In the illustration above, the fairings that are fore and aft of the lower wing appear to be wood, but on some other illustrations I've seen, these are painted as if they were metal. Which is most likely correct, anyone know for sure?
I really wish you would read Paolo's log

Dave (Douglass, the illustrator of the above profile) makes a very strong case that the fairings were
always wood on
German-built D.IIIs, and that the idea that they were painted metal is a figment of imagination based on incorrectly interpreting photos. I tend to agree with him but not everyone does, and there is plenty of room for reasonable disagreement. One thing I can say with some certainty is the photo evidence definitely shows they were at least sometimes wood -- while the inverse is not so imo.
PS the step as Dave illustrates it is correct for this aircraft. There were round and square steps at different points in production.