What should one do before changing career? What are your suggestions for me?

Here are a couple of sites that I looked into:
http://www.careerplanner.com/Career-Change.cfm (it’s paid)
http://mail.google.com/mail/?ui=2&view=bsp&ver=1qygpcgurkovy
http://www.quintcareers.com/online_career_assessments.html
http://www.questcareer.com/career_assessment_resources.html
http://www.zcareer.com/

I’m an engineer and masters; this field pays me well. It’s challenging too. I gave a presentation very today to MD and other top managers in a company about an assignment I carried out for one week in their company. They liked it too. This is how it is going.

But, I like drawing; I long for it till Sunday. That’s why I did courses like Animation and web design. I’ve got some questions that I would like to know answers of:

Have anyone of you changed career? How? Any experiences?
What are your suggestions for changing careers?
What do artists do for living? How do they earn?
Should I go for studying animation? probably in US or Canada? Which courses can I go for (animation, arts, photography)? Masters directly or have to start from Bachelors? Or I can get job directly?