



I recommend a generous diet of caricaturing for all cartoonists. It is a great way to break away from formulaic character designs and shapes because it forces you to take in new information that isn't already stored in the part of your brain that houses the stock animation shapes library.
These are what I would term "realistic caricatures". They aren't very cartoony because I am out of practice and I have never done these folks before. Usually what happens is that the more I study a person and the more I draw them, the simpler and more distinct they become.