After one week of pen-tooling mazes, I never had any difficulties with the instrument again. If I could shout one thing from the rooftops to beginning illustrators, it would be to conquer mazes.

I started looking at the components it would take to rebuild—a circle for this, a modified rectangle for that. With the exception of some unique paths here or there, almost every part stemmed from the simple shapes we learn in kindergarten.
In fact, it actually turns out that most flat illustrations are either based upon these basic shapes (which Illustrator perfectly pre-sets), or an organic shape (for which the mazes serve as preparation).