Here's a bit of info that I've been learning and experimenting with lately in a effort to come up with a color and shade that I like for my fastback. First, true candies and pearls are probably not for the novice painter, they are spendy, time consuming and near-impossible to touch up later. But House of Kolor has a really neat line up of paints that look like the traditional custom paints, but apply like regular basecoat/clearcoat paints and are (supposedly) easy to repair. The pearls and candies are designed to be applied over their regular basecoats of a similar color. For instance, to get a deep blue pearl, you'd use a dark sealer, followed by 3 coats of a medium blue metallic base, followed by 4 or 5 coats of a medium blue pearl base, then clear. While this may sound like a ton of paint, House of Kolor's paints are very thin, thus the need for more coats. For instance a new car may have a 4-mil thick paint job, with a mil being approximately .001". House of Kolor claims that their bases only add up to less than one mil per 3 coats because there is no "fillers" in their paint to add unnecessary thickness. They also claim that their paints are designed to withstand 15 mils of paint (not unheard of with a lot of graphics) and live for a decade or more. The House of Kolor candies work the same way, and by spraying a candy (or pearl) color that's about the same tone as the base color, you help to eliminate the "tiger stripes" that new painters usually end up with in candy and pearl jobs. Also, pearls do come in various colors as a dry powder and can be added to any House of kolor paint for a unique color. I've been playing with their bases and really like both the cost and the ease of application, if you need more info, I highly recommend reading Jon Kosmoski's book "Advanced Custom Painting Techniques". Jon is the owner of House of Kolor, and his book is full of neat stuff and very easy to follow.