Masking/painting raised detail

I'm not exactly sure what your painting, I've never attempted the big boats -and I'm also a huge noob but have you tried rolling a tooth pick in paint method?  

If I'm careful I can get it too work with raised lettering for car trim and such.  I roll a round tooth pick through a blob of paint, roll it on some paper to remove the excess (almost dry) and then roll the tooth pick over the raised letters until you've rubbed some off on each area of each letter.  I've only done it with silver and car badges are small and already a bit distorted in some cases so it may not translate as well to the boats.

It's sort of like a dry brush method but with a tooth pick.  I'm not sure that helps at all but good luck.

Gordy

If my smallest tip brush will not work, I turn to a toothpick, those double ended ones with the sharp ends.  I shake the bottle of paint, then take off the top and put it upside down on bench. I dip the tip of the toothpick in the paint in the bottle lid.  That puts just enough paint on it to do fine detail.  In rare cases where I need to make an extremely small dot, I dip in the end of a piece of 1/32 (or 0.030) brass wire.  That doesn't hold much paint, so makes an extremely small dot.  The toothpick does hold enough paint you can paint raised detail like stern carvings on sailing warships and such.  But I do most of it with a small tip brush. BTW, Testors gold enamel brush-paints very well, and it is fun to do those carvings with it.

Here is a method I used on a name plaque that had some small very fine cursive lettering.

I painted the lettering in the desired color using an ACRYLIC paint. Concentrating on the lettering but not overly concerned about getting some paint on the background.

I let it dry and then painted the background color over the top of all this using an ENAMEL paint. Being sure to completely cover the background.

I then took one of those small Tamiya cotton swabs mositened with paint thinner and lightly brushed over the lettering. This removed the top layer of enamel background paint and left the underlying acrylic paint alone. Hint: Don't let the enamel paint totally dry and it will be easier to remove.

Previously I tried building up the paint on the letters using dry brushing but couldn't get enough paint built up for the letters to show.

Thanks! I'll give it a shot. I've tried the toothpick tip, and it does work. But that particular method would be very time consuming because there is a lot of intracte detail, not just on the stern. But it did work for the fine text on the stern. I actually never thought to roll the toothpick over it, but I'll try that as well (there's some fine detail carvings on the bow) and see.

I use mostly enamel paints, but I'll pick up some acrylics to experiment with.

Once I get it done, I'll share the results. Thanks!

For the text and detail on the stern, the toothpick worked, but my hand isn't quite steady enough, and I invariably put too much paint on the pick and made a mess. I ended up stripping the paint, and I'm going to start over.

The bow turned out a little bit different. The raise "carvings" on the bow were painted with gold, while the recessed areas were black. I actually painted the whole area gold, and then went back in with a fine brush and applied the black. I did need to do a little touch-up after it all dried, and the toothpick worked for that. It's not perfect, but I think it turned out fairly well.

My mentioning dipping the pick in the bottle cap was a method to limit the paint on the tip of the pick.  Usually that layer in the top is quite thin, so if you press the pick down vertically into the center of the cap you shouldn't get too much.  However, for VERY small dots I sometimes touch the pick onto a sheet of cardboard and then onto model.  That usually leaves a VERY small dot.  Do NOT dip the toothpick into the jar of paint- that negates the idea of using the toothpick.