I agree with Derek. There are a lot of Xara users who start with a scanned line drawing and then add color. It really depends on how you like to create art in a non-digital way.

If you are a good painter, and like to apply paint to paper or canvas then a photo editing application like PSP or Photoshop or Painter will be more like traditional media.

But if you look at Derek's work or many of the artists in the Xara Gallery Conference or on the Xara Xone Featured Artist Gallery you will see that for many, vector art is just as effective as pixel editing.

But regardless which direction you decide to go, these is going to be a learning curve.

Gary