Many of the 3D creatures you see on caedes are downloaded from 3rd party sites and then just rendered in something like Bryce or Povray. Generally the only 3d images you will see that are created from scratch are the one containing simple geometric shapes. If you are talking about non-3D drawings, something like photoshop will suffice, but you will probably need more than just a mouse and keyboard as your tools (such as a graphics tablet or something). I don't have any experience in this area, this is just what I've heard from other artists on the site (personally I can't do freehand work to save my life, either on paper or on a PC)
EXAMPLE: I want to create a sea serpent, how do I? How could I just create one on the computer, rather than draw an image then put it on the computer?