As an amateur doodler, I agree. I've done the "work through books of anatomy" thing, but at the end of it I still had deformed figures which mixed detailed, tex

As an amateur doodler, I agree. I've done the "work through books of anatomy" thing, but at the end of it I still had deformed figures which mixed detailed, textbook-correct anatomy with gross problems in proportioning and alignment - e.g. my upper torso would look okay by itself, but it would float a bit disconnected from the hips as soon as I tried to assume a more difficult pose. I had to use references for all poses to avoid this broken look. My breakthroughs in representation were in large part based on following cartooning material. After that I was able to develop specific construction techniques using primitive shapes in new ways(different shape configurations, mixtures of 2D and 3D conception, inversions that make one shape the framework of another, etc.) that gave the resulting figures a more balanced, focused look. Since then my style has developed primarily around cartooning since it lets me play so fluidly with ideas.