I tend to use Photoshop, but Painter is also a pretty good for sketching and getting some beautiful styling. You also get to use some defined layering techniques, not to mention all the pre-defined brush sets Great sketches so far, man.
Thanks you two I've been wanting to invest in photoshop for a long time. I used to use it long ago, but haven't had it available to me in a while. I've been hobbling along in Gimp2, but it just isn't the same. I also have an ancient tablet that I dabbled with... hope I can still find the drivers heh! Thanks again for the info! Really appreciate all the work I've seen.
I have been having great sucess with a Wacom tablet. Some of them are pretty cheap, the one I use is around 100 U.S. Dollars. Thats not bad for a tablet. The OS I use is Vista which was built for tablets also.