Like some of the others said, ink washes are generally best done earlier on in the painting process, prior to doing any detailing.
I would say the process I usually do goes something like: basecoat, ink, drybrushing/highlights, and then pick out individual details. The ink after the basecoat will give the recessed areas the shading they need, and then the highlights will bring color back to the more raised areas. When it comes to faces, or just skin in general, I apply a basecoat (I use Vallejo's dwarf flesh equivalent...I think it may still be called dwarf flesh, not sure) to the face and paint the entire eye black. I then apply a wash of flesh wash to the whole face. I then highlight areas with elf flesh -- cheekbones, lips, area over the eyes, etc, leaving the lower areas with the dwarf flesh+flesh wash color. After that, I dot the corners of the eyes with white and do any other details that I want. You can also use another shade or two for the face if you want it to be a bit more detailed, so you can have some areas that are more of a midtone and then another that serves as a highlight.
The other time I use inks is when doing things like black/darklining, or sometimes when drawing a clear divide between certain parts on a model (armor crevices, or, like on a recent model, putting a black line between each bullet on an ammo belt for a chaos marine). In these instances, I get a small amount of the ink on a detail brush and lightly drag it across the area I want the line to appear -- a very controlled application of the ink, as opposed to the washing effect that you use when applying it to provide shading to a model.
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Sithlet
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