Yet another update...you prompted me to redo some of the sig that I've been meening to fix up for a while too

 

I know this is kinda late, Haven't been in the chop shop for awhile.

To respond to your Graphic design questions..

I went to a high end school here Downtown in Detroit for 3 years, you can check it out, its called the College for Creative Studies. Amazing school, theres only a few better in the country, most of the major film and video game companies hire directly from this school. I was in the animation program, not to brag but I was told that I was good at what I do by the head of the animation program, and he even gave me some extra advanced work to improve my skills.

Long story short, it is like everyone else mentioned a very competitive field to be in. Lets say Dreamworks or Pixar, or Lucasarts calls the head of the program and says, hey I have 2 opening for this film or game, we need some recommendations on who to hire, well then you have 300 or more students in the entire animation department applying for a 2 person job. I was good at it, but I just lost interest in it.