Vector inks want!!!

I want to practice vector inking since I've seen some bad ass stuff with it on youtube.  Also it was how I originally did my inking so I wanna see if I can make it work more now.

I'm not happy with this test shot since my inks always look sloppy but I can't get Illustrator to taper to a fine point like I can with Sai.  Which is really frustrating on top of learning again how to make illustrator do what I want it to.