Painting/clearcoat advice
 

So I'm scratch building a body from styrene and am now thinking ahead to painting--the plan is to have a full body base coat of one color--krylon maybe..and then have vinyl decals applied--its a fairly elaborate paint scheme (copying a 1:1) so well beyond my skills with a paintbrush--but with adhesive vinyl decals I can send them away to get printed and get something decent looking..

Anyways my question is, can I clearcoat the whole vehicle after the decals have been applied? Has anyone clearcoated over a vinyl wrap? Do I even need to?

I just want something durable to help resist scratches--it won't be a hard core crawler, more of a show piece that runs the odd trail

Re: Painting/clearcoat advice
 

The best way would be to layer and paint using the decals as templates, depending on how intricate. Ultimately removing the vinyl before you clear coat. The nature of vinyl lettering is to shrink over time. You can clear over it, but it will eventually crack and peel.