What I found myself to work well (because I used to draw similar to this, more expressive though) is to study anatomy. You will be surprised by how far that gets you. First, start with the proportions of the human body. Learn how far away the ribcage is from the pelvis. Learn that the joint of our arms roughly starts where the ribcage ends. Stuff like that. Using a skeleton as a reference is of great help for this. If you have a general idea of how muscles work, you can attach them to the bones almost effortlessly.
One way to draw a character would be to sketch a simplistic version of the skeleton and then attaching the muscles (and fat) to it.
Clean up the sketch if you have to and there you have it. A character that doesn't look odd. And the good thing is, you can still change the proportions and level of detail to your needs for (sub)conscious stylistic choices (Cartoons, Chibi, etc).
:powerlevel: I've been doing that for about a month now and my imaginative character drawing skills skyrocketed.:powerlevel:
It's surprisingly easy to draw if you're willing to learn is what I'm trying to say. I hope I'm making sense.
