Thanks, guys :-)
Oh, and sorry Josh, I overlooked the second part of you question. Yeah, I'm self taught. I used to play with Photoshop a lot and I found After Effects really confusing but in time I started doing some simple stuff and figured it out. I'm sure there's still a lot to learn but for that I'd need a teacher I think.
Here's a new version of the DS explosion, let me know what you think :-)