Cool! Found a track about which I can talk a little longer. Good work man! I think you've got the essence of it. If I may say. I actually started going down this road not that long neither! I think I have a few things to share:
Doubling horns with violins work, but thats not the only solution. I believe looking for textures in this kind of music is very important. I like to listen to great movie composers like John williams, Danny Elfman or even good movies to see how they orchestrate the melody to start with. I'd also go to older composers. At the moment I'm checking Korsakov's work. And have been listening to some of rachmanino'vs orchestral works. Those are lessons!
Then again, texture is super important. This for me, in this case, mean two things:
How will you set the background for your melody. Strings, like a pad? Or will you properly write for them, a bass, tenor and alto voice. Remember strings sound good when you give then melodies. Sometimes they can be used as pads, but I will come to this just now. Will you have a counter part? Maybe the whole of the harmony will mainly come from different melodies on the background. And when you have instruments, I like to think of them as families, just like those great guys do. For exemple, if you have the french horns coming in, you might want to have all of them, supporting the main guy. Like a block chord, as simple as that, giving the melody to the first horn. Just whatch for your dynamics there.
Then I come to the second point, regarding how you use these samples. I spend a lot of time cutting edges of the attacks of my notes, in order to make it sound real. Think how a real player would play it. I like to use expression curves, always. Very rare not having to draw one for every note. For exemple when you want the violins to play the harmony, maybe add then some dynamic curve in order to make them "sing" and not sound like a synth.
I wish I could post my track here, but i can't yet. Too knew here. If you would like to hear what I mean, write me and I will send you a link!
Hope my advises will be good for you, and hope I didn't sound presumptuous.
Good job mate!
Lucas