Flash

[Turnips]

Hi guys, seeing as many of you are pros and/or know a hell of a lot about the art/graphic design business I thought I ask you all...

I've been working with Marcromedia (now Adobe) Flash for a number of years to produce my work and I'm wondering how popular this program is with artists and designers.

Flash has many uses for animation and scripting, but from what I gather people rarely use it solely for its graphical abilities.

I'm getting to the stage in my life where I will be looking to enter the industry pretty soon, I'm wondering if companies will be put off by my sway towards this 1 program.
Should I invest in a Illustrator, Photoshop and other programs?

Cheers in advance for any advice/info!

[Qitsune]

What exactly are you looking to do? A lot of graphic artists work on web projects and Flash is often the tool of choice. For anything relating to print however, I doubt you'll find use for flash (except maybe for cartoony stuff or logos) All in all it does very nice vector art but lacks the versatility of Freehand or Illustrator for anything print related. Do you know any layout programs like Quark?

[Turnips]

I have used Quark in the past, yes. Though I'm not fluent in it, I'm sure I'll be able to re-pick it up in a day or so.

I enjoy dabbling on concept art and stuff (see http://www.conceptart.org/forums/showthread.php?t=96017), but I'm mainly looking to become a graphic/flash designer.
Producing animated scenarios and the like would be ideal... but I'm worried that employers will expect more from me.

Thanks for the help

[Basil]

if you're looking to get into high-end interactive work for the web, then flash is deffinately the tool of choice and delivery format (other than html). however, photoshop and illustrator are absolutely essential for the design process and creating all the graphical assets. add after effects and a good 3d program like cinema4d and you're in business to create rich websites.

aside from making a flash portfolio site (if you go for that sort of thing) flash isn't much use to a concept artist. i beleive pixar concept artists rough together some pretty impressive animatics using after effects or similar software, but that's about it for animation programs.