RE: Covering
I much prefer Ultracote. It just looks better. the main advantages are
1. shrinks better and when it sticks to itself you can peel it back off
2. the backing can be drawn on
3. you can use the edges, I hate that with monokote you have to trim the edges, I especially hate the fact that they print on that edge, with ultracote you have a nice clean machine cut edge on both sides
I do like the sheen of monokote better. The big disadvantage to monokote is that some of the colors dont shrink well. The 2 worst I have found so far are transparent green and metallic red. The green shrinks very little and there is very little working room between shrink and burn.
The only reason I buy monokote is for trim. I cover the model in Ultracote and then trim out in monokote using the windex method. This gives a great finish.