If you already have gouache, I recommend you do some black and white photo studies instead of using colour (it's so tiring to get colour mixed right...), then you can grasp the value relationship pretty quickly, which is a heavy lifting element in a painting. I'm not against going directly into digital, but digital brush and display will tend to lead you to not discover the real luminance range of an image, because a screen it's emissive, and somehow doesn't really put context lighting into your vision. If you go digital directly, I recommend that you paint some pure white and pure black squares in corners of your image, then you will always have a reference of the luminance range you can go.

It doesn't matter what medium you use. Drawing is essential

I've gone straight into digital, bypassing most traditional (except sketching I guess) methods. However, I will be the first to point out that I'm not career orientated for art, just personal stuff for fun. So my direction in learning is a lot off kilter from the norm I think. But, I am finding and seeing improvements in my digital techniques, so there is that. :-)

I don't think it is necessary to start with traditional media. I am drawing since May last year now and I started with alcohol markes and some charcoal but switched very early to digital. Of course I have a looong way to go learning wise but I don't think I would be at a further point now if I had sticked to traditional media. To me the upsides of digital for learning weigh more than the upside of traditional (for me, very subjective!). I love playing with colors and imho I learned very fast how to use colors better because I could try everything freely in digital. I could try what happens if I darken the shadows, if I make the shadows blue, if I make one color more saturated ect. Without having to draw a whole new piece. Also for composition, I could quickly get a feeling which compoistion would work better, like make the character bigger or closer to something and so on. On the other hand you learn with traditional media to plan and to improvise. Because if a stroke is down it's mostly down and you have to work with it. So I think best way is to do both but that is very time comsuming. So I would say, try what you feel like. I myself learn quickest if I do something that I enjoy while pushing my limits. Again this is all very 'my point of view'.

Hey!, i don't think you need a traditional background in order to do digital art but is good to know it so you can paint whatever you want in any kind of place or canvas, i have done it digitally since the start, and is hard for me to draw traditionally since i make a lot of mistakes that i can't fix 'cuz is not digital, I'm used to making mistakes in digital because i can fix them on the ongoing of the painting, but in traditional is so hard to fix a mistake when is painting or ink. The only thing you need to know that applies to any kind of style, traditional or digital, are the fundamentals, once you get coverage of all the fundamentals or at least the most important ones (funny thing is that every of those is important) you can paint in any style you want. There are people like me that our painting workflow is really messy and that's why doing it traditionally would be a painful workflow, but still with fundamentals you can do pretty much everything. Hope it helps! C: