Female lion design

Realistic style female lion design made for an animation. The design is old. I did it almost 2 years ago. I wanted to learn how to use illustrator a little more and cleaning my old good designs I never cleaned is a good way. Must admit it took me hours to do the clean, because Illustrator isn't that easy to use. It took me a while to figure out the basic. Well, it is my second time using Illustrator (My first one being a realistic GameBoy Color that I will be posting soon). It will definitively be useful in time. I still think that photoshop is much much more user friendly, even more for beginners. Photoshop was soo easy to use the first time and the pen tool was very convenient. Illustrator ask to often switch between the pen and the selection tool, slowing the manipulations a lot. I'm kind of clumsy with illustrator right now. Need a LOT of practice to get use to it and to get some speed. I think that for a while, I will switch between speed paintings practice and Illustrator.