i'm going to be doing the red tail light mod and i also wanted to polish them up. my question is: do i polish first, or paint first?

 

I painted first because I assume the polish would make the paint fisheye. Plus you still have to polish the red when you are done anyway why polish twice

 

what do you mean ~fisheye~, and i was leaning towards this because it is better to paint a not-so-smooth surface right?

 

The paint would get spots in it where the paint would pull away in places looking like poka dots of no paint. And yes you are right you dont want to paint a smooth surface you want to rough it up a little with a fine grade of sandpaper