Digital painting like all other types of skills takes forever to master. I am still improving. If you are very serious about digital art I would highly recommend buying a wacom cintiq. I could not do much of anything digital without one. I was a traditional oil painter and started doing digital art when I got into the game industry. I always had to scan in drawings or paintings and then just tweak them. With my cintiq I instantly felt more comfortable and I would say 50% faster/better with digital artwork. Its different for each of us. I do know a few people that don't like Cintiqs but they tend to like regualr wacom tablets. I hate them. Good luck.

As far as the different feel of Silent Hill, I think people thin that because Team Silent didn't make the game that is why the game felt different. The reality is that Konami had us make the game different. They wanted it to be more action oriented. Almost everything that is different in that game was something we were told to do design wise. Art wise, we tried as hard as possible to keep the same flavor as the previous games. Sorry you didn't like it. But in the end it was Konami's decision to change the game not a mistake by our team.