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Inspired by Badi and his post about his excellent Lotus 107 with painted livery I thought I'd share my take on the same project. Been working on it for a year or so now.
It's a curbside build so body will be secured down hence no engine detail.
The seat and steering wheel were coated in microballoons and painted red to match my reference showing the textured finish.
I use Zero paints exclusively in my builds and finish with Zero diamond finish 2K clear.
The body was initially painted with Zeros equivalent to TS16.

I then masked using Tamiya tape and Aizu ultra fine masking tape to mask the curves. I then sprayed with Zeros Jordan 191 dark green.

I then masked again and sprayed Zeros equivalent to Tamiya TS34 camel yellow.

I then masked once more to spray the dark green. For this I used Zero paints green from their Diebels Alt set, left over from a DTM Mercedes build. The green was a perfect match for the decals.

Next up, mask off the black beneath the bare carbon fibre sections on the engine cover and chassis.

Next step is a clear coat with zero diamond 2K clear, that prepared me for the decals.
I have decaled the areas of carbon fibre using Tamiya carbon fibre decal, I created my own templates were necessary. Attention was payed to having the weave run in the correct direction wherever possible.

I then applied the Studio 27 decals for the main livery, this car represents the Lotus as it raced in Adelaide in 1992. It had the extra yellow section on the nose which I really like and the race number is higher up and in a different colour which I found very appealing. The car is Mika Hakkinens as used in qualifications as they opened up side panels for the race but I didn't want to do this.
Reference material was greatly assisted by fellow Lotus enthusiastic Steffen T. Many thanks Steffen.

I then cleared the whole car with Zero diamond 2K clear to obtain a fantastic gloss finish. I let that dry for a month and then masked all the painted livery (very carefully) and sprayed Zero semi gloss 2K clear on anything that had carbon fibre decals. This worked fantastically well and gave me a great contrast between the high gloss of the paint and the semi gloss of the carbon fibre. Exactly the result I wanted.
Construction then led to assembly of the cockpit tub into the chassis and front suspension.
The front wing is now secured in place and that's where I currently stand. Next up is to create the stays that support the endplates on vortex generators on the front wing.

Wow, great post, thanks for sharing.
Model looks superb.

I have read that some Zero paints can react with Tamiya plastic, did you have any similar problems or take any precautions?

Malc.

Amazing build, brilliant work Dave!!