Whats the good stuff?

I''m pretty new to the skinning community. I''ve been working on it in my spare time and I have uploaded a few skins. I get a natural high when I read what people say about my work and I want to do bigger and better stuff. However, My resources and funds are limited. I only have two programs to make my skins with, Corel and MS Paint. With Corel I can''t seem to create as stunning or visualy complex images and effects that one sees a lot of. Am I using the right stuff or are there better alternatives? Is there any inexpensive or free software someone could point me twards?