I finished up this vector drawing last night and it turned out a lot better than I had planned. This was only my second drawing using Affinity Designer and, after this one, I'm really quite comfortable with the basic workflow. It takes a little different thought process than Adobe Illustrator, but I'm thinking it might be superior given that it's only Designer's first version; compared to Illustrator's who knows what - 30th version, maybe?
The idea for this graphic actually came from my sister, 
Affinity Designer, as well as Affinity Photo, has personas that you use for different task. Designer has a Vector Persona, a Pixel Persona, and an Export Persona. They're pretty self explanatory, but the Pixel Persona brings this program to a whole new level compared to Illustrator. The ability to add pixel brush strokes in a mask inside you vector shape is absolutely amazing. I was able to add a bit of depth to all the feathers of this own very quickly and accurately using the pixel brush. This would have taken hours to do using vector shapes and gradient fills layered and masked over the original shapes. Instead it only took a few minutes to add all the depth I needed on the feathers and the trees.
Another great thing about this program is the ability to mirror and manipulate symbols together. Each shape around the eyes are symbols. I created one then mirrored it to the other side and didn't worry about the actual shape right away. Then, as I was building the face, I could tweak one side of the face and have it mirrored on the other side without worrying about it.
Anybody out there using Illustrator should really consider picking this program up. It's super cheap compared to Adobe's programs, just as powerful, and it's only a one time purchase. I've been watching a few teasers for the upcoming iPad version of Affinity Designer, too. I can't wait to pick that up as soon as it's available.
