Painter, ZBrush or...??

I want to spice up my digital apps. selection and I've wanted Painter for a long time,
but now there are other programs out there.

Does anybody use Painter, Studio Artist or ZBrush ?
If so, how different are they ?
I know Studio Artist animate some and ZBrush is very 3D like,
but should you really get all of them, if you can afford it ?
Are there other good programs in that genre for the Mac ?

Painter with a digitising tablet is bloody amazing, but the interface offers so many options it'll take awhile to understand them all. The newest version (6.x) has been given a serious recoding so that there is absolutely zero delay when laying down complex brush strokes. The palettes have also been consolidated and exhibit much more user-friendly functionality compared to earlier versions. Still, the best way to work with Painter is to have a giant monitor at high resolution, or better yet, two monitors, with one set up strictly for holding the myriad palettes.

ZBrush is also pretty cool, though I've only tried the demo for a couple days.

I have a wacom and a dual monitor set up, so I guess I'm ready for Painter. I have the demo of ZBrush too and it looks very cool, unfortunately it seems to have problems with the two monitor set up. I probably won't get anything until I see what happens with these programs and Mac X

For my money, its painter, I also tryed ZBrush's demo, and it really looks nice, but I say stay with a trusted proggy that been around for a while.
upgrade after upgrade Painter gets better and better