new to digital art

[Ator]

Hey
I have a fair amount of art experience (for my age), and will be attending a conservatory style program starting next fall (painting major). Up to this point, I've stuck with traditional media.
Recently, however, I've started to dabble in digital art, inspired by the work of Travis Smith, Niklas Sundin etc.
This digital stuff is a totally new world to me, and I was wondering if anyone here had advice, general or specific, with regards to working in this medium, specifically anything geared toward creating album covers. I notice a lot of you guys have awesome work, and I would really appreciate any help you could give.
I have Adobe Photoshop CS3, and my dad is a very experienced photographer with significant photoshop knowledge, so I should be able to get rudimentary technical help on this end if needed.
thanks

 

[Ozzloaf]

Here are some good resources:

Imagine FX magazine!!! (great tutorials on their website as well):

http://www.imaginefx.com/

Massive Black Digital Downloads (amazing quality and quite cheap!):

http://store.payloadz.com/results/str-asp-m.60446-n.Massive_Black-end-results.html

Carlos Cabrera's free tutorials:

http://www.carloscabrera.com.ar/tutorial.html

Conceptart.org Free Tutorials:

http://conceptart.org/forums/forumdisplay.php?f=42

Gnomon Workshop DVD's (pricey but good):

http://www.thegnomonworkshop.com/

Once you've started I'd recommend making a SKETCHBOOK and posting regularly within it. You will receive brilliant feedback that will greatly accelerate the learning process.

I hope this helped!

Jake

 

[Ator]

wow, thanks. I was vaguely aware of conceptart.org, but I never realized how much of a community existed around it.

 

[Ozzloaf]

I learned more in a year from being active on that site than I did in 5 years on my own.