I was in your position at one point. I suck with anything art related, but now I am fully confident I can make any FTL mod I want.
Here is what I would recommend...
Get GIMP! It is free and can accomplish pretty much any task you want for FTL. It may not be as good as Photoshop, but it doesn't cost $1000 either. I have been using GIMP for half a year now and I still don't know everything it is capable of doing!
As for learning how to use GIMP, I'm afraid I can't help much... YouTube videos didn't even help me there. I couldn't find anything for people who don't know how to draw a line in a GIMP
, but maybe you will have better luck than me. I learned everything by "fiddling" with stuff. I have learned so much. I'd say just fool around with things and if you're really stuck then turn to Google.
For creating ship images you can try to find an image off the internet that fits your needs and as long as it is free of copyright, Creative Commons stuff, you can upload it here. If you want a ship that matches the FTL style then you can try "splicing" a ship using pieces of other ships in FTL. Basically creating a "Frankenstein" ship, that is hopefully just a little more attractive looking than Frankenstein. If you look closely at most of the ship mods here they are actually all created using pieces of other ships, except for a few by really talented individuals. And a lot of good ship mods are just recolors of already existing hulls.
And just in case you didn't know Superluminal 2 just came out and it is the editor most people use to create ships.
If you have an idea for something specific you would like to accomplish then tell us! I'm sure someone will be able to give you some better tips to accomplish specifically what you want to start with.
Good Luck!
and I would like some help to see if anyone could help me get better and allow me to start making my own ships. 
) and yeah I have considered splicing ships together, but I really want to create something completely unique (basically a dalek ship 
) that fits in with the theme of FTL. On top of that I have no idea about lighting etc. I will bear in mind what you just said though!