This is a list of software you can download for free to start sketching and developing your games:
It’s free for students, the license is for 3 years I think, you will find tutorials on the students site.
KRITA Free digital painting software (Open Source), my advice is that you will need a tablet (graphic) to work with it. It’s a bit difficult to understand at first, but once you grab an understanding of the principals and tools you good to go coming up with good designs.
Krita team also gives you the opportunity to support the development fixing issues with the software. It’s a good opportunity for software dev and programming students.
Autodesk Sketchbook Pro