If it’s traditional painting then yes I do draw first! Makes it so much easier for me. I don’t use pens that often, if ever, but I’ll use traditional pen and ink because it’s so fun! For paints I don’t really use anything fancy but I have a mix of dollar store acrylics and Liquitex “BASICS” acrylics.
If it’s digital then I use Photoshop CS3, and 70% of the time I draw a sketch in pencil, scan it and paint over top or I’ll just paint blobs of things and refine them later. And thank you very much!