Thanks Wilbur, those sails were as you can imagine fairly teadous i thought i'd never get them done i think that had alot to do with the way revell sequenced the steps, clearly some of the later steps i felt could of been written in earlier steps in the instruction sheet. Man there is so many things i'll do different now in my proceeding builds thanks to this site, but for not taking on one of these for over ten years, and lack of knowledge i'm happy with it. Weathering that hull was my 1st attempt at it, so i wanted to keep it simple, and used but 2 colors..deep green, and white acrylic dabbed on with a sponge, and smugged with a damp paper towel, and my fingers.
The sails were kind of tough in that they had a fabric finish applied to fronts, and not the backs so to match the texture, and color i used rustoliums sandstone on the back sides, and weathered using 3 colors..flat earth, desert yellow, and white thinning as needed using a brush, and again my fingers.
I believe the time taken to do a well done paint job can help in making up for any short comings a modeler may have.. me included, be it rigging inaccuratecies etc, and end up with nice looking finished product. Build it to your liken, and you can't wrong.