RE: Painting to make it look like Carbon Fiber
I first painted a light coat of transparent black. The most difficult part was to try to make it EVEN, and not too dark. Then I used the kitchen drawer anti-skid material as a template, and painted a few light coats of white ( LIGHT coats, until it becomes solid white through the template). And last, I removed the template and painted solid black on top of everything.
My girlfriend suggested to use the transparent black method instead of skipping this step and using grey or silver paint. She actually was able to make an awesone looking carbon fiber paint job (on my practice acetate sheets), but I wasn't able to make it quite as good looking on the body as she could on the practice sheets.