Hey, don't worry.
I just started painting again after about ten years of not painting figures. Back then I was mostly concentrating on 1/35 scale military miniatures and the Verlinden 120mm figures.
A good friend of mine is a professional painter of miniatures in Athens, Greece and he thinks I'm okay for an amateur.
Lemme tell you something: I know that there are some very skilled painters out there (and we've surely got some on this site), but for me it's the fun of doing it and it is a good way to relax after a stressy day at work.
Agreed, you can hide some smaller mistakes with an inkwash and a drybrush, but it won't hide an overall sloppy paintjob.
I use these techniques to add depth and highlights to the details and give the figure a somewhat battle-scarred, dusty and dirty appearance. To be honest, I don't think they should be used as a shortcut so you don't have to do a decent paintjob on the figure.
It might be a bit different when painting wargames armies where you might need numbers.
I'd like to show a variety of characters, it's not army-building.