There is no other way, you MUST epoxy the wing together. Make sure you fit the V brace into the wing before you add glue. This will make sure its a good fit. I had to do a little sanding on mine to get it to fit perfectly.

Make sure you set the wing on a table and put one wing flat, measure the distance from the table and the other wing. It should follow the manual. If its close and everything else looks good, you are ready to glue it up.
Use 30 min epoxy and butter up the inside of the wing where the brace goes, both sides need a good amount of epoxy.
Then butter up the brace real good as well.
Before pushing the wing halves together butter up the ends of the wing halves. Coat everything in this joint with epoxy.
Squeeze the halves together tightly and used a rag with alcohol on it to remove what oozes out between the two.
Use tape to hold the halves together together until the glue has cured.

I would not paint the covering, but if you are going to try it anyway, scuff it up a bit so the paint has something to adhere to.

THis plane will take the abuse, I have put mine through many controlled crashes and hard landings. I have bashed it a bit also, with a 16oz tank, new landing gear, and a couple other things.
Lotsa lotsa patches on the wings and fuse.

Great plane

Good luck

Dbow