"Aztecing"

It's not a painting technique, it's a pattern. Starting with ST:TMP, Starfleet ships were painted with a distinctive pattern of small rectangular panels. The colors of the individual panels are many subtle variations of the overall hull color, but overall it's a regular repeating pattern of "dark" and "light" which is reminiscent of Aztec art.

It's hard to find good photos on the web that show the pattern clearly, but here's one of the Reliant:

And this page has some very good CG pictures of the NX-01 which you can use as a painting reference:

As for how to paint the Aztec pattern, the best way is with an airbrush and masks cut out of Frisket film or other masking material. Most modelers settle for a two-tone pattern to get the overall dark/light pattern, rather than trying to replicate the subdivision into small rectangles of subtly different shades. Spray the base hull color first, let dry, then mask and spray a slightly different shade of the same color.

a painting reference:

Word of advice--The pictures wouldn't open by hitting the thumbnail, so I had to use the actual link for top, bottom, side, etc. They took a bit to load, but were quite large and very detailed pics.

When once you have tasted flight, you will forever walk the earth with your eyes turned skyward, for there you have been, and there you will always long to return. --Leonardo Da Vinci