I have a tablet (only $20 used, w00t!), but I only use it to shade while coloring. I'm kinda iffy of actually drawing straight on the comp, I believe I have more control while drawing with pen and paper.
So yeah, I scan and color...layering makes shading easier, because you can lock the transparency on each color layer and only color directly to each layer...so, for example, if you want to shade only the blues with dark blue, you can only color on the blues and not the greens. :]
she's back. run for your lives.