Reddit reviews Skin: The Complete Guide to Digitally Lighting, Photographing, and Retouching Faces and Bodies

Websites:

http://www.smashingmagazine.com/

http://psd.tutsplus.com/ There is one for vector illustrations also.

http://www.lynda.com/

Web design podcast

Books

Your new bible on type

Lee Varis "Skin". Awesome book on working with skintones

Photo-compositing

Web usability testing

Fun stuff:

Flash cards, the fun kind to get your brain going

color swatches by Pantone

Calibrate you monitor; you don't know what colors you can print without a baseline

Just realize what you print and what your screen show can be close, but it will never be 100 percent accurate. This also depend on the viewing conditions. Calibrate your monitor, get a backup system in place, read and make your own assignments, and good luck. If you want to buy a bunch of business cards cheaper than VistaPrint or elsewhere with a digital offset waterless system... try

CopyCraft.com

Unless you have money for letterpress cards, but i would only hand those to decisionmakers that sign checks :)

Also i almost forgot... magazines!!!

Many on this list

And i personally like this one

Also you need to make sure your drawing skills constantly improve. I use photoshop for photos exclusively and it speeds up my workflow and helps me with my understanding of light and creating shadows etc. I can't stress maybe a Figure Drawing class (if you have a bad position it is okay to move to a better "view") or something similar to help work through drawings faster and get a better basis of form. These little notebooks are so handy to keep for quick sketches and ideas, and random people that are potential clients.

A Wacom tablet (unless you can afford a Cliniq) is so awesome to have. I have the XL and it is too much... the Large is sufficient unless space. I hear that the smallest size is just too small for most people.

Here is a awesome glove to help with sweaty hands and to keep it smooth, i actually just got mine and it actually helps with my editing on my tablet.

edit: added moleskin/wacom/smudgeguard info

skin

Skin: The Complete Guide to Digitally Lighting, Photographing, and Retouching Faces and Bodies – Lee Varis

in addition to all of these suggestions, look in to this book. It has excellent techniques that can be applied to any skill level and style.
Skin (2nd edition, I owned the first)