Welcome aboard, mate...
I'm pretty much on the same boat, albeit I set out first as a hobby and then as a "school-taught" developer rather than an artist. I'm actually lucky a course has opened relatively close to where I live, but otherwise yes, we don't have much game developers in my country either, nor software houses aiming at such development.
I wonder if we're actually from the same one
Anyways, I'm not much into mobile developing, but the Eclipse IDE and the right Android plug-ins (plus an absolute truckload of software development kits if you want to target multiple android versions and ensure compatibility) should be fine for anything you may want to do, not to mention they're free. I'm absolutely clueless about iOS, although I believe it's something vaguely along the same lines.
If you want an advice from someone who resorted with a Java software developer job (for the time being), however, start with smaller steps. As BuzzKenway noted, it's something that won't show its fruits overnight and that requires a certain mindset; it's not a "snap your fingers" type of activity and it's not going to be easy, and it can easily morph from a passion into a nightmare. Start by getting in contact with object oriented programming before delving into a full fledged application and see if it's stuff you can actually manage; Java, C# and C++ (from easiest to hardest amongst the easier languages out there, IMO) are all extremely valid starting points.