How to become a good illustrator?

I'm not a professional artist, I'm just a hobbyist, self-taught at that matter, but I do earn money from it. I think if you could invest the Adobe Photoshop software, maybe the Master's collection it would be great. You could search many tutorials online, and I also have a friend who quite regretted enrolling for a digital art course because she learned more through the internet that in her school. Adobe Photoshop, Illustrator and Indesign would be the best software for the career but it's quite hard to learn but if you'll take time you'll get used to it pretty soon. :D Working with mouse is kinda okay but it would be better if you could buy yourself a graphic tablet, the best drawing tablets were manufactured by Wacom. They have the best and widely known pen tablets worldwide, but I must say it's quite expensive. The price ranging from $70 to $100+. The Genius tablet is good for beginners, that's actually what I'm using 'coz I'm just a hobbyist anyway. About the skills, I must say one should be creative and innovative. :D If you want to see tutorials, you could visit www.deviantart.com and search there. There are many professional and good artists there, great art gallery and resources. :D I wish you the best of luck in this career path. :D

im the cartoonist for our university's newspaper. the only device we had was a scanned and the only software i used was photoshop. it still worked out ok. the bottomline is, just keep practicing the traditional (paper and pens or whatever) way and if you get good at that it'll be easier to transition to softwares i also suggest painting. it helps with color control and accuracy. and keep your works so you can build a portfolio. have other artists look at your works so you can learn from your mistakes and last but not the least. NEVER STOP DRAWING. EVER :)