The Little Book of Cartooning Illustration

I'm, at best, passable with a pencil, but I would like to get better. As such, I'm always on the look out for instructional material which can help me improve. Thanks to NetGalley I got to read The Little Book of Cartooning & Illustration which looked very interesting.

The Little Book of Cartooning & Illustration bills itself as a collection of tips and techniques for drawing characters and expressions in a traditional cartoon/animation style. It definitely looks stylistically traditional to me, a novice and know-nothing.

The book begins with a brief overview of physical tools and materials, and an even briefer aside about digital ones, before getting straight to business. As a beginner I would have liked a little more handholding, but after a very short intro to the basics of drawing a human head, a page with a template follows for your own attempt.

Assuming you now have assimilated the rules, the book delves into how to break them for conveying emotion, character or motion cartoonishly. Quickly moving through drawing heads, body parts, emotions, and bodies, and adding colour, part 1 ends with a series of full step-by-step character drawings.

Part 2 concerns itself with animals and inanimate objects, and driving home the point that in cartooning, less really can be more. Part 3 spends about 8 pages on two step-by-step walkthroughs illustrating scenes and gags, respectively. Part 4 consists entirely of two step-by-step caricatures, spending about 5 pages per character.

I'm so happy I got to read this book, but ultimately it isn't for me. I'm not interested in the style taught in this book, and I also found it a little intimidating as someone who isn't proficient enough with a pencil to be able to simply draw a character. I need more info on the basics of how to draw characters, not just how to change the style or expressions of them.