Brass parts

Jin! I have a hard time knowing that your only 13/ 14 now! happy B-day...You write and sound so grown up...Its a Pleasure to be on this forum with you!
"RC"

the brass parts are the key to imitating banged up fenders, and metal parts etc.
I'm pretty comfortable with them unless they are miniscule, and they sure are worth the effort!
to bend'em, I just anchor it with a razor blade and bend with another.
there are some comprehensive articles about them somewhere around here.
the most recent FSM magazine had an article at had brass bending in it, although it wasn't the theme of the article.

sounds like you pretty much covered it! especially the "you dont have to use every piece on the sprue" on armor just the engine grilles themselves would give a model a more "3D" look and make it look more professional... use what you feel comfortable with and save the rest as you might need them for another build someday!

Well with brass or "P.E" meaning "Photo Etch" give the build a more realistic look.
The original reason for P.E parts was to repoduce such items that could not be achieved with regular plastic (e.g. fine armor engine grille).
As for working with P.E, well, it is not that easy but also not all that difficult. First off there is usually a lot of tiny brittle pieces that need to be cut and cleaned just like any other model parts however P.E parts are very fragile and can be bent out of shape really easily. Secondly, you must have some way of bending the pieces into place as they all come flat on a spure. There is a few tools available from www.missionmodels.com that will make this work a lot easier.
Thirdly, you cant use regular modeling glue for binding styrene plastic with brass, it simply wont bond. However regular "superglue" will fix the problem.
Just as with any other aspect of modeling, working with PE will take some practice, but in the long run it will add that special detail to any model.
Remember that sometimes the P.E spures can look overwhelming with couple of dozen or more tiny parts, however you have to remember that you dont have to use every single one of those pieces. P.E is mostly for added detail.
I am sure someone will follow on things I might of forgot to include.
Hope this helps somehow.