Design your very own forum skin or buy them?

Most of the forum admins choose the second option and I don´t blame them, it ain't easy desgining skins otherwise everyone would do it.
By the way, I´m talking about full blown skins, not just changing the colours here and there and add some icons.

But I really want to learn the art of skin desgining, what software and technical knowledge must I have in order to achieve that goal?

Any sites you recommend? Where did you bought your skins?

There are a few places that offer decent skins.

www.vbmechanic.com (http://www.vbmechanic.com)
www.extremepixels.com (http://www.extremepixels.com)
www.vbulletinstyles.com (http://www.vbulletinstyles.com)
www.transversestyles.com (http://www.transversestyles.com)

Google is your friend.

I have a few skins for my board. Some from extreme pixels, some from tranverse styles.

I've never bought a skin and never will. I find pride in doing it myself. And yes I'm talking about full blown skins, not just color changes.

iPodWizard.net (www.ipodwizard.net) is my first skin. I was a virtual coding noob before that. Sure it took a month to do it but now I can whip the code together for a skin like that in about half a day at most.