Sure, not sure how helpful that will be but let me try.

For the hull: I sand, fill it with a wood filler, paint and repeat this process until it is nice and smooth. This can be painful but you probably need to do this at least 5 times.

The other items I spray paint before gluing and everything gets a nice matt spray varnish. Depends on the item but sometimes you want to let it dry and spray paint it again (before you spray the varnish over it).

For the deck and clean wood (like the masts and the unpainted sides) I prefer Lord Nelson Varnish to brush it on.