Please don't use Flash to make art, it all looks so horribly tacky. Especially the blurs and gradients do, don't use those.
Honestly, i can't really see how Flash is messy when it comes to art, for that i would say it only depend on whoever drew it, whether he is good
enough to make an art neat or he doesn't, because I've seen some art that was actually done in Flash and they look fine, some are even better,
but yeah my point is that, it's not Flash's fault, it's actually the artist fault so to speak, though i do understand Flash capabilities that is almost impossible
to make realism art because of it's limited and un-powerful tools comparing to many other professional art software out there, but remember,
better and more professional art program will also requires even harder skills and techniques to accommodate it too, so that says, it will be even harder
even if you have a good art program in you hand, unless you've already know all of your art skills and fundamentals right, but I'm sure he doesn't so
sticking with Flash is not a bad idea for him at all i would say
Do you have any suggestions on what I should use?
For me and for what I've seen many beginners used, they always started it with Flash or either Ms.Paint, but i wouldn't recommend Ms.Paint,
i would prefer Flash because it's a little better, but yeah for beginners, i would highly recommend Flash too, or maybe Gimp if you will,
but at your level of skills, you shouldn't need anything above these software I've listed, until you've improve much more and feel like you're really ready