I just ordered a graphics tablet to help with doing some hand drawn maps on my computer. Mostly I'll be doing battlemaps for my D&D playgroup, but my hope is that I'll enjoy it enough to start branching out into other things.

I'm a creative person with moderate ability and zero skill, by which I mean that I have some natural drawing ability but it's been a long time since I've done anything to cultivate it. My parents signed me up for art classes as a kid, but at the time I didn't have enough patience to listen to someone else teach me how to draw and give me exercises that taught me about shading, line drawing, etc. I just wanted to draw my way for the fun of it.

Now that I'm older (and maybe a tad wiser, but not much) I'd like to invest some time in practicing so that I can really do my best with the battlemaps and whatever else I draw. Can anyone recommend some good resources for building skill with a drawing tablet? I'm talking about anything from basic tablet use to very basic drawing exercises to tutorials in cartography or object drawing (swords, shields, chalices...the kinds of things that would be helpful to illustrate for a fantasy campaign.) I'd love to get to the point of drawing people well, but I think that's a ways off for right now.

Thanks in advance!

Edit: Sorry, I think this should've gone in "How Do I?" and I was looking at the wrong page. Sorry mods!