High Society Pigeon Vector Illustration

With this illustration I wanted to try a different way of approaching my vector illustration. I usually use the 'live trace' function on adobe illustrator however this can effect how neat my lines are when they get converted, for example illustrator will create rough edges which never existed when detailing is too complex. What I have tried with this illustration is to use the line tool in Macromedia Flash to manually trace over the original sketch and then fill in details later. This took me a long time compared to using 'live trace' but I think the smoothness of the image looks a great deal better for it. I think depending on what my original sketch looks like will define what methods I should use but manually tracing has some very clear visual benefits.