Glen,
Think of painting this in reverse, meaning don't paint the discs paint the spaces between the discs. A friend showed me how to do this with plain 9 x 11 paper.
normally you paint the yellow first then go green or brown.
In reverse you paint the green or brown first then paint the yellow. It takes a lot of time to cut the shapes out but you only need to do a 3 x 3 area then keep moving it around the model.
Its the yellow that makes the disc. Not impossible and very rewarding when done right.