[lizziebith]

Do you want to do vector drawing or something more naturalistic? Illustrator is no fun for regular artists (IMHO). Painter is okay once you get used to it. I still find drawing on paper and scanning into Photoshop for cleanup/editing/coloring is the way to go. Otherwise I wouldn't bother with using a computer for actual art. I've only met a handful of people who can use it as a tool well (and I work with artists, professionally). Also remember that if you create art digitally, there is no actual "original" piece...but that's so pomo some might dig it...