well to make it even, these body decals work out pretty well. There is so much to talk about when it comes to painting cars, so like I said earlier, a trip down to the paint store and reading on line articles about painting are your best bet....you don't have to be a good painter as long as you can wet sand, block sand, and buff...probably not the answer you were wanting, but it's a process of trial and error and a lot of labor...give it a try with what ever you have and if it doesn't suit you, sand it down and try it again...Single stage paint is fairly easy to spray if its a solid color because if you get any runs (and you will) you can wet sand/block sand them down to flat, and then a little buffing will be required. I will say that rattle can primer such as the Sem Brand or any can you would find at the autopaint store is pretty good, and more expensive than others, but much better...you can wet or dry sand it and it has good filling properties.
