I'm not a modeler.  But I need a custom-looking spacecraft for a story.

I have the spaceship constructor set:

http://www.renderosity.com/mod/bcs/space-ship-constructor-set-1/96176/

(and #2 through #6)

Lots of neat parts, however they look a little cartoony and I'm looking for something more realistic.  The structure is fine but they're just basic colors and I want something more realistic.

So my thought was to get some realistic textures (find something at cgtextures, etc.) and retexture them.  I've never really used textures before...not really sure what I'm doing, but hey that's how we learn.

In theory is this a good approach?  Any gotchas I should know about?  I don't need this to look like Industrial Light & Magic, just reasonably realistic.  I'm handy in photoshop, though I'm thinking I can just use Poser's materials room for this...?