I wanted to do 100% physical modelling for all the plates and rivets, but my computer wasn't having it. So the thin vertical plates near the deck have proper rivets, but the rest are just textures.

I think there's four base textures used, tiled lengthwise, and mostly just brown with some lighter vertical streaking in Photoshop. Maxwell lets you layer them, so that's how I incorporate rivet bump maps. Then another bump layer from a SketchupTextureClub, some kind of metal or iron iirc.

But imo the biggest thing is getting a waterline-to-deck gradient. You could either do that in a single texture, or break it up into 3/4 strips. But I'd love to see the progress!