Welcome to Gaia! ::

There's also Paint which is most likely already on your computer.
If not; Paint
GIMP is really good. It's one of those programs where you can use tutorials to learn the basics and mechanics of it but still experiment with the way you want.

It's also okay to request new programs to use event hough you have GIMP already. There's no harm in that, your just broadening your horizons. I know plenty of people who have GIMP, then photoshop ectr. then barely use one over the other.

But like everyone else recommended there are some really good tutorials on deviant art and even here on Gaia that I've seen.

There's this other program I've used my computer teacher recommended it. I think it's pixel paint or something.

When I lost photoshop due to old-computer-is-old, I worked almost exclusively with GIMP. Now that I have tried both, I wouldn't even go back to photoshop, although maybe I only saw an older version of PS. Though I will admit I'm a fan of GNU.

And yeah echoing what other people have said - if you find GIMP too complex, chances are you would struggle with Photoshop too. I'd recommend trying it out properly first. If you still don't like it, at least now you'll know what the program's about before you reject it! If it turns out you do like it, you'll have a useful and powerful tool that you can now add to your repertoire.

Colouring wise I'd also recommend SAI. I haven't seen anything that can beat their blending tool yet ;P

Photoshop is actually pretty good but other than that the only other program that compares is corel painter as it is ment for digital painting. The main pallet that makes it so useful is the color mixing palette. So you can get that same painterly mixing going on.

Yeah there is program paint but its not fun to use because you can still see the pixels. cry