I really love Affinity Designer for coloring and texturing. Just great.
Where I still have problems is the pencil tool (or the brush tool) - I never use the pen for drawing shapes but do it "freehand" - and coming from Illustrator I miss the option "Edit selected Path". It is useful to "correct" your path, or parts of the path, while drawing (you do not have to edit every single anchor) ... It allows a more intuitive and fast shaping. I hope you know what I mean
and the path shoud close automatically when you come near to your starting point.