Everyone is so enthusiastic about this stuff i love it. @eve I've got a subscription to the magazine equivilant over here in britian, its good stuff

great advice from all here, Led is spot on with the basic software you need to get the skills in.

I find it hard to believe there is no courses near you Armo, they are pretty nationwide for basic to advance in web design/illustration/digital photograph and graphics.

Have a look online, I am sure something will pop up bud

oh and also, I think it has been mentioned, but a vast and ranging portfolio is mandatory Armo.

So build it up and pack it it

Its a whole lot more limited than Illustration.
I was walking through the airport and there was a wall poster for
phone service.
It was an indian girl with the tajhma hall in the Bg.
It looked awful, where she was cutout there was a jaggedy line.
the BG had a buttload of grain but she didnt have any.
And the lighting was way off.
there are jobs out there even for awful choppers.

there is plenty of opportunities to do some PSC magic in a commercial sense. It all depends how good the relationship between you and the client is, and also how brave the client is.

I am always trying to gently push for more dynamic ways of advertising and designing what would normally be a basic ugly poster.

It all about educating the clients.

PSC is actually a fantastic online portfolio for convincing clients of what is possible.

worth thinking about.

again, imo, the best teacher one can find for PS, or illustrator, or indesign, or 3dmax, whatever, is the HELP section of the softwares.There's enough stuff in there to keep learning for years

that is also very true. So don't go getting bootleg copies people

i think we should make these kind of threads sticky. Theres so much valuable information to be found! about the courses, your right there are a lot, but i don't think i could keep a course going and school work at the same time, and there are no in school courses i can do on this kind of thing. I'm not complaining mind just saying

thanks all once again

My good Armo.
It's a whole new millenium. I believe if you speak to your school counselors,
no matter what country you are in and explain
that you are very confident of your chosen career course and ask,
nay implore that a part time job in a relevative setting, OR
a course or two at the nearest community school, college, university would greatly assist you in making a
headstart to a gainful future--I would almost certainly believe that they would allow you to gain credit for this endeavor toward
graduation and free you from some regular classes to give you the time to do it.

ill see what can do

also sending samples out to companies that use freelane is a quick and fairly cheap way to hopefully get posative responses Armo..... sorry I'm just sitting around thinking what you can do yeah I know, slow weekend

NO!
GET A REAL JOB!

Hi armogeden!
I dont know if I can really tell you what to do. I'll only tell you how things going here in Montreal about illustration.

Here, a career in illustration is something not easy anymore. It was I think a lot easier before computer took all the place from mid to end 90s. I'm talking about commercial stuff. Now, most of illustrators aren't able to survive with their talents. Very often, illustration is only a side job. But few of them still doing good business. If I compare to before computer era, now graphic designers & art directors have a lot more possibilities to bring a concept to the final work by themselves, without searching for an illustrator or photographer. I think another reason is about the budgets. It's cheaper to do all the work only inside the agency. And when they contact us, the most common thing I hear now for several years is: "Sorry, we dont have big budget for this project". All that only to say that's it's not easy, but there's some work, and it's anyway possible to have a solid career, but only the best illustrators by their technique or nice style are able to do it.

In my case, I'm very lucky, because my hyperrealistic traditional illustration techniques brought me enough good experience, and I'm now specialized in top notch photo manipulation. Agencies & photographers bring me the work that they consider complex & that they're not comfortable with. But I'm still doing hyperrealistic illustrations, but maybe only 1 contract by 2 months. There's nearly no more needs about hyperrealistic illustration. They usually call me when they aren't able to find or make an enough good picture of what they need (ex: popsicle, dolphin jumping out of water...).

About illustration for publications, books, kids books, etc, I have no idea. I think it never change. Budget are smaller, but the artist who's able to keep himself/herself busy, it can be a nice career too.

ABOUT ILLUSTRATION:
First, I think the best is about to find a style, something unique. It's good to try different softwares, you will find the softwares you prefer to work with. I like photoshop, illustrator, painter is very nice too. I dont know about in design, I thought it was only for graphic design.
Something important is to find a style that you can sell. Not the kind of stuff to please only yourself, but to please people you will contact.
After that, buiding a nice portfolio, having a website, finding an agent are good things to think about.

For fun, I'll send you the website link of the Quebec Illustrators Association:
http://www.aiiq.qc.ca/

I hope my English is not too bad...!

this is a really cool thread about the buisness of graphic design in general.
http://photoshopcontest.com/boards/viewtopic.php?t=3522&highlight=graphic+designers+salary