I tend to draft/sketch/draw/doodle in MS paint, and I use PS CS2 for larger/more complex pieces that DO require layers and deliberation!

I've been drawing in MS paint since I was a kid, so it feels easy by familiarity. I feel like I sketch a lot more loosely, fluidly, and freely, without as much hesitation or second guessing as in other programs. The singular layer feels analogous to drawing on paper.... and I just use gradual degrees of very light to darker pencils to keep things sane, much like you would sketching on paper (maybe starting with a very light yellow or blue to draft, or holding your pencil super lightly...).... for just general doodling it feels as if layers aren't really necessary ... only when I'm actually trying to engage with a more layered scene or more bodies, does it feel difficult... ... but it's also very difficult for me to plan/achieve multi-layered scenes in traditional media!

So, I guess I'd just say MS paint is the same as paper. It's a big blank sheet and to get an idea down, I don't need more than a mechanical pencil or ballpoint pen, right? AND STICKY NOTES...! If I really want to dive into something involved, I would scan the paper, or drag the canvas into PS CS2!!

I often feel like if I start in CS2 I'll tend to overcomplicate things...

uhm well, for quite a lot of years I did lean more fully into PS, even Sai briefly, with a lot of brushes... and I feel like my art from that time got immensely, immeasurably worse. I feel like my artistic speech slurred, so to speak. That I wasn't making 'decisions' so much as mushing around cheap effects. If you took any of that art and removed the brushes and pressure sensitivity, it all had awful posing, awful anatomy, hideous composition. It feels like such tools prevent me from 'seeing' what I'm doing ... personally. I lose the 'form'...

When I looked back on my work as a whole, I was most proud and nostalgic for pieces made in MS paint... I felt the greater tool useage only made me go backwards, really. Even things I made very young still had charm... more charming than works I was making in my early 20s. Even looking at my teenage works actually, I feel like learning a bunch of Deviantart tricks like gaussian blur and custom brushes stuff really sent me backwards .... !! Ah I guess even in traditional media, I had a point I feel I got too obsessed with particular tools, relied on them to just 'make it look good'...

Going back to the fixed width brushes without pressure sensitivity, the single layer, even the 1px brush, I felt I could lasso my art back into shapes I could actually see... I felt more in-control.... doing this traditionally, also, happened at the same time, I switched to more basic, maybe childish tools, like just crayola markers from a free bin, crayons, the sort of stuff you'd grab as a kid ... I needed to forget about the 'image' of drawing ...

I don't know why it's that way for me, but it is. I still sometimes dabble in other programs or effects, but I'm wary of losing myself...