Make TwentyTen into Magazine Theme

Hi
I’m wanting to make a magazine style site, eg a homepage with a series of thumbnails in 3 different columns that each go to a different page.

Would I be best to:
a) Create a theme from scratch
b) Create a child theme from TwentyTen
c) Create a child theme from another theme

If I was to create a child theme from TwentyTen, is there a way of stripping out the CSS so I can start with a ‘clean slate’. I’m pretty confident in CSS and HTML but not php.

Thanks