NI painting advice sought

I wonder if anyone can offer me some advice.  I recently, well back in
the February special, bought a big bag of NI ships: my first ever
models.  The actual models are beautiful and my wife and I slowly have
been painting them in rough order of size ever since.  So far my
painting has been much more succesful than I expected (my
wife's painting I had no worries about but I'm one of nature's
demo-clutzes).  Now, however, we are faced with the capital ships and
I need some advice.  The vertical wings look great but I'm worried that
they'll get in the way when painting the bodies.  Would more
experienced painters sugest simply gluing the whole ships together then
priming and painting or should I try masking the joins, priming and
painting before gluing the wings to the bodies or some such
manoevre? Advice and suggestions eagerly sought,  Mark Oppenheim