This book breaks down all the theories behind drawing each part of the body, talks about alternatives and the ultimate goal of drawing.
The book stresses an understanding of anatomy and sound structural drawing. Knowing how to draw your characters from the 'inside - out' as opposed to external line drawing is very important. The thought process involved is clearly written with lots of examples along the way.
The page above talks about the pelvic girdle and how important perspective is in getting your character to look as though they're actually standing on a solid surface.
Here, the shape of the head is explored and why you should think like a sculptor working in three dimensions as opposed to just working on a flat surface
This page talks about how each of the features on the face can be manipulated and placed on the same basic head shape to produce a number of different types of characters.
You can follow along with the book and just copy the characters in it or you can make up your own.
Designing Cartoon Characters Vol. 2 deals more with the creation of your own character designs through a series of graduated assignments.
This book, Vol. 1 deals mostly with the theories involved in the design of characters.