How to best draw the body of a bumble bee in vector?

[pragmaticleas]

I would like to draw a bumble bee in vector in affinity designer.

However, I am not sure how to approach drawing the colour stripes of the body. Should I draw each stripe with say 4 pen tool nodes, snap the nodes for the shared edges together and hope to tweak the curvatures along the body outline to make them align and look smooth? Or should I first create a body outline and then put the stripes inside it somehow with snapping and somehow tweak the stripes’ curvatures along the body outline?

I am inclined to use the first method, but is there a way to ensure I can get a perfectly smooth body outline curvature which is shared by several segments of different closed curves?

Please let me know if there are other methods to approach this sort of problem.

[DM1]

1 hour ago, pragmaticleas said:

Please let me know if there are other methods to approach this sort of problem.

1 hour ago, pragmaticleas said:

is there a way to ensure I can get a perfectly smooth body outline curvature which is shared by several segments of different closed curves?

One method is to clip the shapes to the body. This will clip any overhanging lines. Simple example below.

[pragmaticleas]

Thanks DM1!

That should work very well. Don’t know how I forget about using sublayers (probably means I need more practise and experience XD).