Listen Main you're good. Stay with it.
I'm just starting out myself. The people here will help you.
I'm learning that experience is the best teacher. And I can only get experience by just plugging away at it.
I would suggest some curves and ellipses.
I use Timely Ellipses. Now for curves get some french curves from a local store and you may need to order "ship" curves from an online store.
http://www.artstuff.net/ships_curves.htm
http://www.timelytemplates.com/f_ellipse/Tellipse.htm
I didn't notice a domain in your sig. Think of something cool you might like.
If your name is simple try to incorporate that into your domain name. My last name is very difficult so I opted to leave my name out.
al