Welcome to the club. I am far from experienced, got a whole weeks worth of shaves completed... haha. I too went right to full face shave and have been doing well, the key for me is to make sure I am comfortable, but not complacent. Go slow, take your time, if it doesn't feel right it probably isn't. I have lots of issues with my lather drying up right now too, but that's all part of the learning curve. For now I will lather each section of my face separately before shaving it. Not only does this eliminate having dry sticky/goopy gunk on my face but it gives me a chance to look at beard growth directions and play around a little bit with different ways of holding the razor. I look forward to shaving everyday now it's a little bit strange, but the good kind of strange.

Oh yeah, and welcome to SRP